Trump's Trials - Will 'Alligator Alcatraz' be closed?

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Environmental groups in Florida will get a hearing in federal court this week over whether the ICE facility dubbed Alligator Alcatraz needs to close because of environmental damage to the Everglades.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. President Trump promised every single American that he would make America safe again. Every single day in the Oval Office, the president looks at us and says, why haven't we done more? This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power. Here's the latest from NPR. I'm Lela Fauden.

Federal judges will hear arguments this week in a lawsuit trying to shut down an immigration detention center in the Everglades. Environmental advocates and a Native American tribe say it was built without environmental reviews. From member station WUSF, Megan Bowman reports. Water that serves South Florida crawls through thai high sawgrass in the marshes of the Everglades. And almost right in the middle of that fragile ecosystem is the immigration detention center dubbed alligator Alcatraz. Water and sewage tanks are trucked in and out. Buses filled with detainees come and go. Elise Bennett is with the Center for Biological Diversity.

She's one of the lead attorneys in the lawsuit to shut down the facility. So we have significant concerns about ongoing construction-related damage. But there's also ongoing harm that continues. just via the operation of the site. These environmental concerns started nearly 60 years ago. It's 1968. Hey Jude by the Beatles was number one. Richard Nixon was President-elect.

Clean air, clean water, open spaces. These should once again be the birthright of every American. It's also around the time construction began on the world's largest airport, the Everglades Jetport. Plans show it would have been five times the size of JFK, in New York. But in the end, only one runway and a couple of buildings made it to completion. That's thanks in part to Nixon signing the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and to the late environmental advocate Marjorie Stoneman Douglas.

She founded Friends of the Everglades in 1969 to stop the airport development. In a Florida archive video, she said a conservationist came to her. To tell me that he needed help to fight a proposed jet port out on the Tamiami Trail, With its industrial development, they would have polluted all the Everglades water. Her group is now one of the plaintiffs in the detention center lawsuit, which argues NEPA. The law spurred from the jetport battle requires environmental studies and reviews before federal projects start construction. Marjorie would be outraged. She would be giving hell to the powers that be.

I have no doubt. Eve Samples now leads Friends of the Everglades. Today, rows of tents, generators, and temporary structures. line the single runway. It's such a striking tale of our origin story at Friends of the Everglades, like in the late 60s, early 70s, it was an environmental awakening. And now all of those protections are being tested. State officials did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. The detention center was put up in just eight days and opened last July. At the time, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the surrounding swamp with its resident alligators make it a good spot. They ain't going anywhere.

they're there unless you want them to go somewhere because good luck in the civilization. So the security is amazing. But what's natural and otherwise. Hundreds of millions of state dollars have gone to building and operating the facility. When it opened, DeSanta said the federal government would pick up the tab. That hasn't happened yet. But Sample says no matter who pays for the detention center, laws must be followed. It's clear that this is a shell game that the state and federal government are playing in an attempt to dodge accountability for complying with important environmental laws. A federal hearing in the case will be held in a Miami courtroom on April 7th, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas's birthday. For NPR News, I'm Megan Bowman in Ochoope, Florida.

Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.