Shutting down the Florida concentration camp

 

I got the impression the court so ruled because of probable damage to the environment, not necessarily because of the heinous conditions for inmates. Apparently, both ideas are in play.

It’s also facing several legal challenges, including one that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled on late Wednesday. She denied requests to pause her order to wind down operations, after agreeing last week with environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe that the state and federal defendants didn’t follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands.

[...]

Homeland Security attorneys said in a court filing this week that federal environmental law doesn’t apply to a state like Florida.

  AP

Say what?

Almost two dozen Republican-led states also urged the appellate court to overturn the order. The 22 states argued in another court filing that the judge overstepped her authority and that the federal environmental laws only applied to the federal agencies, not the state of Florida.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida.

Civil rights groups filed a second lawsuit last month against the state and federal governments over practices at the Everglades facility, claiming detainees were denied access to the legal system.

A third lawsuit by civil rights groups last Friday described “severe problems” at the facility which were “previously unheard-of in the immigration system.”