Just west of Miccosukee tribal lands, where the Tamiami Trail cuts through a stretch of the Everglades once saved from ruin, the land is once again under threat—and once again, people are rising to defend it. On June 22, hundreds returned to this storied stretch of Collier County to resist a new intrusion: a massive immigration detention center, 30 square miles wide, rising fast from federal approvals and broken promises. Another protest is planned at Tamiami Trail for June 28 at 10 a.m.
Beneath the sweltering South Florida sun, on the outskirts of canopies of ancient cypress trees and amid a cacophony of supportive car honking, hundreds of environmentalists, tribal elders, policymakers, and local residents gathered on Tamiami Trail’s unforgiving asphalt, across from the proposed site of what would be Florida’s largest immigration detention center. One person held up a sign reading, “No detention on stolen land.”
“We want to make sure that abolition is at the forefront of keeping everybody here who’s sharing the so-called land of Florida safe, and also that our sacred homelands are preserved,” Durante Blais-Billie, a Seminole organizer, told Prism. “[The government has] no legitimate authority to say that anyone’s illegal on stolen land.”…