{"id":3266,"date":"2025-10-14T20:58:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T20:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/3266\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T20:58:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T20:58:11","slug":"suit-claims-florida-withheld-alligator-alcatraz-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/3266\/","title":{"rendered":"Suit claims Florida withheld ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ records"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 A new lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades<\/a> against the Florida Department of Emergency Management<\/a> is accusing the state agency of denying the existence of public records requested by the nonprofit, only to later admit they existed all along.<\/p>\n

Despite acknowledging their existence, FOTE attorneys say the state has still not produced the records.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

A new lawsuit filed by a Florida nonprofit concerning the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention facility in the Everglades is accusing the state of illegally withholding public records concerning the site
\n
Friends of the Everglades, Inc., is accusing the Florida Department of Emergency Management of withholding information specifically requested about a federal grant application for funding to cover costs at the detention facility\u00a0\u00a0
\nThe nonprofit claims the state only acknowledged the existence of the grant application after FEMA awarded the state $608 million<\/a>\u00a0
\n
The lawsuit is asking a judge to require the requested documents to be released within 48 hours<\/p>\n

According to the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in Circuit Court in Leon County, just five days after FDEM announced plans to open and operate the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention center in the Everglades on June 19, Friends of the Everglades, Inc., requested documents under Florida’s open records law concerning communication between the state and federal officials about the site.<\/p>\n

At the time, the lawsuit claims the state agency initially denied the existence of any communication records, before later making “an incomplete production.”<\/p>\n

On Sept. 11, the nonprofit’s attorneys sent a follow-up on its request, “to make clear that Plaintiff’s request specifically\u00a0sought ‘[a]ll documents pertaining to or constituting any application for funds or grants to FEMA, DHS or other federal agency from FDEM or another state agency for financial assistance in connection with building any immigration detention center in Florida including without limitation to the (‘Alligator Alcatraz’) detention center.”<\/p>\n

The lawsuit does not accuse the state agency of denying the existence of the communication records following the Sept. 11 request, but rather, claims the Florida Department of Emergency Management simply did not respond to it at all.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 21, a federal judge ruled that the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention site could not expand or take in additional detainees<\/a>, and gave the state 60 days to begin removal of fencing, lighting fixtures\u00a0 and “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles\u00a0that were installed to support this project.”<\/p>\n

An appeals court later blocked the lower court’s order<\/a>, noting several times in its ruling that the state had not applied for, or received federal funding for the project \u2014 which would have required the site to “comply with a host of regulatory prerequisites in support of that application” that would not otherwise be necessary.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit specifically points to a line in the appellate\u00a0court’s ruling that said: “Without an application, there is simply nothing on which a decision can be made.”<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst\u00a0to the court or the plaintiffs in the case, though, was the fact that Florida had in fact applied for a federal grant almost a month before the appeals court made its ruling. The Friends of the Everglades lawsuit cites a single-page email disclosed by FDEM on Oct. 10 that showed a FEMA grant application \u2014 titled “Fiscal Year 2025 Detention Support Grant Program” \u2014 had been filed by the state at 7:05 p.m. on Aug. 7.<\/p>\n

“More than a month later, FDEM has not corrected the Eleventh Circuit Court’s misimpressions,” the lawsuit filed Tuesday said. “What the federal District and Circuit Courts (and Plaintiff) were unaware of, because FDEM did not disclose the fact or produce the documents, is that FDEM had already applied for federal funding on August 7, 2025.”<\/p>\n

The Florida Department of Emergency Management’s release of the funding email comes a little more than a week after Florida announced that FEMA had awarded the state $608 million<\/a> to cover costs associated with “Alligator Alcatraz.”<\/p>\n

The Friends of the Everglades lawsuit claims that the Florida Department of Emergency Management “has not asserted that any documents requested by Plaintiff are exempt from disclosure under the Public Records Act.”<\/p>\n

The nonprofit’s lawsuit is asking the court to force the state to release all requested records within 48 hours, to find that the department violated the law by not releasing the requested documents, and award it attorney fees and any other appropriate relief.<\/p>\n

State officials did not immediately respond to the Friends of the Everglades court filing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 A new lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades against the Florida Department of Emergency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3140,274,28,30,29,2287,3900,115,139,99,232,135,278],"class_list":["post-3266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-local-politics","tag-mark-boxley","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-politics","tag-tallahassee","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}