Miccosukee and Seminole artists, culture-bearers, and youth organizers are protesting the opening of a migrant-detention facility nicknamed Alligator Alcatraz at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida. In July, a communal action coordinated with the collective Unidos Immokalee included ceremony, dance, sign-making, and distribution of supplies, with participants like Kendal Osceola and Maeanna Osceola speaking out against the facility, which they see as colonial violence on ancestral lands. The facility, run by Florida’s Division of Emergency Management in partnership with the US Department of Homeland Security, opened on 3 July and has faced legal challenges, including a temporary halt to construction by a federal judge in August, though a September appeals panel stayed the shutdown order.
This matters because it highlights the intersection of Indigenous sovereignty, environmental justice, and immigration policy in the art world, as artists and cultural workers use performance, archiving, and ceremony as forms of resistance. The protest underscores how contemporary art practices are being mobilized to confront state actions that threaten tribal lands and ecosystems, positioning the Everglades as a site of ongoing colonial struggle. The case also raises broader questions about the role of artists in political activism and the protection of sacred landscapes.