A Florida educator is seeking to thwart local officials’ hasty deal to hand over land in downtown Miami for the construction of Donald Trump’s presidential library.
Florida International University professor Marvin Dunn filed a legal complaint with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office in an attempt to stop Miami Dade College’s plan to cede millions of dollars’ worth of land to Trump’s nonprofit so it can build his presidential library — and God knows what else.
“I want Miami Dade College trustees to rescind that offer,” Dunn told WPLG, a Miami television station. “They took land from our kids without the decency of asking us, the public, what we thought about that.”
The vice chair of the college’s board of trustees, Roberto Alonso, told the station that the board had followed all “applicable” transparency guidelines. Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Republican administration approved the move Tuesday.
As the Miami Herald reported, the board’s vote had been “shrouded in secrecy” and led to the handover of land in downtown Miami “worth at least $67 million to Donald Trump’s nonprofit foundation to build a presidential library — and potentially a hotel — without prior public negotiations.”
The vote comes after the Miami Dade College Board of Trustees agreed to transfer the land to the state in a special board meeting last week with no debate, no public comment or discussion of the fact the land was intended for a presidential library. After the vote, the college’s president and vice chairman told the Miami Herald that even they weren’t entirely sure what the state wanted to do with the property, located immediately south of the Freedom Tower.
In March, NBC News reported that Trump’s son Eric Trump and Trump administration adviser Steve Witkoff had gotten involved in the search for a library location, which I’d argue demonstrates the alarming mix of politics and personal enrichment at play here. Sources also told NBC News that Trump’s team has said it would like a new hotel associated with the library, as well.
In addition to denouncing the land deal’s secrecy, some critics have also opposed the library’s proposed location right beside Miami’s famous Freedom Tower, which has become a symbol of hope and acceptance for immigrants after serving as a processing center for Cuban refugees.
As Florida-based immigrant activist Tessa Petit recently told The Guardian:
It’s ridiculous they’re putting a library of someone who represents everything that is contrary to freedom, someone who’s making it his mission to destroy immigrant families, next to the Freedom Tower.
Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting epitome of America’s authoritarian president and his MAGA movement than this plan to erect a self-aggrandizing shrine to the real estate mogul’s political career — which was launched using anti-immigrant bigotry — on land that has been gifted to him by political allies and next to a building that has stood as a longtime symbol of support for immigration. Trump may well be the most unabashed anti-immigrant hatemonger to ever occupy the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, Eric Trump is already sharing grandiose plans for the state-gifted land. In a statement Tuesday, Trump’s son said he envisioned a high-rise library that is “visible for miles into the Atlantic, a bold landmark on Miami’s skyline.”
