There's been a bunch of news about the proposed immigration detention center in Southwest Ranches over the past week or so, but none of it has been substantive information about, say, whether the contract is actually going through after ICE's weird about-face last month.
As a reminder, that's when ICE officials reportedly called Debbie Wasserman Schultz's office and said they had taken Southwest Ranches out of the running, then called back a few minutes later to say "Never mind." What happened in those few minutes is not publicly known.
But Wasserman Schultz, who cosigned a letter last year in support of the facility and has not announced a change in her stance, is facing increased scrutiny -- partially because of a video produced by a local immigrants' rights group, which you'll find after the jump.
Here's the minidocumentary put together by local activists, featuring a few names from our feature story:
The Florida Immigrant Coalition held a screening at its offices last week, which was followed up by an op-ed piece in the Sun-Sentinel by David Shapiro of the ACLU, titled "Stop Southwest Ranches Plan for Prison."
"The plan to build a for-profit immigration jail in Southwest Ranches has been dying a slow death and it's now time to nix the scheme," wrote Shapiro. "Two weeks ago, the government announced the deal was off, only to backpedal hours later. What that dance means is anyone's guess, but this much is certain: the project should be stopped."
And back to Wasserman Schultz: Yesterday, the Daily Caller published a piece saying the congresswoman "angers her constituents by supporting new immigration jail." The scope of the piece is a little bit all over the place, and it has an outsider's remove (we wouldn't really describe Ranches as "swanky"). Still, that underscores the fact that Wasserman Schultz's stance on the project is getting national attention as the business part of the deal continues to develop.
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