FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Jocelyn Mahone
JMahone@cleoinstitute.org

Miami, FL (July 1st, 2025) – The CLEO Institute – working to mobilize climate action for a just, resilient future for everyone – expresses deep concern over the opening of a detention center in the heart of the Everglades supported by the DeSantis and Trump Administration.

The Everglades play a critical role in replenishing the Biscayne Aquifer, our region’s primary source of drinking water. It also hosts 300 fish species, 350 bird species, and 36 threatened or endangered species, including iconic wildlife like the American crocodile, Florida panther, and manatees. Environmental scientists warn the project threatens water flow, sewage output, habitat integrity, and tribal rights.

But this is more than just an environmental concern. It raises serious human rights considerations. If completed and used as planned, the detention center would house migrant detainees in a remote, climate-vulnerable location where they could be exposed to hurricanes, extreme heat, mosquito-borne illnesses, and other public health risks that are intensifying due to our warming climate. In a state where the heat index regularly exceeds 105°F and mosquito-borne diseases are on the rise, placing thousands of individuals—including families—in tent-based facilities in the Everglades could pose significant health and safety risks. Experts and advocates have raised concerns that such conditions may be inadequate for humane treatment.

This project creates a 3,000+ bed migrant detention facility in a sensitive ecological zone. Funded through FEMA’s emergency shelter program, it will cost roughly $450 million a year to operate. Such funding should instead be reserved to safeguard Floridians during hurricane season, from strengthening flood protections to ensuring accessible shelter in emergencies.

At The CLEO Institute, we work alongside communities to strengthen resilience in the face of extreme weather, rising heat, and rising seas due to planet warming pollution from fossil fuels. Through our programs, we help residents recognize heat risks, prepare for storms, and advocate for solutions that protect the most vulnerable. These are the kinds of investments Florida urgently needs, not projects that increase harm, deepen injustice, and misuse vital emergency funds.

The Everglades are not just biodiverse wetlands, they’re the economic backbone of South Florida. A recent report from the Everglades Foundation, co-authored with Earth Economics, values the Everglades’ ecosystem services at $31.5 billion annually, with a $1 trillion return over the next 50 years. That massive value is not theoretical, it’s already embedded in our homes, water, and livelihoods and they continue to be a focus of the historic, multibillion-dollar Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan underway since 2000. This decades-long effort is essential, not only for ecosystem resilience and biodiversity, but for storm protection, drinking water reliability, and climate adaptation.

Florida deserves a future where every child, family, and community is protected  both from climate disasters and unjust political decisions that threaten our lives and natural heritage.

As Marjory Stoneman Douglas once warned, “The Everglades is a test. If we pass, we may get to keep the planet”, and right now Florida is on the verge of failing it.

The CLEO Institute urges the State of Florida and FEMA to immediately halt the use of this detention center, redirect funds to proven resilience measures, and to honor our collective commitment to restore and defend the Everglades as a freshwater lifeline, wildlife refuge, and climate shield for all Floridians.

About The CLEO Institute

Founded in 2010, The CLEO Institute is a women-led, nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to climate education, advocacy, and engagement. Because climate change is a solvable but time-bound existential issue, we envision a world where by 2030, heat trapping gasses are significantly reduced, the planet’s current alarming trajectory is reversed, and we’ve secured a safer future for all. www.CLEOInstitute.org