Miami, US (EFE).- Miami Dade College on Tuesday unanimously reapproved transferring 2.63 acres of prime downtown land to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation, reviving a controversial project that has triggered a legal battle, protests from activists, and renewed debate over presidential libraries in the United States.
The MDC board, voting 8-0 after a heated four-hour meeting, backed the donation of a plot valued at more than 300 million dollars next to Miami’s iconic Freedom Tower.
The validation comes after historian Marvin Dunn sued the college for allegedly violating Florida’s transparency law by approving the transfer in September without sufficient public notice.
“No president should get this land,” Dunn said during Tuesday’s session, which, unlike previous meetings, was not livestreamed. Activists also claimed speaking time was restricted.
Dunn warned that the new vote would not halt his lawsuit, scheduled for trial on Aug. 3, 2026.
“If they think this sham of a meeting will end my lawsuit, they are wrong. We are just getting started,” he said. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is backing MDC in the legal process.
Civil organizations such as the Miami Freedom Project condemned the land transfer as excessive, calling it an “insult” to migrants given Trump’s hard-line immigration policies and the site’s proximity to the Freedom Tower, the historic entry point for thousands of Cuban refugees.
Supporters cite economic benefits
If completed, the Trump Presidential Library would be the first in Florida and the 16th in the United States.
They argue it would boost tourism and generate revenue in a state where Trump has lived since 2019, after moving his residence from New York to Florida during his first presidential term.
“Having President Trump’s library in Miami is an honor and will strengthen the city by promoting tourism, encouraging economic development, and offering valuable historical and educational resources,” Evan Power, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, wrote on social media.
But critics questioned why the land would be donated to the Trump Library Foundation, led by his son Eric Trump.
Local filmmaker and activist Billy Corben told the board, “Get a good deal. Negotiate with this successful billionaire real-estate magnate who is our president. This is not communist Cuba. We don’t have semi-secret, unelected courts expropriating property from rightful owners to give it to the rich and powerful in government.”
A November poll by Bendixen & Amandi International found that 74% of Miami-Dade voters oppose the state giving land for the library.
How presidential libraries work
The Trump library would join a system of 15 existing presidential libraries managed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
These institutions preserve millions of documents, photos, films, and artifacts from presidential administrations and serve as public research centers and museums.
NARA currently operates 14 official libraries and has two more in development, Biden’s and Trump’s.
The system began in 1939 when Franklin D. Roosevelt donated his records to the federal government, establishing a precedent for preserving presidential history.
Most libraries are located in a president’s home state or a place of political significance, from John F. Kennedy’s library in Boston, Massachusets, to Ronald Reagan’s in Simi Valley, California, and George W. Bush’s in Dallas, Texas.
In 2017, Barack Obama broke tradition by opting for the first fully digital presidential library with no physical archive building.
Presidential libraries collectively house more than 600 million pages of text, nearly 20 million photos, tens of thousands of audiovisual recordings, and over 500 terabytes of digital data, according to NARA.
They draw more than one million visitors annually, with Reagan’s, Kennedy’s, and Lyndon B. Johnson’s among the most popular.
While libraries are built with private funds, NARA administers them afterward, making the location and land acquisition a central point of debate in Miami’s ongoing clash over the Trump project. EFE
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