By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and WILL WEISSERT

OCHOPEE, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump will turn a new immigration detention center in a remote area of the Florida Everglades into a symbol of his border crackdown when he visits on Tuesday.

The facility, assembled on a remote airstrip with tents and trailers that are normally used after a natural disaster, has been given the nickname “Alligator Alcatraz,” a moniker that has alarmed immigrant activists but appeals to the Republican president’s aggressive approach to deportations.

“This is not a nice business,” Trump said while leaving the White House in the morning. Then he joked that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.”

“Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he said, as he moved his hand in a zigzag motion. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.”

Ahead of Trump’s arrival, local authorities were positioned by the entrance of the airstrip. Media vans and other vehicles were parked along the highway lined by cypress trees.

Protestors have often gathered near the facility, which is about 50 miles (80.47 kilometers) west of Miami and could house 5,000 detainees. They’ve criticized the potential impact on a delicate ecosystem and say Trump is trying to send a cruel message to immigrants — while some Native American leaders have also opposed construction, saying the land is sacred.

But a key selling point for the Trump administration is the site’s remoteness — and the fact that it is in swampland filled with mosquitoes, pythons and alligators. The White House hopes that conveys a message to detainees and the rest of the world that repercussions will be severe if the immigration laws of the United States are not followed.

“There’s only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “It is isolated, and it is surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain.”

Crackdowns on the U.S.-Mexico border and harsh immigration policies have long been a centerpiece of Trump’s political brand.

During his first term in 2019, Trump denied reports that he floated the idea of building a moat filled with alligators at the southern border. “I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough,” he said at the time.

In his second term, Trump has suggested that his administration could move to reopen Alcatraz, the notorious and hard-to-reach island prison off San Francisco. The White House has similarly promoted the political shock value of sending some immigrants awaiting deportation from the U.S. to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.

Some of the ideas have been impractical. For example, transforming Alcatraz from a tourist attraction into a prison would be very costly, and Guantánamo Bay is being used less often than administration officials originally envisioned.

However, the new detention center in the Everglades came together very quickly. Former U.S. Rep. David Jolly of Florida, a former Republican who is now running for governor as a Democrat, called the facility a “callous political stunt.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees are generally held for reasons like entering the country illegally or overstaying a visa. They are either waiting for ICE to put them on the next flight or bus ride home, or they’re fighting their removal in immigration court.

If an immigrant is accused of or has committed a violent crime, he or she is tried and held in state or federal criminal jurisdiction, separate from the immigration system. In those cases, they may be transferred to ICE for deportation after completing their criminal sentences.

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State officials are spearheading construction of the Florida facility, but much of the cost is being covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is best known for responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whom Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has credited as the architect of the Everglades plan, first debuted the proposal with a slickly produced video, complete with custom graphics featuring red-eyed alligators and a hard rock soundtrack.

The Department of Homeland Security posted an image of alligators wearing ICE hats and sitting in front of a fenced-in compound ringed with barbed wire.

The Florida Republican Party has fundraised off the facility, selling branded T-shirts and beverage container sleeves. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested Monday that the facility would be open and “ready for business” by the time Trump arrives.

The governor, who challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has also played up the fact that the site will be hard to escape from.

“They ain’t going anywhere once they’re there, unless you want them to go somewhere, because good luck getting to civilization,” DeSantis said. “So the security is amazing.”

Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.

By STAN CHOE

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting on Tuesday as Wall Street’s momentum slows after setting record highs in each of the last two days.

The S&P 500 was 0.3% lower in early trading and on track for its first loss in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was edging down by 21 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower.

Tesla helped pull the market lower as the relationship between its CEO, Elon Musk, and President Donald Trump soured even further. Once allies, the two have clashed recently, and Trump suggested there’s potentially “BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED” by scrutinizing subsidies, contracts or other government spending going to Musk’s companies.

Tesla fell 6.9% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500. It had already dropped a little more than 21% for the year so far coming into the day, in part because of Musk’s and Trump’s feud.

The U.S. stock market has made a stunning recovery from its springtime sell-off of roughly 20%. But challenges still lay ahead for Wall Street, with one of the largest being the continued threat of Trump’s tariffs.

Many of Trump’s stiff proposed taxes on imports are currently on pause, but they’re scheduled to kick into effect in about a week. Depending on how big they are, they could hurt the economy and worsen inflation.

Congress is also debating proposed cuts to tax rates and other measures that could send the U.S. government’s debt spiraling higher, which could push inflation upward. That in turn could mean higher interest rates, which would hurt prices for bonds, stocks and other investments.

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Despite such challenges, strategists at Barclays nevertheless say they’re seeing signals of euphoria emerging among amateur and smaller-pocketed investors. The strategists say a measure that tries to show how much “excess optimism” is in the market is not far from the peaks seen during the “meme stock” craze that sent GameStop to market-bending heights or to the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium.

Other signals are also indicating exuberance in the market, such as demand for what are known as “blank-check companies” that hunt for privately held companies to buy.

Of course, “market bubbles are infamously difficult to predict and can endure far longer than anticipated before correcting,” according to the Barclays strategists led by Stefano Pascale and Anshul Gupta.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of a suite of economic reports coming later this week.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.23% from 4.24%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly in Europe following more mixed sessions in Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2%, and South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.6% for two of the larger moves.

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a surprising statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi as the Trump administration promises to release more files from its sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein: The FBI, she said, was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of the wealthy financier “with children or child porn.”

The comment, made to reporters at the White House days after a similar remark to a stranger with a hidden camera, raised the stakes for President Donald Trump’s administration to prove it has in its possession previously unseen compelling evidence. That task is all the more pressing after an earlier document dump that Bondi hyped angered elements of Trump’s base by failing to deliver new bombshells and as administration officials who had promised to unlock supposed secrets of the so-called government “deep state” struggle to fulfill that pledge.

Yet weeks after Bondi’s remarks, it remains unclear what she was referring to.

The Associated Press spoke with lawyers and law enforcement officials in criminal cases of Epstein and socialite former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell who said they hadn’t seen and didn’t know of a trove of recordings like what Bondi described. Indictments and detention memos do not reference the existence of videos of Epstein with children, and neither was charged with possession of child sex abuse material even though that offense would have been much easier to prove than the sex trafficking counts they faced.

One potential clue may lie in a little-noticed 2023 court filing — among hundreds of documents reviewed by the AP — in which Epstein’s estate was revealed to have located an unspecified number of videos and photos that it said might contain child sex abuse material. But even that remains shrouded in secrecy with lawyers involved in that civil case saying a protective order prevents them from discussing it.

The filing suggests a discovery of recordings after the criminal cases had concluded, but if that’s what Bondi was referencing, the Justice Department has not said.

The department declined repeated requests from the AP to speak with officials overseeing the Epstein review. Spokespeople did not answer a list of questions about Bondi’s comments, including when and where the recordings were procured, what they depict and whether they were newly discovered as authorities dug through their evidence collection or were known for some time to have been in the government’s possession.

“Outside sources who make assertions about materials included in the DOJ’s review cannot speak to what materials are included in the DOJ’s review,” spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said in a statement.

FILE – This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP, File)

Bondi has faced pressure after first release fell short of expectations

Epstein’s crimes, high-profile connections and jailhouse suicide have made the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and online sleuths seeking proof of a coverup. Elon Musk entered the frenzy during his acrimonious fallout with Trump when he said without evidence in a since-deleted social media post that the reason the Epstein files have yet to be released is that the Republican president is featured in them.

During a Fox News Channel interview in February, Bondi suggested an alleged Epstein “client list” was sitting on her desk. The next day, the Justice Department distributed binders marked “declassified” to far-right influencers at the White House, but it quickly became clear much of the information had long been in the public domain. No “client list” was disclosed, and there’s no evidence such a document exists.

The flop left conservatives fuming and failed to extinguish conspiracy theories that for years have spiraled around Epstein’s case. Right wing-personality Laura Loomer called on Bondi to resign, branding her a “total liar.”

Afterward, Bondi said an FBI “source” informed her of the existence of thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents and ordered the bureau to provide the “full and complete Epstein files,” including any videos. Employees since then have logged hours reviewing records to prepare them for release. It’s unclear when that might happen.

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In April, Bondi was approached in a restaurant by a woman with a hidden camera who asked about the status of the Epstein files release. Bondi replied that there were tens of thousands of videos “and it’s all with little kids,” so she said the FBI had to go through each one.

After conservative activist James O’Keefe, who obtained and later publicized the hidden-camera video, alerted the Justice Department to the encounter, Bondi told reporters at the White House: “There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn.”

The comments tapped into long-held suspicions that, despite the release over the years of thousands of records documenting Epstein’s activities, damaging details about him or other prominent figures remain concealed.

The situation was further muddied by recent comments from FBI Director Kash Patel to podcaster Joe Rogan that did not repeat Bondi’s account about tens of thousands of videos.

Though not asked explicitly about Bondi, Patel dismissed the possibility of incriminating videos of powerful Epstein friends, saying, “If there was a video of some guy or gal committing felonies on an island and I’m in charge, don’t you think you’d see it?” Asked whether the narrative “might not be accurate that there’s video of these guys doing this,” he replied, “Exactly.”

FILE – Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of late British publisher Robert Maxwell, reads a statement expressing her family’s gratitude to Spanish authorities after recovery of his body, Nov. 7, 1991, in Tenerife, Spain. (AP Photo/Dominique Mollard, File)

Epstein took his own life before he could stand trial

Epstein’s suicide in August 2019, weeks after his arrest, prevented a trial in New York and cut short the discovery process in which evidence is shared among lawyers.

But even in a subsequent prosecution of Maxwell, in which such evidence would presumably have been relevant given the nature of the accusations against an alleged co-conspirator, salacious videos of Epstein with children never surfaced nor were part of the case, said one of her lawyers.

“We were never provided with any of those materials. I suspect if they existed, we would have seen them, and I’ve never seen them, so I have no idea what she’s talking about,” said Jeffrey Pagliuca, who represented Maxwell in a 2021 trial in which she was convicted of luring teenage girls to be molested by Epstein.

To be sure, photographs of nude or seminude girls have long been known to be part of the case. Investigators recovered possibly thousands of such pictures while searching his Manhattan mansion, and a videorecorded walk-through by law enforcement of his Palm Beach, Florida, home revealed sexually suggestive photographs displayed inside, court records show.

Accounts from more than one accuser of feeling watched or seeing cameras or surveillance equipment in Epstein’s properties have contributed to public expectations of sexual recordings. A 2020 Justice Department Office of Professional Responsibility report on the handling of an earlier Epstein investigation hinted at that possibility, saying police who searched his Palm Beach home in 2005 found computer keyboards, monitors and disconnected surveillance cameras, but the equipment — including video recordings and other electronic items — was missing.

There’s no indication prosecutors obtained any missing equipment during the later federal investigation, and the indictment against him included no recording allegations.

An AP review of hundreds of documents in the Maxwell and Epstein criminal cases identified no reference to tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with underage girls.

“I don’t recall personally ever having that kind of discussion,” said one Epstein lawyer, Marc Fernich, who couldn’t rule out such evidence wasn’t located later. “It’s not something I ever heard about.”

In one nonspecific reference to video evidence, prosecutors said in a 2020 filing that they would produce to Maxwell’s lawyers thousands of images and videos from Epstein’s electronic devices in response to a warrant.

But Pagliuca said his recollection was those videos consisted largely of recordings in which Epstein was “musing” into a recording device — “Epstein talking to Epstein,” he said.

A revelation from the Epstein estate

Complicating efforts to assess the Epstein evidence is the volume of accusers, court cases and districts where legal wrangling has occurred, including after Epstein’s suicide and Maxwell’s conviction.

The cases include 2022 lawsuits in Manhattan’s federal court from an accuser identified as Jane Doe 1 and in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein had a home, alleging that financial services giant JPMorgan Chase failed to heed red flags about him being a “high-risk” customer.

Lawyers issued a subpoena for any video recordings or photos that could bolster their case.

They told a judge months later the Epstein estate had alerted them that it had found content that “might contain child sex abuse imagery” while responding to the subpoena and requested a protocol for handling “videorecorded material and photographs.” The judge ordered representatives of Epstein’s estate to review the materials before producing them to lawyers and to alert the FBI to possible child sexual abuse imagery.

Court filings don’t detail the evidence or say how many videos or images were found, and it’s unclear whether the recordings Bondi referenced were the same ones.

The estate’s disclosure was later included by a plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jennifer Freeman, in a complaint to the FBI and the Justice Department asserting that investigators had failed over the years to adequately collect potential evidence of child sex abuse material.

Freeman cited Bondi’s comments in a new lawsuit on behalf of an Epstein accuser who alleges he assaulted her in 1996. In an interview, Freeman said she had not seen recordings and had no direct knowledge but wanted to understand what Bondi meant.

“I want to know what she’s addressing, what is she talking about — I’d like to know that,” she said.

Associated Press journalist Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.

The Rent Guidelines Board voted Monday night to permit rent increases of 3 percent on the city’s 2.4 million rent stabilized tenants. With Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani promising to freeze rent stabilized rents for four years, it could be the last increase for a while.

Tenants and housing advocates rallying outside the Rent Guidelines Board meeting Tuesday night. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

At last year’s Rent Guidelines Board final meeting, Zohran Mamdani was arrested outside, put  in handcuffs, and escorted off the premises. He and several other elected officials were protesting the board—which sets allowable rent increases for around 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in the city—asking its members to freeze the rent.

“Every year tenants come out here and we tell stories about how rent burdened we are, how we can’t afford to live here… and it falls on deaf ears,” said Elisa Martinez, a rent stabilized tenant from Washington Heights.

This year, the mood was different.

Though he wasn’t there himself, the excitement around the democratic nominee for mayor’s proposal to freeze the rent during all four years as mayor was unmistakable.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who cross-endorsed with Mamdani during the primary, was there as surrogate.

“One million New Yorkers last Tuesday voted for candidates who said ‘freeze the rent,’” Lander said. “We are talking about people’s dreams to stay in their homes and raise their families… It’s not too much to ask.”

(Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

Dozens of tenants flanked Lander and filed into the Museo del Barrio in Harlem where the RGB meeting was scheduled, chanting “freeze the rent.”

And though they didn’t get their wish this year—the rent guidelines board voted to increase rents by 3 percent on one year leases and 4.5 percent on two year leases—some tenants left with a sense of optimism for next year, when they hoped Mamdani would be mayor.

“I feel like the energy is palpable today,” said Martinez, who helped organize tenants in support of a rent freeze. “Knowing that we’re gonna push a mayor into office in November that has promised to not only freeze our rent now, but to freeze it for four years.”

The 3 percent increase this year comes after three years of rent increases during Eric Adams’ administration, for a total of 12 percent on one-year leases over four years. The increases will affect new leases starting on or after Oct 1.

The increases are lower than property owners have pushed for. They say that costs, which rose 6 percent this year according to the board’s analysis, are rising faster than rents can keep up.

“While we are disappointed that the RGB once again adjusted rents below inflation, we appreciate that they stood up to political pressure calling for rent freezes that would accelerate the financial and physical deterioration of thousands of older rent-stabilized buildings.” said Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, in a statement.

Tenants say any increase is too much. “People definitely need a break, and we’re tired of being priced out of the city,” said Ander Lamothe, a tenant rallying for the freeze. Tenant groups point to the board’s research which shows a 12 percent increase in landlord profits. 

For some New Yorkers, a rent increase can mean the difference between staying in the city or having to leave. For Fracisca Guzman, a rent stabilized tenant in Sunset Park, it would mean that she could save more money for her daughter.

Guzman told City Limits in Spanish that her rent has continued to go up even as her landlord  fails to make repairs, she said.

“The tenants in this room are a fraction of the 20,000 tenants who committed to vote for a mayor who will freeze the rent,” said Ritti Singh, communications director with the New York State Tenants Bloc. “People are pissed off and we have a place to channel that in this [November].”

Alex Armlovich, one of the four public members of the board, voted yes to the proposed increases. He said that, more than the private landlords who said their buildings were vulnerable, he was compelled by nonprofit housing providers the Community Preservation Corporation who testified to the board.

“Everyone talks about opening the books, they did,” Armlovich told City Limits. According to a board report, 9 percent of buildings with rent stabilized units were in financial distress.

Howard Slatkin, President of CPC, raised the alarm about deteriorating rent stabilized housing stock in a City Limits oped earlier this month. “Failing to plan adequately for expenses shortchanges the well-being of residents and the future habitability of housing, regardless of who owns the building,” he wrote.

Every year, the board is caught in a tug-of-war between tenants and landlords.

The push and pull is by design: the board has two owner members, two landlord members, and five public members to represent the general public. For the past few years, that produced unhappy compromise: rents have gone up, but never as much as landlords have asked for.

Part of the difficulty is coming up with one number to suit a large, diverse stock of housing. Some of the rent stabilized housing stock are more than 50-year-old buildings that are entirely rent stabilized. Some have a mix of rent-regulated units and market rate units. Others are newer buildings constructed with state tax programs like 421a.

“The analysis is not comparing apples to apples,” said Ann Korchak with the group Small Property Owners of New York. “Small property owners that are operating off their rent will really need these rent increases. This is how we pay our expenses.”

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Rent Guidelines board froze the rent three times during his term.

Following the vote, Mayor Eric Adams—who is running against Mamdani in the general election, as an independent— criticized the idea of a rent freeze, saying it would result in “worsening housing conditions” for tenants, though also said he wanted a lower rent hike this year than where the RGB landed.  

“While the board exercised their independent judgment, and made an adjustment based on elements such as inflation, I am disappointed that they approved increases higher than what I called for,” Adams said in a statement.   

As Mamdani made freezing the rent a central tenet of his primary campaign for mayor, the board, its independence, and its decision-making processes have received even more scrutiny.

Mamdani has promised to upend the norms.

“Even a supposedly modest rent hike in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis will push New Yorkers out of their homes. But as voters showed last Tuesday, New Yorkers are ready for a city government that lowers costs instead of padding real estate profits,” Assemblymember Mamdani said in a statement. “Change is coming.”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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The post Could This Be The Last Stabilized Rent Hike for Four Years? appeared first on City Limits.