Environmental groups are suing to block a plan to build an immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades. 

Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity on Friday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and Miami-Dade County to block the build-out of the immigration center. 

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Florida is building a detention center at an airfield in the Everglades to house at least 5,000 people picked up during immigration raids. Environmental groups argue that the facility is home to endangered species and that the project failed to undergo an environmental review or a public comment period. 

“The site is more than 96% wetlands, surrounded by Big Cypress National Preserve, and is habitat for the endangered Florida panther and other iconic species,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. “This scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect.”

“Friends of the Everglades was founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 1969 to stop harmful development at this very location. Fifty-six years later, the threat has returned — and it poses another existential threat to the Everglades,” Samples said. 

Earthjustice’s Scott Hiaasen and Paul Schwiep are representing Friends of the Everglades. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has moved forward to convert the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, located approximately two hours west of Miami, into a detention center.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier proposed the facility as the Trump administration has set a quota for ICE officers to arrest 3,000 illegal immigrants every day.

FLORIDA PROPOSES LARGE IMMIGRANT DETENTION CENTER IN THE EVERGLADES DUBBED ‘ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ’

Florida officials are planning to make the site operational by early July.

“If somebody were to get out, there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Uthmeier told Fox Business. “Only the alligators and pythons are waiting. That’s why I like to call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’”