An Interview with Betty Osceola

On the edge of the Florida Everglades, where ancestral lands meet razor wire, a detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” has become the center of a legal and moral battle. Just days after a federal judge ordered the site shut down, our editor-in-chief, Rook T. Winchester, spoke with Betty Osceola — Miccosukee tribal judge, and longtime protector of this land. What follows is a conversation about resistance, and the deeper currents beneath the headlines.

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Rook: Can you share a bit about your personal history and connection to the Everglades?

Betty: Well, I actually grew up in this area, and I still live here. Not far from where the detention center is, about three miles. This is my stomping ground. Living out here, my generation is one of the last generations that had some form of subsistence living. So in my earlier days, a lot of what we ate is what we hunted for, whether it was my father or my brothers at a young age learned to hunt or we went fishing. My mother grew corn, pumpkin, and other vegetables. So we had that deep connection by when you're foraging for food, you're learning the patterns of the wildlife and the seasons. So, it really makes you connected to the landscape. Our people still participate in our ceremony. So all my childhood, different times of the year, when we have ceremony, our grounds are not too far from where this facility is. So this is what I know. This is my home.

Rook: How do your roles as an educator, environmental advocate, and tribal judge intersect in this work?

Betty: Well, you have to understand a landscape to educate about it. But just growing up and with that deep connection to the landscape and our culture and traditions have formed how I understand the environment around me. So when I do advocate for the environment, I come from the perspective of my teachings of being Miccosukee and Seminole, because my mother was a Seminole tribal member, and how her ancestors understood this landscape and our connection to it. So basically, instead of going to college for Ecology, I guess I grew up with those teachings.

Rook: You have real life experience.

Betty: Yes. Being a tribal judge, because sometimes our judge has a system that when we're sitting on cases, there's two judges. There's a contemporary and a traditional judge. Sometimes I wear the hat of a contemporary judge, and sometimes I wear the hat of a traditional judge because I grew up in my traditions and my culture. So it's understanding both worlds and bringing them into a balance. So everything I've learned throughout my childhood and into adulthood — and I’m still learning — helps guide me.

Rook: We’re always learning.

Betty: It helps me when I am in that judge capacity because we're people of healers. We come from a place of healing. So there's times that when you do see situations in your courtroom, sometimes it's a matter of that individual needing healing instead of just issuing fines and a sentence or whatever, because if you don't heal the person, they're going to keep returning to your court.

Rook: What does the Everglades mean to you, not just ecologically, but spiritually and culturally?

Betty: Well, the Everglades, it's my home. It's where we look for our plant medicines to gather, for ceremony to gather, for healing. This is the place I come to pray. And I'm very connected to the landscape, to the water, especially the water, because at times I have conversations with the water, and I'll stand in the water and pray. Just connect. Sometimes without words, I'll just feel and connect with the environment and ground myself. Because in our teachings, we are all children of the Earth, and we're supposed to care for it. So understanding that duty to care for creation helps keep me grounded and reconnected. And sometimes I can be out of balance myself. And then we have a saying, to heal yourself, you have to go to nature. So I'll go to nature and just connect with it and meditate and pray to rebalance myself from the chaos of the world.

Rook: Can you tell me about the prayer events you help organize each Sunday?

Betty: We had the first two initial peaceful gatherings, prayer and sign holding events. And then the third event that I organized, I went the prayer route because I'm a very spiritual person. Out of that, the clergy who attended—Reverend Roy with the United Methodist Church, I believe, out of Naples, he reached out to me and said the faith leaders here in South Florida with The Inter Faith Coalition decided that they needed to be involved, because churches should be praying and advocating for the humanity and bringing people back to treating each other as human beings. And so they made that commitment to gather every Sunday, and different churches are taking the lead and organizing it, so it's not always the same individuals.

Rook: How do you blend the prayer and the cultural ceremony and the protest in a way that feels right?

Betty: Well, because you have to think about it. When you're protesting, you have different opinions, right? And it can be very dividing. But when they have the prayer vigil, I usually speak at the beginning, and I speak from how my culture is. And basically, it's very similar. When I hear their scripture, it's the same. Different in some way, but the same. The same scripture is about taking care of the environment, treating each other as human beings, and that's how I was raised in my culture. And so their words are not too far off from how our Indigenous teachings are. So we've been able to take away the labels because in the beginning, the labels of Republican, Democrat, and the views and conservative, left leaning, and all that, right leaning, and all that, that's very divisive.

Rook: Indeed.

Betty: But the prayer—because the prayer, there's a lot of different people in that mix—but they can all unite on their commitment to God or whatever, to their creator and who they dedicate their lives to in that scripture. It's not being aggressive towards anyone, but it's actually—when you're in prayer, you feel a different way, right? You're not angry, and you're not yelling at someone, but you're actually in your communication and your prayers to your creator. So that has been very... the events have been very uniting and very powerful because every vigil, they invite people that have been impacted by what is going on, like family members.

This past weekend, I don’t know if you watched the live feed, but there was a young lady that works in an organization of students. And how the young people with everything going on are feeling hopeless about the world—not just this issue—about their place in the world and what's going to happen to them in the world. And they've been very scared and feeling hopeless. So coming to the prayer vigils, this woman was giving testimony how she was able to go back with the students that she meets with and their gatherings to let them know that there is hope. It's not hopeless.

Rook: Speaking of hope, can you talk a bit about the judge's ruling yesterday?

Betty: Well, when I first heard it, I was out here sitting across the street from the entrance because I had knew the judge was going to rule. And just like everyone else, we were messaging each other, has anybody heard anything? And as the day got later, I think we started counting the minutes. I contacted the tribe, and they confirmed that there was a ruling, and someone, I think, posted online a link to the order, so I was able to go through it and look at it. From my understanding of it, she granted the preliminary injunction because they're still going to still have court.

Rook: The state is appealing?

Betty: Yeah. The state was anticipating that it wouldn't go in their favor. So they were already ready with the filing, and they filed immediately after she issued that ruling.

Rook: So do we know when the next hearing is then?

Betty: I haven't heard of a date yet, what that date is. But my understanding is that they're not supposed to bring in any more detainees. Whoever's there is there. And over time, as they—because they're only legally allowed to keep them for 14 days, but they've been exceeding that—but whoever's there, the population will diminish. And eventually, they'll come to no one being here.

Rook: Why were there reports of ambulances going in and out?

Betty: Because at one point, they were having a hunger strike. If you're on a hunger strike and you're refusing food and water, you're going to have dehydration issues, right?

Rook: How did you learn about the hunger strike?

Betty: The individuals inside found access to a phone. So when they were calling out to their family members, they were letting their family members know that there was a hunger strike going on. They were letting their family members know that COVID was an issue in there. They were letting family members know that tuberculosis was spreading. And that's how we heard about it because we keep in communication with the Florida Immigrant Coalition that's been supportive of the immigration lawsuit. So that's how we were hearing it because they would come out periodically and we talk and they will let us know that that's what they're hearing. And since we're out here, they're like, "Okay, there's a hunger strike going on. When you see ambulances coming out, if we could count them or take pictures of it and document it."

Rook: How do you maintain or sustain your own energy?

Betty: I have been exhausted. I think we all have been exhausted, but we know this is very important. Even now, even though there's a preliminary injunction, when I heard it last night, there were five other people here. I'm like, "Oh, she granted the injunction, so now we got to make sure we get these pictures because nobody's supposed to be coming in, and they're not supposed to be bringing materials to build anything."

Rook: What can people do outside of Florida to support you in meaningful ways?

Betty: So we've been encouraging individuals to—since the lawsuit is ongoing—to donate to Friends of the Everglades. We've been encouraging individuals to continue to share everything that we post so that it continues to be in the spotlight. Also to continue to call the governor's office, to continue to call, if they live in Florida, anywhere, to call their representative, even locally, even to Miami-Dade County, even to Collier County, because this is their water. Because the one thing we—because a lot of times, Americans say, "Oh, well, they don't listen to us. It's useless." Because when you go to these meetings and an issue is brought up, sometimes these commissioners and these legislators will be saying, "Well, no one called us. We haven't heard anything." But if you're bombarding their offices, even if you call one time or multiple times, then it's a matter of public record. They cannot deny anyone called.

Rook: The money that they're using is coming from a fund that was created for emergencies.

Betty: And the fund was created for natural disasters, for hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, whatever. So to pull money from that and say that this is an emergency situation, and you're using it for immigration—that just tells you where the priorities are.

Rook: Yeah, it's cruelty as a currency.

Betty: Yeah, it's a money grab. Because I'm also hearing that they are moving detainees through here rapidly. So they're not staying. So that shows that it's being run as a business. You're not keeping them the full 14 days. You're moving them in and out. You’re billing for that.

Rook: Each cycle, each day.

Betty: Right. So that's why they don't want to shut it down, even with the preliminary injunction. That shows the intent. Because if it was truly a state-run emergency operation, and the court says “No, you can't do this,” the next day you would start complying. But they’re dragging their feet and appealing it, because the whole thing is about the money. It's a pipeline.

Rook: And it’s right in the middle of endangered land.

Betty: That’s correct. They did not do a proper Environmental Impact Statement. They claimed it was temporary, and they tried to sneak around the process. But this is a 150-acre compound with permanent infrastructure. Roads, utilities, drainage, lights, fencing. And they bulldozed sensitive wetland habitat to do it.

Rook: Do you feel like people outside Florida understand what’s happening here?

Betty: No. I don't think they do. Because if they did, there would be more outrage. There would be more people standing with us. There would be more media coverage. When the media ignores it, when the public ignores it, that’s when they get away with things like this. That’s when they bulldoze the land and say, “Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to.” And it’s too late. There are already environmental laws that are supposed to protect the environment. Those laws need to be upheld.

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