Florida prepares to build a second immigration detention center

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ' administration is apparently preparing to build a second immigration detention center, awarding at least one contract for what’s labeled in state records as the “North Detention Facility.”

The site would add to the capacity at the state's first detention facility, built at an isolated airfield in the Florida Everglades and dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz." Already, state officials have inked more than $245 million in contracts for that facility, which officially opened July 1.

Florida plans to build a second detention center at a Florida National Guard training center called Camp Blanding, about 27 miles southwest of downtown Jacksonville, though DeSantis has said the state is waiting for federal officials to ramp up deportations from the South Florida facility before building out the Camp Blanding site.

“We look forward to the increased cadence,” of deportations, DeSantis said last month, calling the state “ready, willing and able” to expand its operations.

Civil rights advocates and environmental groups have filed lawsuits against the Everglades facility, where detainees allege they've been forced to go without adequate food and medical care, and been barred from meeting with their attorneys, held without any charges and unable to get a federal immigration court to hear their cases.

President Donald Trump has touted the facility’s harshness and remoteness as fit for the “worst of the worst," while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said the South Florida detention center can serve as a model for other state-run holding facilities for immigrants.

Plans for the ‘North Detention Facility’

The Florida Division of Emergency Management, the state agency that built the Everglades facility, has awarded a $39,000 contract for a portable emergency response weather station and two lightning sirens for what's been dubbed the “North Detention Facility," according to records in the state’s public contract database. The equipment will help enable “real-time weather monitoring and safety alerting for staff."

The contract comes as the state approaches the peak of hurricane season, and as heavy rains and extreme heat have pounded parts of Florida. Immigrant advocates and environmentalists have raised a host of concerns about the Everglades facility, a remote compound of heavy-duty tents and trailers that state workers and contractors assembled in a matter of days.

Last week, FDEM released a heavily redacted draft emergency evacuation plan for what the document called the “South Florida Detention Facility.” Entire sections related to detainee transportation, evacuation and relocation procedures were blacked out, under a Florida law that allows state agencies to make their emergency plans confidential. Despite multiple public records requests by The Associated Press, the department has not produced other evacuation plans, environmental impact studies or agency analyses for the facility.

Questioned by reporters on July 25, FDEM executive director Kevin Guthrie defended the emergency response agency's plans for the makeshift facility, which he says is built to withstand a Category 2 hurricane, which packs winds of up to 110 mph.

“I promise you that the hurricane guys have got the hurricane stuff covered,” Guthrie said.

___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.