>>This week on NewsNight following President Trump's recent visit to Alligator Alcatraz, we'll look at the controversy over the construction of large scale immigratio detention facilities in Florida.

Plus, an update on the homelessness situation six months into Florida's camping ban.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in Central Florida and how they shape our community.

For us tonight, Florida is once again in the spotlight over immigration.

President Trump and Governor DeSantis both toured the so-called Alligator Alcatraz detention center in the Everglades last week.

A $450 million lock up able to hold some 3,000 detainees established by Florida state government.

The governor says similar facilities will be stood up elsewhere in the state, including at Camp Blanding, near Starke.

Democrats say they're concerned over conditions for detainees and the environmental impacts at Alligator Alcatraz.

But Republicans say the site will add important capacity to aid in President Trump's mass deportation policy.

Congressional and stat lawmakers are expected to tour the facilit this weekend at the invitation of the Florida Department of Emergency Management.

Orlando State Representativ Ana Eskamani was part of a group of Democrats turned away last week afte attempting an oversight visit.

She's critical of the governor's use of emergency powers to create the facility.

>>Three years ago, the Democratic caucus, mysel included, brought up amendments to narro the scope of the governor's emergency power to natural disasters.

And we did that with intent because at the time, governor DeSantis was already abusing his emergency powers to use public money to traffic asylum seekers from the Texas and Mexican border to Martha's Vineyard.

And so, to some degree, I am not surprised by this abuse of power.

I'm not surprised by the governor wasting public money on a political stunt, because that is what he does.

He has done this many times.

And as Democrats, we were scoffed at by Republican colleagues when we brought up these concerns that the governor would continue to exploi his executive emergency powers for political gain.

And here we are to, several years later, experiencing exactly that.

>>Democrat Ana Eskamani.

A reminder, we are recording this program on Thursday morning.

So things can change by airtime.

Next, let's hear from someon who supports Alligator Alcatraz.

I talked with Evan Power, chair of the Republican Party of Florida.

>>It's keeping Floridians safe.

The number one issu facing Floridians in the las election was immigration.

They want they want to depor people who are here illegally, are committing crimes.

And these are the worst, the worst offenders, from sex offenders to people committing murders in other countries.

But if you're here illegally, you're a criminal.

You broke the law when you came here illegally.

And the people of Americ and people of Florida have said that we want to prioritize legal immigration, which means you come here legally and we can end this all today.

If people would self-deport and come back and try to come back legally because we want the to be able to have that right, but this is going to be a model of what's going to be done in other states where people are treated humanely, but it's done efficiently.

People are moved in and then they're deported from this country quickly and efficiently so that they can't do further damage to America.

It plays into what people want in this country, this.

The people are sick and tired of people like Joe Biden and his auto administration that prioritize criminal illegals spilling over this border, and invading our country.

They want law and order, and they want thes kind of facilities to get people in, into the facilit and out of this country quickly and efficiently.

>>GOP chair Evan Power there.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

And joining us in the studio this week, Ryan Gillespie from the Orlando Sentinel.

You've been covering a lot of these immigration issues of late.

So very good to have you here on the program today Ryan.

>>Good to be here.

>>Thanks for being here.

The host of Engage on Central Florida Public Media, Cheryn Stone, thanks for being here Cheryn, >>Thanks for having me.

>>And for the first time Laverne McGee from WKMG News 6.

Thanks so much for comin in, Laverne.

>>Glad to be here.

Thank you so much.

>>Excited to have you on the program because it's your first time I'll start with you.

You covered the the officia opening of Alligator Alcatraz.

Just walk us through that location and what you saw while you were there.

>>Absolutely.

I think as a journalist, this is one of those moments where you think to yourself, you haven't you've yo thought you've seen everything, but you haven't.

I was fortunat to be one of the handful of journalists in the entire country that was able to be inside there and see the facilities.

The Everglades, as you know, it is swamp.

It is, wild.

Yeah.

Bushes.

Trees, nature.

It is about an hour drive in from Miami, and you drive down a long, long road.

There's only one way in and one way out.

>>It's Miami-Dade County, but it's still very rural.

Correct?

>>It' on the border of Collier County.

So it is a very rural area.

And just to get to it takes a long time by car.

And they really mean that if you are out there, you could truly be eaten by alligators.

And I know people were joking about that being sarcastic, whatever you will, but it truly is a place where you could at any point encounter some sort of nature or wildlife that certainly you would not want to be entangled with.

And so we drove in high security area.

This was an old abandoned airport.

They say it was used for emergency, trainin and so forth, but not an actual working airport.

High security, of course.

And then, we had to leave our news vehicles and be bused to the area where they brought in the tents.

And of course, that's where we saw the images we all saw on television of these little cage with beds in the rows and rows and rows of them.

And that's what we were looking at.

>>And there were lot of protesters outside as well.

There were, yeah, lots of protesters.

We had the environmentalists, of course, who are concerne that this is disrupting nature.

Let's face it, the Everglades, for Florida, that is a huge part of of our environment here.

And people are concerned about that.

Of course, with, you know, there would have to be planes going in and out if you were taking these detainees and moving them out of the country, there would be busses, cars, traffic, that sort of thing.

And then you have the indigenous people, the Native Americans, the Miccosukee, who is who are in that area and they're concerne this is bordered by sacred land for them.

And so they feel that this is disruptive to their culture.

>>Florida legislatures, members of Congress are being invited now, by the state for a tour of this facility this weekend.

Again, we are recording this, on Thursday morning so of course things can change.

The tour may have happened by the time this airs in some places.

Representative Eskamani we just heard from there said this isn't the substitute for, oversight or for - for legitimate oversight.

We also heard from a group of members of Congress, Darren Soto, Maxwell Frost among them say they will return another time for an unannounced oversight visit.

Do we know, Ryan, why that group of Democrat were initially refused entrance?

I mean, do we know who's actually in charge?

Lawmakers generally have right to oversight, don't they?

>>Yeah.

Generally, state lawmaker can can visit any local jail.

So the Orange County Jail for instance, you know, Representativ Ana Eskamani and Senator Carlos Guillermo-Smith were there, I believe over the weekend.

And they can just show up unannounced and walk through and do oversight.

And that is applies to state facilities.

It applies to county facilities.

It applies to federal facilities for members of Congress.

So they were they were turned away last weekend for wha the lawmakers said was of safety reasons, is what they were told.

I don't I don't think they were necessarily given more detailed information than that, except that they couldn't be there that specific day because of safety concerns.

And who's in charge is kind o an interesting question as well.

Immigration is a federal issue, right?

Like it's handled typically by federal authorities, federal courts.

But the Department of Homeland Security said that they don't actuall have anything to do with this.

To be a federal detention facility for immigration, you have to meet certain standards.

The Sanders are pretty high and to the point that apparently not every local jail in Florida, for instance, qualifies.

That's why places like the Orange County Jail are designated, but under emergency powers and whatnot, they were able to stat emergency management officials stand this facility up quite quickly.

>>And the mayor of Miami-Dade also pressing for access to the facility as well.

What have we heard so far, Cheryn, about the operation of Alligator Alcatraz and the conditions there?

These are just reports, of course.

There's been very limited access so far.

What are we hearing about, operations there since the first detainees arrived last week?

>>Those detainees to describe the conditions, in a word, inhumane.

>>That's what that that's what is being reported out-- >>By them.

Toilets don't flush.

Large bugs.

Lots of mosquito bites.

Temperature going to extremes too cold to sleep or the air conditioning not working inadequate food, getting food once a day.

Some are reporting they were being fed foo that actually had maggots in it.

Not enough access to water, hygiene, not being able to bathe.

I could go on, but basically they also add that they're not being able to give their confidential calls with their attorneys, just overall disrespect to human rights.

And conversely, the Florida Division Emergency Management that's overseeing this, they said that's fully false.

Plumbing works, bugs and environmental factors are minimized and the facility meets all those standards.

>>Yeah.

Do we know anything about the detainees that are being held there?

Are they the we heard having power from the from the GOP that I just now sort of say, you know, these are the worst of the worst is that the case?

>>We don't know a whole heck of a lot about the people who are there.

That's not like, this is a your typical county jail where you publish a roster and I can look up, you know, a person who's in the jail and see what they're charged with.

I can tell you tha I spoke to an attorney yesterday in Orlando, attorney who has a client there, who is a DACA recipient who got caught up in this system and transported to Alligator Alcatraz over the weekend for a charge of driving without a valid license.

This is somebody who' been in the central Florida area since they were 12 year old, been here 24 years, has a commercial driver's license.

The attorney says, so at least in that case, I can tell you that does that to me doesn't sound like the worst of the worst.

But certainly I can't speak for every single person there however.

>>I want to talk about how this facility, got to be set up, in just a few days before we talk about that, here's governor DeSantis speaking recentl in The Villages.

Take a listen.

>>Things are being done, i I think a very efficient, fashion.

And I was really in I mean, honestly, I was impressed but I know dealing with the hurricane respons and all the other, I mean, monoclonal antibodie during Covid, we would set up monoclonal antibody clinics on 24 hour notice.

Hey, we need one in Jacksonville.

24 hours later, it's up.

That's this emergenc response apparatus that we have.

>>The governor there.

Ryan, we do have, a lo of emergency knowhow in Florida.

Government rights.

The governor mentioned that, does that alone explain how this was set up so quickly?

>>It doesn't hurt.

You know, I think if there's one thing we know in the state of Florida that we do fairly well as we know how to read and react to hurricanes, we can stand a facility up maybe similar to this one.

Not maybe not with cages and in high security, but we can stand a facility like, as a state fairly quickly.

But but there is some key differences here.

There were thing that the governor was able to do under his emergency powers.

This is an emergency that has been in place for more than two years.

It originally went in as an emergency of the Biden border crisis.

The governor called it.

I believe that language has since dropped out after the election.

>>Yeah.

>>Bu the emergency stands in place.

And so what that allows him to d is to bypass typical processes for, for example, bidding out contracts to, to do something like this under a standard procedure would take some time, weeks and months of allowing companies to competitively bid for to stand up a tent or to to do the fence work or to to be security.

In this case, they already had these contracts lined up for any emergency that may arise.

So he was able to bypass that with with contractors that are also i a lot of cases, campaign donors we've seen in reporting.

>>Yeah, Democrat have certainly seized upon that.

I mean, the governor did say this week, Laverne, that that, you know, thes contracts are competitively bid.

And he made that, comment in reference to selecting vendors for another site at Camp Blanding.

What do we know about that location?

It's near Starke, I think.

>>Right, outside of Jacksonville, very different than Alligator Alcatraz.

This is a already has buildings set up.

So the idea i that they take these buildings, they use it, for, you know, they redo the facilities to accommodate the detainees the way they need it.

So a different set up, but the idea is that they are trying to set up different areas, to house these people until they can figure out how to proceed with them.

>>There could be a potential potentially another one, in the Panhandle.

I think I just wanted to finish off by by asking about who's paying for this.

Do we know?

>>That's a great question.

So no this is a long and short answer.

We don't really know.

As of now, there has been reporting from NBC that no federal funds have been dedicated to this project.

They haven't been requested either.

But there has been an expectation that a pool of federal grant money, that's something like $550 million, I believe it is, is is se aside for projects like this for for housing immigrant throughout the country, and that eventually some of that money would be drawn down to pay for a facility like this or others throughout the state and around the country.

So we will see what happens.

But as of as of today, we don't actually know.

>>And we shall see for sure whether other states follow suit.

You can find, my full length interviews with Democratic State Representative Ana Eskamani and Republican Party Chair of Florida Evan Power on our website at wucf.org/newsnight.

Two hundred Marines are being deployed to Florida to support ICE.

Meanwhile, at the same time, the governor says Florida has offered National Guard JAG officers to be trained an deputized as immigration judges.

But amidst the state and federal push to speed up deportations some in the business community are fearful over the potential impact on industries with a large presence in Florida, including agriculture.

Here's President Trump during that visit to Alligator Alcatraz last week.

>>We have a great feeling for the farmer and for others in the same position, and we're going to give the responsibility for the people, and we're going to have a system of signing them up so they don't have to go.

They can be here legally, they can pay taxes and everything, and they're not getting citizenship, but they get other things, and the farmers need them to do the work.

Without those people you're not going to be able to work your farm.

>>President Trump there that video from the White House.

Ryan, what have we heard from th president and his administration this week on the issue of agricultural workers?

>>He he is intereste in the idea of putting together a work permit program that will allow peopl who work on farms to keep doing so if they are in this country illegally.

How what form that will take.

We will see.

I think it will be interesting too see what industries that extends to.

He's he's his background is, he's a hotelier and he's talked a lot also about hotels potentially feeling the brunt of his plan to, for mass deportations.

That has been less talked about than farmers.

But it's an economic argument, right?

If you if you're paying people in, in this country illegally less money to harvest crops and to take care of hotels, and then if they are no longer available, whether they're not willing to work because they're scared of, raids ICE raids, or if they are no longer here and able to work, and then whoever you hire to do those jobs you might be paying more money.

Therefore, the cost of groceries is going to go up, the cost of hotel rooms is going to go up.

So so I think that was something that was compelling to him.

>>What have you been, you've been covering, the sort of how this is reverberating in immigrant communities in Central Florida.

There on engage What have you guys been hearing?

>>A lot of that fea that Ryan just mentioned there.

It's the fear of the raids.

It's a fear of being detained and not actually having that violent record.

It's the uncertainty.

And it's just it's not just the economics, it's fear to go to school to go out into their businesses.

And there's a frustration there as well, just a lack of legal support.

I would add, though, I also have noticed just a deep sense of resilience as well.

I'm thinking of one woman I interviewed.

That's Maria Elena Baldivia.

She was a former fern cutter agricultural worker in Volusia County, then started working with the farmworkers association, started working with farmers there.

And she's out there talking to people, talking to them about their rights.

They're seeing a lot of know your rights trainings for the immigrant community.

You're seeing people organizing, educating each other.

So, yeah, there's a lot of fear.

There's also a movement to come together and be together.

>>I would add to, again, being at Alligator Alcatraz, having the opportunity to be at President Trump's roundtable I was able to ask him a question very rare for a local journalist.

And, in one of the, questions he did talk about the fact that they want to promot this idea of self-deportation.

So instead of people being in fear or worried about being taken away, that they would turn themselves in and they would be, you know, able to go through the system in a in a more dignified manner.

>>Yeah, it' on the self-deportation thing.

It's interesting, but that's not a new concept, particularly in Republican politics.

And I remember covering the Mitt Romney campaign for president and Mitt Romne talking about self-deportation.

You reported this week on the inmates at the the Orange County Jail Ryan, that have ICE detainers.

There have been complaints that if there was an ICE hold put on them, that they would disappear from the publicly available records.

Is that changing?

>>Yes, it is, and it's it's kind of a complicated arrangement.

And I can try to explain it very briefly.

>>Yeah.

>>So say you were picked up on a charge of driving without a valid license, and you are arrested and you go to the Orange County Jail, you would you could punch in that person's name on the county's website and their mugshot and charges and all of their information would pop up.

When that charge was settled whether you're guilty, innocent, no contest.

Whatever happens in the court system, as soon as that happens, you become a federal inmate under, with with an ICE detainer on you.

The second that happens, your name would disappear from the record.

So if you were a family member trying to track your husband, your wife, your brother, or whoever, all of a sudden they would disappear and you wouldn't know where they were.

And also, people at the jail aren't allowed to tell you what's going on with federal inmates.

So you could call them and they can't actually give you any information.

The county walked that back in the last couple of weeks.

They've changed their policy.

They were actually, alone, at least in our area.

In doing so, they thought that that was what ICE was requiring them to do.

They've since interpreted that language otherwise.

And so now you could put in that same person's name and a yellow banner appears under it that says immigration holds.

So, so at least there's that level of information.

>>Well, it's an interesting story, certainly fast developing.

And I know you'll all keep an eye on it.

Be sure to find us on social media.

Meanwhile, we're at WUCFTV on Facebook and Instagram.

You'll also find us on X @NewsNightWUCF.

Well, it's been around six months since Florida's camping ban came into effect at the start of the year.

Advocates say one of the biggest drivers of homelessnes is a lack of affordable housing, amid a push by governments and companies, including Universal and Disney, to develop more.

The Orlando area continue to suffer from one of the worst affordable housing shortfalls in the nation.

Krystel Knowles has the story of one hospitality worker experiencing homelessness and living in a hotel.

To protect her and her children's privacy, we met with her at the Backlot Apartments, an affordabl housing community in Kissimmee.

>>Are making rooms with the kitchenette, but-- >>Vanessa Figueroa moved to the Sunshine State in 2017, hoping for a fresh start and to be closer to family.

Figueroa was living the lif she envisioned a three bedroom, two bath home with her three children.

But in 2021, everything changed.

After Covid the landlord, he wanted to raise the rent by about $500, and he just wanted me out so that he could get another tenant in to get that lump sum of money before the foreclosure went through at the house.

And that's kind of how we ended up in hotels.

>>Figueroa works in the hospitality industry, waitressing, catering, working stadium events, anything she can to get by.

For now, she and her childre live in an extended stay hotel.

She says no matte how many hours she puts in, it's never quite enough to meet most landlords requirements.

>>I know now a lot of landlords require three times the amount of the rent, you know, which is kind of hard to meet those requirements sometimes.

So it makes it a lot more complicated.

Prices have went up.

I mean, the hourly rate for pay is not meeting the needs of the pricing down here.

Gas prices, food prices.

>>20 acres in the heart of Orlando's tourist corridor gratefully donated by Universal and developed by Wendover Housing Partners.

>>Theme park are pledging to help contribute affordable housing.

Universal has donated 20 acres for Catchlight Crossings near I-drive, a partnership with Wendover Housing, which is developing a thousand units on site.

The first residents are set to move in next year.

And while Disney has also donated 80 acres in Horizon West for its own development.

Meanwhile, Figueroa says she thinks the solution ultimately lies i creating a higher wage economy.

>>More jobs, more training so that people can get more stable jobs or suitable jobs to be able to afford the rent or their bills.

>>Krystel's report is part of a collaborative initiative of independent local news outlets working towards a more informed and engaged Central Florida.

Ryan, you've covered the homelessness issue here in our community extensively.

Do advocates that you talk to draw a straight line between that affordable housing issue and the number of homeless that we have here?

>>Yeah, it's largely the same issue.

I think it would be the the way to put it, because if you think about it, it's all a math problem.

Housing costs are expensive.

And so if you either don't hav a job or you are underemployed and don't make much money you can't afford that housing.

And then our economy works in supply and demand.

So if you increase the supply of housing, especially apartment housing at levels that people can afford, then theoretically the cost will go down.

There's other factors.

Certainly.

You know, wages don't haven't kept up at all with the cost of housing increases in the last couple of years.

So there's that too.

And then in terms of homelessness as well, we also have a short term shelter shortage as well, which we've talked about plenty of times.

So I think all of those things kind of coalesce together.

But yeah, it all comes back to the housing issue.

>>Yeah.

Your outlet, Cheryn recently started the the latest affordable housing data for, for for our region.

How's it looking out there?

>>Challenging.

Yeah.

>>Would be a way to put it.

I'm looking at the 2025 gap report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

And they're saying Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area ranks as one of the worst in the country.

Getting back to the math proble that Ryan was talking to, for every 100 extremely lo income renters here, there are 19 affordable units means the majority of renter are struggling with the burden.

Developers are trying to keep up that project that Krystel mentioned in her piece, Catchlight Crossing, bringin public and private partnerships.

They're also more streamlined, low cost models being tested.

But there's one local advocat put it this way everyone wants and supports affordable housing until it's in their backyard.

So there's that kind of resistance at well.

>>Yeah.

Well, layered on top of this, of course, is the camping ban that we've we've covered extensively.

News 6 has been lookin at sort of the first six months of an enforcement of that ban.

I mean, what is the situation now?

And how are local governments sort of handling the demand for accommodating people who get arrested?

>>There's it's no secret.

It's a challenge.

On paper, maybe it seemed like it could be effective, but in practical terms, you simply can't, have all these people and pushed aside that are not visible to the public.

So these are challenges that they're trying to deal with.

We know that there's several housing coalitions here and there.

They are building a new, area, downtown, close to the stadium there.

>>Yeah.

>>But they simply can't keep u with the amount of people who just can't keep up with the cost of living.

Last word to you Ryan.

We've talked before about how local governments are handling this.

What's the what's the latest you guys are in?

Well, in term of finding shelter, the shelter bus concept seems to be picking up some steam locally.

The Christian Service Center in Orlando is expected to have two busses housing, I believe 39 total people, here in a couple months.

There's talk of one in Apopka as well.

I think there's I think there's a world where we'll be hearing maybe some more about shelter in the coming months, and some other places, but, but the other thing that I think a lot of people are nervou about are, is federal funding.

There's been tal out of the Trump administration of essentially ripping up the way homeless is funded.

Homeless services are funded throughout the country.

Permanent supportive housin is a generally popular program, that in this community housing 1600 people who are disabled.

We're talking about peopl who cannot work for themselves.

We're talking a lot of times about people who maybe don't have arms and legs for instance.

The taxpayer fund their rent in apartments.

There's talk that that program like that would go away and that would create some serious problems for this community.

>>Well, something els is developing, for us to watch.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out much more NewsNight content on our website wucf.org/newsnight.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Ryan Gillespie from the Orlando Sentinel.

Cheryn Stone from Central Florida Public Media, and Laverne McGee from WKMG News 6.

Excellent conversation today, guys.

Thanks so much for coming in.

Really appreciate it.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great week.