An immigration detention center built in the Florida Everglades threatens protected lands and wildlife, and violated federal laws when the government failed to study potential harms before construction, environmentalists argued in federal court in Miami on Wednesday.
Witnesses testified that they worried that the detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” would pollute environmentally sensitive wetlands, hurt endangered species and undo decades of Everglades restoration.
“We are very concerned about potential impacts of runoff,” said Eve Samples, the executive director of Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit group and one of the plaintiffs.
The suit is one of two federal cases filed against the remote detention center, which Florida erected last month to house federal immigration detainees. The environmental suit argues that the federal and state governments failed to conduct a review process required by the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which would have allowed for some public input before any construction.
Environmentalists are seeking a preliminary injunction to stop operations and any additional construction while their lawsuit moves forward.
State officials have tried to portray the environmental impact as minimal. They have said the detention center was necessary to assist the Trump administration with illegal immigration enforcement, because federal authorities did not have enough capacity in existing facilities to hold detainees. Florida has taken an especially aggressive stance in assisting with the illegal immigration crackdown, and is considering erecting a second detention center in North Florida.
In legal filings, Florida has also suggested that the detention center is not subject to federal environmental regulations because it is state-run.
But what was perhaps most striking during the daylong hearing was how many significant questions remained unanswered about the Everglades detention center, more than a month after the first detainees began to arrive there.
Among those questions was the relationship of authority between the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is in charge of the detention center, and the Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of immigration detainees.
The judge presiding over the environmental case, Kathleen M. Williams of the Federal District Court in Miami, asked the state and federal defendants last week to provide any legal agreement related to the detention center’s operations. No such document was provided during Wednesday’s hearing or in the days leading up to it.
One of the witnesses for the environmental groups, State Representative Anna V. Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, testified on Wednesday that she had requested a copy of any agreement between the state and federal government but had not been provided with one.
Agreements known as 287(g) typically authorize state or municipal authorities to help with immigration enforcement. State officials have also not responded to repeated requests from The New York Times requesting such an agreement, if one exists.
The judge presiding over the second federal case, which relates to immigration lawyers’ access to their clients inside the detention center, has ordered the state and federal governments to clarify their relationships to the facility by Thursday.
“We need to get to the bottom of the interplay between the federal and state authorities on who’s running this thing,” Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II of the Federal District Court in Miami said last week.
The Everglades detention center has come under much criticism since state and federal officials announced in June that Florida would become the first state to erect such a facility for immigration detainees. In addition to environmental and legal concerns, detainees, their relatives and their lawyers have denounced troubling conditions, many related to the center’s unusual location.
State officials built the detention center on an old airfield with little existing infrastructure. Most services — potable water, sewage, electricity — have to be trucked in or out, or provided by temporary facilities, such as power generators. Detainees have complained about flooding, mosquitoes, lack of showers and floodlights around the clock.
In recent weeks, several relatives have said that some detainees have resorted to going on a hunger strike in protest. A spokeswoman for the Division of Emergency Management did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
During Wednesday’s hearing in the environmental case, lawyers for Homeland Security tried to distance federal authorities’ involvement in selecting the Everglades site.
Dr. Eskamani testified that Kevin Guthrie, the executive director of the Division of Emergency Management, told elected officials last month that the state had received an email from Homeland Security requesting the construction of the facility. A lawyer for Homeland Security suggested in court that federal authorities might have asked for “a” facility, without saying where it should be. Judge Williams interjected that she knew how the government could clear things up: “Get the email for all of us.”
Ms. Samples, of Friends of the Everglades, testified that the detention center was initially envisioned as a large and busy jetport in 1969. Opposition to the project led the famed environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas to found Friends of the Everglades that same year — and led to the strengthening of environmental laws.
Only one runway was built for the jetport before activists successfully shut it down. That runway now serves the detention center.
“Victories are sometimes imperfect,” Ms. Samples said.