Debate on the detention center “ Alligator Alcatraz ” One for members of the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes

The constant rumble of skip trucks to dump to overtake the chirping formerly familiar with birds in the family home of Mae’anna Osceola-Hart in the Everglades National Park.

“It is a truck noise all night,” explains the 21 -year -old photographer who describes himself as miccosukee and Gentle Seminole, two Florida tribes at the heart of the debate on the detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz”.

The houses of Miccosukee and Seminole, as well as their ceremonial sites, surround the detention center on three sides.

The great-grandfather of Osceola-Hart, Wild, Bill Osceola, fought the development of an airport on the same site where the construction of the ice installation is in progress.

In 1968, the Dade county authorities, now known as Miami-Dade county, began to build the Big Cypress Jetport on Earth The miccosukees used for ceremonial practices. The Port Authority of Dade County described the project as “largest airport in the world”, with six tracks designed to manage large jets, and civil servants were mentioned as calling for environmental and tribal leaders who have opposed it “Chasers butterflies.”

The airport became a flash point for the resistance, but in 1969, a coalition including the great-grandfather of Osceola-Hart, other members of the tribe and environmentalists persuaded the governor of Florida Claude R. Kirk Jr. that the airport would damage the Everglades. He ordered the construction to be stopped. A track, about 10,000 feet in length, was left as training ground for pilots.

Osceola-Hart is proud of the efforts of her great-grandfather to stop the development of the 1960s, but it is disappointed that miccosukees lose land that they considered sacred. “We were expelled from ceremonial land,” she says.

Finding a safe place where living was a battle underway for the tribes in Florida. Seminoles withdrew into the Everglades after the end of the wars of Seminole in 1858.

The miccosukees found refuge in the Everglades after development in Miami and Fort Lauderdale pushed them out of their colonies. Now, many members of the tribes live on the large cypress reserve or in wooden house camps along the Tamiami Trail (US Highway 41), a road that contrasts the Everglades to the west and disturbs the natural flow of Lake Okeechobee water in the park.

The construction of this road ended in 1928, changing spectacular life in the Everglades. Tourists were able to access remote areas of the lush national park. The tribes have developed tourist attractions, such as casinos, chickee huts and plane visits through mangroves. Indigenous species have decreased.

The leaders of the two tribes are constantly pleading for the preservation of the fauna and vegetation of the national park, but they have no authority on the way the earth is used.

“It’s a long heavy battle,” said William “Popeye” Osceola, secretary of the Miccosukee tribe, describing how tribes are constantly fighting for the country on which they have lived for over a century. Before becoming secretary of the tribe (an elected post), William was art teacher at the Indian school Miccosukee, transmitting the traditions of the tribe to his students.

“It is a place where we come for healing, where we come to pray,” explains Betty Osceola, an eminent member of the Miccosukee tribe who is part of the Everglades Advisory Council. His chickee village is at a distance from the detention site.

The detention center is on the Miami-Dade County field, but Governor Ron Desantis seized it under an emergency order, which does not require the approval of the Comté commission. The mayor of Miami-Dade, Daniella Levine Cava, cited several concerns concerning immigrant prison in a letter sent to Tallahassee.

Desantis previously declared that the center “helps to carry out the mission of President Trump” and that he will have “a zero impact” In the surrounding Everglades region.

William Osceola tells young members of his tribe to stay engaged to protect their rights. “Some of these fights, they come in different forms, but it’s always the same fight.” He said.

Osceola-HART agrees. “It’s story is repeated,” she says.