The immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” was embroiled in controversy before it opened last summer. Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued to shut it down last year, citing potential pollution from runoff and irreparable damage to the region’s unique ecosystem.
But at the heart of the lawsuit are protections established many years earlier. In the 1960s, a proposal was made to build the world's largest jetport where "Alligator Alcatraz" sits today. Environmental advocate Marjory Stoneman Douglas founded Friends of the Everglades in 1969 to oppose it.
Conservationists won that battle, leaving a single runway at the airport as a lasting reminder. And now Friends of the Everglades, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe, are at the center of the fight to close the detention center.
Your Florida presents “Defending the Everglades. Again.” A documentary exploring the land's past and present.
