The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Presidential Library, Hotel & Casino?

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

The free state of Florida has given land owned by Miami-Dade College to the President of the United States for free to build a presidential library...as well as a hotel and casino. Dr. Marvin Dunn joins Billy Corben to talk about how this shady deal should be opposed. Billy tells the story of Miami Beach commission candidate Monique Pardo-Pope and her father, corrupt cop and neo-nazi Manuel Pardo. And Deborah Acosta of the Wall Street Journal tells us the story of the migrant exodus of Doral. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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so you can feel a little fear What's this? Or a little more fear I see dad be more Or a lot of fear Mom Or you can get completely terrified Who's that

Choose wisely Halloween on Disney Plus. No Trump Library. Demonstrators gathered Monday afternoon in protest of a proposed Donald J. Trump presidential library, on land that was just handed over to the state by Miami-Dade College. The move that handed over this two and a half acre employee parking lot to the state of Florida happened quickly. The state notified MDC that it wanted the land September 16th.

Exactly seven days later, the board voted to hand over the land without any of parent debate, questioning, or public input. The agenda only listed a vote to, quote, convey property to the state, but did not say which property. The meeting was not broadcast, live streamed, or even recorded, and no official minutes have been provided yet. He prompted retired FIU professor and historian Marvin Dunn to organize this protest. My concern is that this land is being taken away from our children and their future being given to a politician. No president, including Obama, should get this land. much less for free. So it outrages me that this happened in secret.

Dun said this land was meant to expand the college and help educate future generations of students. It's right next to a building where tens of thousands of Cuban freedom seekers pass through. It's always a land hustle. And you're trying to figure out what's going on. It's always a real estate hustle. It's always a land grab. That's always what's going on in Miami when push comes to shove. The former president of Miami-Dade College, which is one of the largest was community college, one of the largest colleges by student body size in the country. The former president, Eduardo Padron, a very well-respected man in this community for a long time, said that this is unimaginable what happened here. He helped purchase this property. He helped purchase

this property in 2004 for $24.8 million. That was 20 years ago. Why? Because, as he said, we're facing a huge problem in downtown. We're landlocked, basically. So downtown is hot, and that was 20 years ago. It's even hotter now. And there's no land left available.

So they made a lot of sacrifices at the college to purchase this land to secure the future growth of this institution for its students, its faculty, for our community to have this college available, an affordable college available here. According to the Miami Day tax appraiser, Roy, it is now worth $67 million. But that's just according to the appraiser, because as we know on the free market, everything is worth as much money as somebody is willing to pay for it. And the word on the street is, Roy, it's worth at least $300 million. And some estimate as high as in this market. Now you get as much as $360 million for it.

This land is directly across the street from us. Shares a lot with the Freedom Tower. It's serving now as the parking lot for the Freedom Tower. It's a 2.63-acre lot, and it is going to be the site for free. This makes Mel Reese and the Marlins Park Boundoggle look like a good deal because at least they paid something. This is for free, a $360-plus million dollar. land giveaway for not just the presidential library, but what will be the first ever hotel and

presidential library. I got to look at this coming to work every day. And I've no doubt, Roy, that by the time all is said and done, back to the future, alternate 1985 Hill Valley style, the sofas who built Aventura and the Fountain Blue couldn't make it happen. Genting, the Malaysian casino company couldn't make it happen. I bet Donald Trump is able to strong arm the Florida legislature into allowing downtown Miami's Trump, Hotel, Casino and also maybe there's a book

in there somewhere, library. A book? A little asterisk or something there. Don't they abandon those? Dr. Marvin Dunn, who led the protest this week and maybe taking some other steps after the Ron DeSantis and his cabinet voted unanimously this week to give away this land

after the Board of Trustees at Miami-Dade College secretly and quietly unanimously voted to give away this land. It was, that's the thing too. There was no input. There was no public notification. Dr. Dunn is the author of one of my Miami must read books that I tell everybody if you're coming here. You've got to put this on your list. Black Miami in the 20th century. Dr. Dunn, what a great economic boom it would be to have a hotel, a Trump hotel and casino right here in downtown Miami. No? Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. But keep your eye on the ball. This has nothing to do with the library. This is not a about a presidential library. This is about a land grab to get land to build a hotel condominiums that would contain the Trump Library. It is an incredible land grab, possibly the biggest land grab in Miami history. And we simply will not stand for it. As we speak, I am consulting with attorneys. We will file a class action lawsuit to stop this from happening. In fact, I'm hoping

that we will be import, at least our filing, will be import back tomorrow. So what is your concern? I mean, obviously, the idea that this is a land grab masquerading as a presidential library. But beyond that, your concern is, I think, twofold here, right? There's the educational value of the property. And then there's the location, specifically of the property. My main concern, frankly, is that they're taking this land away from our kids. This land belongs to our kids in that future. So that really insults and hurts me. They're doing that, and then giving it to a politician for free.

I don't think Obama should be given this land. No president should be given this land in a way, obviously for free, and that hurts our kids. That's my main concern. Second, they're going to put, not just this library and hotel, but they're going to build condominiums. The expectation is that they can put towers there that can go up 100 stories on this game day. that's what they're doing they're putting in condominiums hotel that may rise as high as 100 stories

on land that they're taking some of our kids and to be clear this would be the first in the history of united states presidential libraries is that correct to have a condo hotel retail restaurant component that's right for a man who has not cracked a book since fifth grade except mine comes i'm sorry dr dunn what evidence do you have that he read a book in fifth grade. Oh, stop. You're worse than I. So, Dr. Dunn, also, as noted in that CBS report that we were playing earlier, this is directly

next door. I mean, it shares a lot with what is known as the Freedom Tower, sometimes called the Ellis Island of the South, where Cuban immigrants brought to Miami early on in the Exodus, slept on concrete floors and were processed and welcomed into this country, land of milk and honey, an opportunity to fulfill their American dream, and in fact did by making Miami-Dade County a minority-majority community. And I wonder the symbolism of that in light of this administration's action with respect to our immigrant population.

You know, we must respect that freedom child as important to the issue of this community and particularly to our Cuban-American citizens. That building is symbolic, is important. We must protect it from now on. But to erect a structure next to it that memorializes the president who has been the most suppressive of freedom in history of this country. Next to that building, that's an area that escapes me. Donald Trump has no business having a building next to the Freedom Tower supposedly representing his stance on freedom. The man has been the most repressive, in American history, that building should not be erected next to the Freedom Child.

Why do you suppose that all this happened very quickly? I mean, in a matter of 10 days. Yeah, I think all in 10 days, from the time the state contacted the board of trustees, the board of trustees votes, kicks it back to DeSantis and his cabinet. Why do you suppose this all happened as quickly and quietly as it did? Because it's a dirty deal, because it's a shady deal that they should not even be doing. that's why they've been trying to hide it. The fact that now this has come to light,

I think it's a surprise to them. This was not supposed to happen. Secret deal, I'm supposed to go through, and we were not supposed to be noticing. There was no discussion before the meeting. Otherwise, that would have been illegal. The record says there was no discussion during the meeting, and then the vote is unanimous.

And then the state steps in an hour or two later says, okay, it's going to Trump. So how does that happen without discussion? Something in the milk can clean, like Reverend used to say. done dash history dot com doctor you do these teach the truth tours

before we go tell us a little bit about what that is I know last time you're on the show we were talking about you know book bands and revisionist history all the good thing

the upside of slavery all that crazy shit that was happening and it still is happening in the state of Florida tell us about the teach the truth tours well very unfortunately

my mind is set up for racial justice received a glance for $1.5 million from the Mellon Foundation, over three years to take people, mainly college students, to places in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, where lynchings took place, but the worst racial violence took place so that people could walk the ground where the blood was shed and be transformed in our understanding of our racial history and racial violence.

That's what we do, all expenses paid by the center. We've done about a dozen of these tours, and they have been transformational for the people of God. but isn't that just so depressing as the president would say isn't that just all the negative stuff really you should see the white kids and the black kids embracing crying talking to each other in the aftermath of these visits to graze where people were lynched there's none of that pointing the finger there's no blaming white people we're doing this to understand our history and come together there's no guilt blame anger it's understanding and compassion and coming together to understand our history.

Dunn-dashhistory.com. Marvin Dunn. If you want to understand Miami today, you have to read his book, Black Miami, in the 20th century. Marvin Dunn, thanks so much for joining us again. Thank you for having. Enjoy being with you.

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Monique Pardo Pope is running for Miami Beach City Commission We have public order laws that have to be enforced She introduced herself to voters by saying I come from a Cuban family that believed in deep sacrifice service of others and standing up for what's right But what she didn't tell voters is, her father, who she honors as my hero, my guardian angel, my guiding light in the sky, was Miami's notorious neo-Nazi serial killer Manuel Pardo, a coke-dealing corrupt cop sentenced to die in Florida's electric chair nine times.

On May 7, 1986, 46, 43 cops, including a SWAT team and the bomb squad, raided Monique Pardo Pope's family apartment to arrest her father Manuel Pardo, who slaughtered six men and three. three women in three months, beating and shooting them in cold blood. His motive, greed. The individual allegedly wanted a larger piece of the pie, so to speak. The men were drug dealers, and Pardo was ripping them off, stealing their cash, credit cards, and cocaine. Police say evidence linking Pardo to the execution style slings was found in Pardo's home. In the Pardo family's Lago Grande Hiale apartment, cops found Polaroid pictures of his

murder victims, a diary where he meticulously recorded the killings, names, dates, how many kilos he stole. Also, there was a Nazi flag hanging on the wall, 500 books about Hitler, three rifles engraved with swastikas, and the family's Doberman Pinscher that Monique's mass murdering dad had tattooed with a swastika on his leg. Mano Pardo was a Marine Corps veteran who began his law enforcement career with the Florida Highway Patrol. He was fired in 1979 for falsifying 100 traffic tickets, then hired by the Sweetwater Police Department. In January, January 1981, Pardo was charged in a series of police brutality cases, but those charges were eventually dropped. He was fired for lying and falsifying police records to cover up for a fellow

coke-dealing sweetwater cop caught with 242 kilos. Then he became a serial killer. And despite being arrested for nine murders, Pardo bragged to a fellow inmate that cops missed three more bodies in homestead. At trial, Pardo used the so-called Charles Bronson defense, claiming he was a vigilante, ridding the world of scum. These, to me, were not human beings. They're parasites and their leeches, and they have no right to be alive. Manuel murdered one of the men, inside a Honda, belonging to his wife, Monique Pardo Pope's mother, which was then cleaned and re-apulstered.

Pardo murdered Sarah Musa because she was a lesbian, throwing her on the floor and emptying his gun into her. She was shot 10 times with defensive gunshot wounds on her hands. When I see my daughter, Guy and chop, and no have a tea. Pardo shot Daisy Ricard five times, but she survived. So he bludgeoned her with a bat and ran over her with a car, crushing her brain and tearing off her right ear. Pardo was proud of being a mass murderer.

He enjoyed the killings. He even described them to people so graphically, they said it sounded almost sexual. That was not wrong to kill these people. Somebody had to do to kill these people. Pardo told the jury that Hitler was a great man and agreed with him that Jews, blacks, and homosexuals were inferior. That sort of turned off the Jews and the blacks on the jury. He said his only regret about murdering nine people was that he didn't murder 99 people.

The only regret that I have is that instead of nine, I wish I could have been up here for 99. Manuel confessed to the murders. His lawyer and mother said he was insane. How many people do you know that think like that? That's abnormal. But over his attorney's strong objections, Manuel Pardo spoke directly to the jury. Ladies and gentlemen, the jury, I like you all to disregard. the statement issue heard from my parents.

I am a soldier, and as a soldier, I ask to be given the death penalty. The jury sentenced him to death nine times. And now this one man, judge, jury, and executioner is headed for death row. On December 11th, 2012, after the electric chair was outlawed,

Pardo died by lethal injection, when then Florida Governor Rick Scott signed his death warrant. His last meal was Leshaunasado, rice and beans, plantains, and Cuban coffee. Pardo's last words were, I am ready to ride the midnight train to Georgia, airborne forever. I love you, Mishi Baby, referring to his daughter, Monique Pardo Pope.

He told the court he committed these heinous murders to make his daughter proud. I understand my motive, what I did, because I want my daughter to be proud of my father. And she is. Monique has never repudiated her father or his crimes. She's embraced him and celebrates him. My eternal best friend, there's no one better suited to have been my daddy, and I will forever be proud to have been your little girl. And in post commemorating his birthday and Father's Day, Monique Pardo Pope wrote, hashtag midnight train to Georgia and airborne forever, quoting her

neo-Nazi serial killer father's last words on death row. I think I sent a significant message to the community. And I hope there's other people out there that follow my steps. When I first broke this story on social media last week, I emailed Monique Pardo Pope, inviting her to join me today on the podcast to share her compelling story about her complicated family history, her relationship with her father, her public comments about him as an adult, overcoming adversity to become the lawyer and the person and the candidate that she is today. I thought it would do the voters of Miami Beach a lot of good to hear it directly from her. Instead of replying to my invitation, Pardo Pope doubled down on dishonesty and

attacked the messenger in a failed effort to silence my accurate reporting about her family. She released a statement where she starts off by saying, I have not hidden who I am, but she's definitely been less than truthful with voters about her background. She's been campaigning for a powerful public position overseeing a billion dollar budget and taxpayer money, citing her family background. In her statement, she goes on to accuse me of smears, attacks, and bullying. But the truth is not a smear or an attack. Again, facts don't bully. I stand by my story and note that nowhere in her statement does Pardo Pope challenge the substance of my reporting

and she's still being untruthful about who her father really is. She writes, The courts found my father to be mentally ill due to health problems. The exact opposite is true. The facts are Pardo's defense attorneys repeatedly argued he was insane but three court-appointed mental health experts testified he was legally sane and the insanity defense was rejected by the jury

who called it a made-up defense and rejected by every single appellate court all the way to the Florida Supreme Court. And then she went too far, inventing a defamatory lie about me. Pardo Pope told the New Times, Billy Corbyn has made a career of slinging mud, which has even resulted in losing a defamation case. That is a total lie. There is no such case. She just made it up. The only defamation case I've ever been involved in resulted in a $412,000 award to my side. We can disagree and have good faith debates with facts, but we cannot deliberately invent and spread malicious lies. Because of her defamatory lie, I was forced to send this cease and desist letter. As an officer of the court who attended an excellent law school, Pardo Pope should know better.

I hope she understands now and will consider publicly apologizing, correcting her misinformation, and joining me here on the Because Miami podcast to share an open and honest dialogue with her voters who have a right to know the truth so they can make an informed decision when they vote this November. This show is sponsored by Liquid Ivy and man, let me tell you something. Transitioning from the lazy vibes is summer to the fall grind, it's brutal. The energy dips, the focus slips, you know the deal. That's why I'm all over, Liquid IV's new energy multiplies sugar-free hydrating energy. On sticking 16 ounces of water hydrate you better than water alone, with three times the electrolytes of a sports drink, eight essential vitamins, and no sugar, no jitters, or crash, just smooth, balanced energy.

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win to receive reward. Minimum minus 500 odds required. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Four additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio. I was going to say that you was back, baby, but we lost the bye week. Somehow we dropped from two to three. That's what happens when

Oregon beats Penn State. Apparently they jump the hurricanes. Robbed. It's okay. The canes are still the number three ranked team in the country. The Miami Dolphins and the power rankings are what, 29 out of 32, right? Yeah. And only because they beat somebody that was below them with the jets, yeah. It's okay. Miami is still number one in a lot of things. For example, so according to a new global survey, Miamians are paying more per meal to eat out than anywhere else in the country. This study ranked more than 175 cities worldwide, based on the average cost of dining out, the price of coffee, and beer against local wages earned.

Miami landed 72nd overall, worse than any other U.S. city. A mid-range, three-course meal costs about 60 bucks a person. 60 bucks per person might not sound like huge, but... $60 per person doesn't sound huge? Well, what I'm saying is, is that, like, if you're going to indulge or go out every once in a while and treat yourself or your family, but a single meal eats up 1.4% of earnings when measured against Miami's average monthly salary, which is only $4,230. So this is part of the study is, like, compared to earnings. So everything is too damn expensive, but also nobody's making any money is the other problem. But don't worry, we're number one in other things, too, Roy.

For example, Miami has topped UBS's list of global cities at risk of a real estate bubble. We did it. We did it, guys. So this is really exciting. UBS, Major Duty International Bank, says that Miami is, for the second year in a row, ranked number one for a potential real estate crash. out of all the cities in the world. This is a worldwide, not just like the AFC East, right, okay? It's a power ranking.

It's just a Buffalo. No, yeah, it's just only Buffalo or the Jets. This is, we're talking about every city in the world. And why is that, do you suppose, that we're primed for a crash? Well, the United Way has put out its latest Alice report. The Alice Report is a really interesting and depressing thing. It's an acronym for asset limited income. constrained, employed.

That means people who have jobs, sometimes multiple jobs, and how they are struggling to just survive. For example, you can see on the screen now, 54% of Miami-Dade County households are below the Alice threshold, which means that they are basically, we're basically living paycheck to paycheck. And this is versus the 2023 Alice report, which had it at 51. So it is trending in the wrong direction. And what does that mean?

That means that people are, again, it's kind of compared to wages. So in Miami, Dade County, the current median household income, and this is countywide, is $72,311. The current household survival budget is $89,844. dollars. So we're all over 12 grand underwater just to survive in Miami-Dade County. And when you look across the municipalities of Miami-Dade, obviously different municipalities are suffering more than others. The worst off is North Miami at 68%, which is Alice and the poverty below the poverty line, 66% in Hyaliyah, 62% in Homestead, 71% I'm sorry, in Leisure City, that tops it. And 56% are either below the poverty line or struggling to make ends meet in the city of Miami.

And yet we're just given away $300 million lots of property. Another major problem here with the imminent what the experts think might be an imminent real estate collapse and bust is this. This Venezuelan business owner said the political instability has led to a 20% drop in revenue. It's affected to your clients as well as the people who work here. Here in Florida, Trump won almost 70% of the Cuban-American vote in 2024, along with 61% of Dural, home to the largest Venezuelan-American population in the U.S. Adelis Ferro is the co-founder and executive director of the Venezuelan American caucus. How is the Venezuelan community feeling right now, especially in the context of these deportations?

Desperate, terrified. There are people with mental health issues. There are people with panic attacks, anxiety attacks. They rather to die than go back to Venezuela and then have to stop. People are talking about taking their lives. I have those messages. The ripple effects affecting families and businesses. A lot of people have already invested in businesses here and they've stopped.

A lot of people have already invested in businesses here and they've stopped. and they've stopped because they just don't know what the future brings. Still, experts say the current turmoil may not hurt the Republican Party. The city of Dural, home to the Trump National Dural, where the G20 summit will be held, is known as Duralzuela, because it probably is the largest and most vibrant Venezuelan community outside of Venezuela itself. And it has been growing by leaps and bounds with working class Venezuelans, wealthy Venezuelans predominantly. And now this incredible report this week from the Wall Street

Journal says that this once vibrant housing scene has been hit by an exodus of migrants. Deborah Acosta is the journalist working on that. She is out of Miami and she is joining us now. Deborah, what is the data on this showing? And we'll talk about why people are fleeing in a moment, but what are the numbers actually indicating? Yeah. So this really, estate data often lags, but we're looking at vacancy rates at apartment buildings across Dural. And in some cases, we're seeing apartments that have a more than 10% vacancy rate. And according to the leasing agents in those buildings, this vacancy uptick is due to the fact that many of these Venezuelans are fleeing the area. Your report says is that vacancy rates

for apartments in municipalities surrounding Dural are at about 4.3%. But in Dural, in Doreal, from late last year where it was at 5.6 percent, it's now up to 6.5 percent. And you're saying that's still lagging. That report we just saw earlier was from this past July where business owners in Dural were already taking hits of upwards of 20 percent in sales and revenue. So you're saying it's probably even worse right now? In certain buildings it is. Yeah, absolutely. Some of the newer construction buildings where a lot of these new migrants were living, those are seeing a big hit. And, you know, there was a moment in time this year where these individuals really believed and the Trump administration was making it clear that they would have to leave

by September. An appeals court in California has been able to extend that to October of next year, but that just occurred a few days ago. And so now these individuals have a little bit of breathing room for the rest of next year. But basically after October of next year, a lot of these individuals are going to have to figure out something else for themselves because we're not seeing any pathways for them to be able to stay in the country past that date. Yeah, it seems extremely unlikely that the Trump administration will extend any kind of leniency or TPS-like, you know, temporary protective status of any kind. You're on the ground in Dural. There's also confusion, right? People are erring on the side of caution to not get, I don't know, caught up and

sent to Alligator Alcatraz or some ICE prison somewhere, right? So it's not even just the deadline as much as it is like people just don't know what's going on. They maybe can't afford an immigration attorney to, and even the immigration attorneys don't really know what's going on. It is absolutely nuts. Absolutely. Yeah, there was a lot of confusion and there still is. At this point, though, the individuals with TPS are able to extend until October. However, again, no one knew this until it was almost too late. So a lot of people self-deported, particularly people with small children who don't want to be caught up in this alligator. Alcatraz or whatever else. They don't want to deal with federal agents or getting deported.

And so a lot of people with actually very great contributors to the economy, people with great jobs went ahead and self-deported or went to other parts of the country to avoid all of this situation. And again, a lot of these people who are still here, I mean, their days are counted. They only have until October, if that at all. So it's a huge problem for this particular municipality in Miami, which really depends a lot on these immigrants who have been coming in and really growing that city, like you said, to the level that it's at today. But it's not just Dural. I mean, we have immigrants all over South Florida that really make up a huge portion of the population and make a huge difference in terms of the rental population in particular. And so we're

going to see the spillover effects of this all over South Florida. What makes Dural a really interesting case study is the fact that so many Venezuelans live there. And Venezuelans are such a a huge portion of the immigrants who really benefited from this TPS program that's getting phased away by the Trump administration. It's kind of a bummer too because Dural is arguably an example for kind of responsible growth. It's been growing by leaps and bounds, but like there's a hospital and then there's like what appears to be like reasonably priced workforce housing and rentals and shopping and restaurants and things and kind of in scale with a suburban community like this. It was all kind of lovely in a way.

It was like not what you see in Miami where it was just like growth on top of growth and condos next to condos on top of condos just to the sky. It all just seemed kind of in the design and the scale of the neighborhood or of this city. It's definitely a huge success story. I mean, it's grown by leaps and bounds, like you said. It's very balanced. It's a live, work, play environment to the extreme. I mean, there's like huge office headquarters there. Univision and other, like, Royal Caribbean has an office there.

And so it's a growing space. And guess what? Even our president saw a huge opportunity there when he invested and bought that very large property. Of course. So Trump Doral. And he himself has said what a vibrant, wonderful community it is. And that's why he invested there. He's bringing the G20 summit there next year.

And actually he's planning his organization. The Trump organization is planning on building some condo units there. So, I mean, totally it's. Who's going to live there? I let me, Deborah, I got to ask you, not once but twice in your article. You use the word fled, F-L-E-D, fled to describe what is happening with the Venezuelan community in Dural. This term, and I used the word flee earlier, kind of borrowing from your article, this term is usually reserved for when people are escaping third world dictatorships or authoritarian regimes, when people are fleeing Cuba, fleeing Venezuela, usually for my country. Miami in that case. Why the term fled? What are some of the anecdotes you've heard of people like to sort of

up and skipping town in the middle of the night? Well, like we said, a lot of these are people who have white color jobs. They saw a pathway here into the United States when the Biden administration started opening up more opportunities for people to migrate here. And so a lot of these individuals are not used to living in the fringes of society. They're used to being somewhere if they're fully legal in that country and they have a job, if they have a future, right? And so, particularly people with small children, families, they suddenly saw that stuff drying up for them when there was this big change from the administration. Why would they stick around?

They're like, well, you know, I've got a better opportunity for me in this other country or even back in Venezuela in some cases. So one example that I found quite shocking is like a family that just like disappeared from one day to the next from their single family home. They were renting the home. They'd been there for two years with their two children and basically stopped paying rent from one month to the next. landlord was like what's going on these people have always been great at paying rent and beautiful family etc it's like what's going on why aren't you paying why didn't you pay the rent why are you skipping out oh i'm so sorry we had to like divert all of our funds to immigration attorneys to figure out what the hell's going on and what's you know what we're going to do next and it got to the

point where it was like okay we're going to have to leave i'm so sorry and left the keys in the house from one day or the next disappear leave most of their furniture behind their personal belongings didn't even take out the trash. And so the landlord and the realtor are like, we've never seen this before. This is wild. Like, why would people decide to disappear from one day to the next from this community that's never happened before in their entire careers? And so that was where I was like, okay, this is super interesting. And then you've got the leasing agents all complaining that they're losing tenants from one day to the next. No, nobody's renewing. Like, what's happening? Why? Oh, well, because I'm no longer going to be able to be here legally. Or I've lost

my, you know, broker's license because I no longer have a current driver's license. I can't renew it because, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so these individuals don't see a future for themselves. They're educated. They have other options and they just get up and leave. So are you saying that family is not getting their security deposit back? That's right. And so it also brings up other issues in the fair housing law. You know, there's complicating issues here where, landlords, if they see temporary on someone's license, they don't want to let them in. They don't want to rent to them. So they're going to discriminate against them effectively and not be able and not rent them a home. This is actively happening, not only with a single

family homes, but in certain buildings, the policy is, according to the leasing agents I spoke with, if somebody has a temporary status or even if they're applying for asylum, we don't want them here. You don't have to like go through and like when you're renewing the leases of the people who already live here, you don't have to look through their documents to see where they're at. But if it's somebody new, no, we're pushing them away. And so these people, these leasing agents, they say in many cases, more than half of the people that are coming in to get an apartment, they have to turn away because they're all temporary people. Deborah, we're seeing, you know, last question, a $400 million county budget deficit that had to be shored up with taxes going

up, though they always argue. The military rate isn't going up, but we're still paying more in taxes. Miami Beach, I think, suffered. from just 23 to 24 and approximately 10% hit in resort taxes, which means from 24 to 25, it's going to be, I mean, who knows how much worse it could be? It can be double or triple that. Is there a follow-up story here to be had in Dural and surrounding areas, the resulting kind of overall economic effect, not just the real estate, although real estate is kind of everything in this town. The condos and you said the upside is the rental prices are obviously going to bottom out here, I guess, in Dural. I guess that's good news for

locals, I suppose. But, you know, is there an overall picture here to paint of an economy teetering or in slow motion or in fast forward to collapse? You know, I focus a lot on the real estate. So, you know, I wonder about the apartment buildings. We have a lot of new, brand new apartment buildings that are coming onto the market and have been coming onto the market. And so I do see a glut of apartment buildings, particularly the luxury apartment buildings. And, and that's actually a follow-up story I'm writing about now is like what's going to happen to all these apartments that are vacant and can be problematic for an economy, particularly one like ours that really focuses on real estate and really depends on real estate. But in terms of like

the working population, you know, we are a very retiree heavy community, not only in South Florida, but all of Florida. We have a lot of retirees down here. And we really do depend on immigrants for working age population. That population is coming down. I mean, if you look at the census figures, it's clear. We have fewer and fewer working age people in our communities here. And once these working age people that have been coming in start coming out, then we have even less. And so that definitely becomes problematic, right? Who is going to do the work in Florida? There's palm trees and sunshine and beaches, but who's going to be actually like getting the work done in Florida to keep it pumping. That's an open question at the moment.

As my friend Peter Zuluski of condo vultures says, as goes the condo market, so goes the economy in Miami-Dade County. So when you talk about vacancies, when you talk about rents coming down, again, on the one hand, us locals are like, yeah. And on the other hand, it's like, well, like you said, who's going to work here? Who's spending money here? And when your kind of sole economic engine is growth, where is there to go from here? But down. So, see, Roy, some good news. Miami is number one.

Yay. Deborah Costa, read her at WSJ.com in the Wall Street Journal. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's a pleasure as always, Billy. Thank you so much for having me. See, a pleasure as always. I never get that. Sure don't.

Yeah, I mean, Billy, this was really a great obligation. Just ask Eileen Higgins about that. Yes. Just you wait, Eileen Higgins. Cocaine's. Hey, Jeremy, old buddy, old pal. Hey, Mike. I want to talk to you about Miller Life.

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