TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Miami activist alleges that officials at a local college violated Florida's open government law when they gifted a sizable plot of prime downtown real estate to the state, which then transferred it to the foundation for Donald Trump's future presidential library.
The nearly 3-acre (1.2-hectare) property is a developer’s dream and is valued at more than $67 million, according to a 2025 assessment by the Miami-Dade County property appraiser. One of the last undeveloped lots on an iconic stretch of palm tree-lined Biscayne Boulevard, one real estate expert wagered that the parcel could sell for hundreds of millions of dollars more.
Click to Gallery
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing that President Donald Trump's presidential library be built in a parking lot that is currently used by Miami-Dade College staff and faculty and is adjacent to the Freedom Tower, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing that President Donald Trump's presidential library be built in a parking lot that is currently used by Miami-Dade College staff and faculty and is adjacent to the Freedom Tower, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
The Freedom Tower is seen in downtown Miami on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Daniel Kozin)
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing that President Donald Trump's presidential library be built in a parking lot that is currently used by Miami-Dade College staff and faculty and is adjacent to the Freedom Tower, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Marvin Dunn, an activist and chronicler of local Black history, filed a lawsuit Monday in a Miami-Dade County court against the Board of Trustees for Miami Dade College, a state-run school that previously owned the property. He alleges that the board violated Florida's Government in the Sunshine law by not providing sufficient notice for its special meeting on Sept. 23, when it voted to give up the land, and he's seeking to block the land transfer.
Representatives for the college didn't immediately respond to a Tuesday request seeking comment.
An agenda released ahead of the meeting simply stated the board would consider conveying property to a state fund overseen by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, but provided no details on which piece of property was being considered or why. Unlike every other meeting the board has held this year, the 8 a.m. meeting on Sept. 23 was not livestreamed.
“No one not already in on the deal would have had any idea from this ‘notice’ of what the District Board of Trustees was actually planning to do,” the lawsuit states.
At 8:14 a.m., DeSantis' press office sent out an email announcing he would propose gifting the land for Trump's presidential library.
A week later, the governor and his Cabinet made it official, effectively putting the property under the control of the Trump family when they deeded the land to the foundation for Trump’s library. The foundation is led by three trustees: Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump’s husband, Michael Boulos, and the president's attorney James Kiley.
Flanked by glitzy condos, the property overlooks a waterfront park and is across the street from the Miami Heat's arena. Miami Dade College had used it as an employee parking lot, though two decades ago the property was eyed for a major expansion of the college's downtown campus, according to a 2006 report by Miami News.
DeSantis has touted the potential benefits the college could see from the presidential library development, though the land deal doesn't guarantee any commitments to the school, which is one of the nation's largest institutions of higher education. The deal only specifies that the parcel must contain “components” of a presidential library or center, with construction starting within five years.
This story was first published Oct. 7. It was updated on Oct. 8 to correct that Marvin Dunn is suing Miami Dade College officials, not Miami city officials.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing that President Donald Trump's presidential library be built in a parking lot that is currently used by Miami-Dade College staff and faculty and is adjacent to the Freedom Tower, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing that President Donald Trump's presidential library be built in a parking lot that is currently used by Miami-Dade College staff and faculty and is adjacent to the Freedom Tower, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
The Freedom Tower is seen in downtown Miami on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Daniel Kozin)
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is proposing that President Donald Trump's presidential library be built in a parking lot that is currently used by Miami-Dade College staff and faculty and is adjacent to the Freedom Tower, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing intensifying demands from Congress to release the full video of an attack on an alleged drug boat that killed two survivors in what Democrats and legal experts said may have been a war crime or murder. Hegseth provided a classified briefing for congressional leaders Tuesday alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe at the Capitol. He said he's still weighing whether to release the video.
The situation has awakened the Republican-controlled Congress to its oversight role after months of frustration about the trickle of information from the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the U.S. military flew a pair of fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday as the Trump administration raises pressure on President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump’s speech on combating inflation turns to grievances about immigrants: On the road in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, President Donald Trump tried to emphasize his focus on combating inflation, yet the issue that has damaged his popularity couldn’t quite command his full attention. Yet he meandered during his remarks, asking why the U.S. couldn’t take in more immigrants from Scandinavia and using an expletive to describe countries such as Haiti and Somalia.
The Latest:
Republicans in Florida have found strong support from voters with heritage from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as they likened Democratic leaders to the governments they fled.
But U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican whose district is being targeted by Democrats and includes the city of Miami, said Hispanics also want a secure border, a healthy economy and some relief for “those who have been here for years and do not have a criminal record.”
“The Hispanic vote is not guaranteed,” Salazar said in a video post after Democratic wins in New Jersey and Virginia. “Hispanics married President Trump, but they are only dating the GOP.”
Democrat David Jolly, running for Florida governor, celebrated the results in Miami: “Change is here. It’s sweeping the nation, and it’s sweeping Florida.”
Voters elected Eileen Higgins by a margin of about 19 percentage points on Tuesday, defeating a Republican endorsed by President Donald Trump to end her party’s nearly three-decade losing streak and give Democrats a boost in one of the last electoral battles ahead of the 2026 midterms.
“We are facing rhetoric from elected officials that is so dehumanizing and cruel, especially against immigrant populations,” Higgins told The Associated Press after her victory speech in the Hispanic-majority city that may become the home of Trump’s presidential library. “The residents of Miami were ready to be done with that.”
The victory provides Democrats with some momentum as the GOP looks to keep its grip in Florida. “Tonight’s result is yet another warning sign to Republicans that voters are fed up with their out-of-touch agenda that is raising costs,” Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin said in a statement.
Less than a week after Congo and Rwanda signed a deal in Trump’s presence in Washington that was meant to halt fighting in eastern Congo, and less than two months after he witnessed Cambodia and Thailand sign a ceasefire pact in Malaysia to end their border conflict, fighting has surged in both places.
The developments have caused international alarm, which resulted in urgent calls to halt the renewed violence.
Public flight tracking websites showed a pair of U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jets fly over the Gulf for more than 30 minutes flying over water. A U.S. defense official called it a “routine training flight." Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, the official could not say if the jets were armed, and said they stayed in international airspace.
The U.S. military has built up its largest presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. President Donald Trump says land attacks are coming soon, without saying where.
▶ Read more about the fighter jets
Not long after Trump took office in January, staff at CentroNía bilingual preschool began rehearsing what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials came to the door.
In October, the school scrapped its beloved Hispanic Heritage Month parade. ICE had begun stopping staff members, all of whom have legal status, and school officials worried about drawing more unwelcome attention.
All of this transpired before ICE officials arrested a teacher inside a Spanish immersion preschool in Chicago in October. The event left immigrants who work in child care, along with the families who rely on them, feeling frightened and vulnerable.
Trump’s push for the largest mass deportation in history has had an outsized impact on the child care field, which is heavily reliant on immigrants and already strained by a worker shortage. Immigrant child care workers and preschool teachers, the majority of whom are working and living in the U.S. legally, say they are wracked by anxiety over possible encounters with ICE officials. Some have left the field, and others have been forced out by changes to immigration policy.
▶ Read more about the impact on child care workers
Trump admitted Tuesday what he earlier denied: He used the slur “shithole countries” to disparage Haiti and African nations during a 2018 meeting with lawmakers. Now he's bragging about a comment that sparked global outrage during his first term.
Back then, Trump had denied making the contemptuous statement during a closed-door meeting, but on Tuesday, he showed little compunction reliving it during a rally in Pennsylvania. He went on to further disparage Somalia as “filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”
Trump was boasting that he had “announced a permanent pause on Third World migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries,” when someone in the crowd yelled out the 2018 remark.
That prompted him to recall the 2018 incident. His telling hewed closely to the description offered at the time by people briefed on the Oval Office meeting. Trump posted on Twitter the day after that news broke that “this was not the language I used” and claimed he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians.”
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments
FILE _ Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at a news conference after the Federal Open Market Committee meeting Oct. 29, 2025, at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens during an event at the State Department, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump dances to music after speaking at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pa., Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
