Unspeakable pettiness

 

Disappeared in America

 

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.”

Somebody tell DOGE

 

Surely Trump's judges at the Supreme Court will save it.

Heading to the Supreme Court

A federal judge in Miami gave the state of Florida 60 days to clear out the immigrant detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz, handing environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians a win after they clashed with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over the environmental impacts the makeshift site was having in the federally protected Everglades.

  WaPo

Kind of like getting Al Capone on tax evasion charges. Whatever works.

The state filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit less than an hour after the judge issued her order.

Maybe won't have to go all the way to the top.

Her order expands the pause on new construction that was part of a temporary restraining order two weeks ago and directs the state and federal governments and contractors to begin dismantling the center, including fencing, lighting, generators and all waste receptacles “that were installed to support this project.”

[...]

In her ruling, Williams said an environmental assessment was required before the site was erected in the Everglades, but “the Defendants chose not to do so.”

Despite what DeSantis described as a facility that would have “zero” impact on the surrounding wetlands, Williams cited expert testimony and said the project will have “considerable environmental impacts” and should have been reviewed by relevant federal agencies. The project “creates irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area,” including the Florida panther, she wrote.

[...]

A July 29 “Preliminary Ecological Assessment” by a state contractor noted at least 10 endangered or threatened species in the area, including the Everglade snail kite, wood storks and the bonneted bat.

MAGA thinks endangered species protection is bullshit anyway.

A 10,499-foot runway is all that remains of a 1960s plan to build the world’s largest airport. Environmentalists, led by renowned Everglades conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, managed to thwart the project and get the federal government to protect nearly a million wetland acres. The organization Douglas created to fight the jetport, Friends of the Everglades, was among the groups that sued over Alligator Alcatraz.

The site has no electricity, so everything is powered by generators, including portable air conditioners. Drinking and bathing water has to be trucked in, and sewage, trash and wastewater trucked out.

[...]

Environmentalists presented photos and other evidence in court that showed the state paved over at least 20 adjacent acres of wetlands. Security lighting there turned a DarkSky International location — one of only two in the Southeast — into a brightly lit compound visible from 15 miles away.

[...]

The first tents and detention cages went up on June 23 after the state seized the property from Miami-Dade County under a two-year-old emergency order issued by DeSantis (R).

[...]

It would house up to 5,000 men and women awaiting deportation, according to the governor, though to date its greatest count has been about 1,000 people. U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D) visited Wednesday to try meeting relatives of constituents and said afterward that only 346 men were there.

A separate lawsuit over detainees’ legal rights, brought by the ACLU and other groups, was in part dismissed late Monday when U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz ruled some of their claims moot. He then moved the remainder of the case to a different jurisdiction.

[...]

Last week, DeSantis moved to convert an old prison in North Florida into a second immigrant detention site, which he named “Deportation Depot.” Some Democratic lawmakers said the announcement signaled that the state was worried about having to close down Alligator Alcatraz and find a place for the detainees there.

 

America has gone dark

 

Returning to the bad old days...

Poster child for drug-crazy terrorist.

Also, he took the 5th testifying in the Trump stolen documents case.

Storm warning

TPM has obtained and analyzed over a dozen contracts and invoices related to the construction and operation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention camp in the Everglades. The documents identify eight previously undisclosed companies — including two firms with a Fortune 500 pedigree — involved with the controversial facility. They also show that, in at least one instance, resources allocated for the state’s “disaster preparedness” apparatus were diverted to the site as DeSantis’ office used emergency powers to quickly establish the camp, causing a shortfall that needs to be addressed during the ongoing hurricane season.

  TPM

Especially since Kristi Noem runs DHS and has been touting the Texas flood disaster as an example of "efficient governance" since federal funds are cut and states must pick up the slack. Maybe DeSantis assumes Trump will give Florida special status to get the federal funds anyway when hurricanes wreck parts of the state.

UPDATE 08/08/2025:

Running concentration camps is expensive

 

Tangentially, it might be interesting to see a chart showing proposed costs to government programs versus actual costs.

UPDATE 08/08/2025:

Slaves

 

So, the "illegals" they were previously paying will now work for free?  Or do the farmers have to pay the government for the use of them?

UPDATE 08/08/2025:

The law is what MAGA says it is

 

It worked in New Jersey.  The law now is simply whatever MAGA and their goons declare it to be.

UPDATE 01:41 pm:

The letters, which became public on Thursday via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, portrayed Mr. Trump as having nullified the legal effects of a statute that Congress passed by large bipartisan majorities in 2024 and that the Supreme Court unanimously upheld.

[...]

“There are other things that are more important than TikTok in today’s world, but for pure refusal to enforce the law as Article II requires, it’s just breathtaking,” said Alan Z. Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor who has written about the nonenforcement of the TikTok ban, referring to the part of the Constitution that says presidents must take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

The executive branch has the power, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, to choose not to enforce laws in particular instances or to set priorities about what categories of lawbreaking they will prioritize when resources are limited.

[...]

In her letters, Ms. Bondi went far beyond that. Because of Mr. Trump’s order, she said, tech firms that acted contrary to the statute were breaking no law, even in theory, and the department was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them — including under future administrations.

[...]

“Recent past presidents have been aggressive in exercising law enforcement discretion, but they haven’t suspended the operation of a law entirely or immunized its violation prospectively.”

[...]

Last year, Congress enacted a law that banned the app in the United States unless its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, sold it to a non-Chinese firm. Supporters of the law cited concerns that the Chinese government could amass sensitive user data about Americans or use the TikTok algorithm to manipulate public opinion.

The law says that companies that violate it can face civil fines up to $5,000 per user. A third of Americans say they have used TikTok, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law in January, and TikTok briefly disappeared from app stores for American users of Apple iPhones or smartphones using the Android operating system, which is run by Google.

[...]

Shortly after being sworn in, Mr. Trump issued an executive order directing the Justice Department to suspend enforcement of the TikTok ban and has since repeatedly extended it.

  NYT

 UPDATE 07/05/2025:

UPDATE 08/08/2025:

Welcome to your dystopian future

American gulag archipelago.

UPDATE 02:48 pm:

Fact check:  He is not.

UPDATE 08/06/2025:

UPDATE 08/08/2025:

Alligator Alcatraz - Part 2

Remember laughing about this back in Trump 1.0?

At the time, Trump tweeted that this was fake news.

UPDATE 07/02/2025:

UPDATE 08/06/2025:

UPDATE 08/08/2025:

The cruelty is the point

 Trump's America.  Trump's Gestapo.

UPDATE 08/08/2025: