After a failed presidential campaign and a bruising ego check, Gov. Ron DeSantis has finally found a way to mirror President Donald Trump.
The Florida governor’s push to build a new kind of detention center — dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” — in Big Cypress National Preserve is stretching the bounds of executive power, in some ways achieving at the state level the kind of autonomy that has emboldened the second Trump administration.
DeSantis is using an emergency power normally reserved for disaster relief to sequester land for a massive detention facility from Miami-Dade County. Kevin Guthrie, the executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, cited the state’s gubernatorial emergency powers statute when he wrote to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava saying that ongoing negotiations over the remote spot would be interrupted by a seizure.