Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz detention center will remain open for now — with plans to ramp back up — after an appeals court in Atlanta halted a lower judge’s ruling to close it within 60 days.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted requests from the State of Florida and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stay a district court’s preliminary injunction. The appeals court ruled 2-1 last week that the 5,000-bed immigration facility’s operation did not require an environmental review because it’s funded and operated by the state.
The decision allows Alligator Alcatraz to stay open while a lawsuit challenging the Everglades facility on environmental grounds makes its way through the courts, CBS News reported.
Last month, a federal judge in Florida issued a preliminary injunction to block the facility’s expansion, ordered its closure within 60 days and denied a request for a stay until the case could be heard.
Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis took to social media to celebrate the decision, posting a short video to announce “the mission continues.”
“The media was giddy that somehow Alligator Alcatraz was quote ‘shutting down,’” he said in the clip. “They ran with the narrative because some leftist judge ruled, implausibly, that somehow Florida wasn’t allowed to use our own property to help the federal government in this important mission because they didn’t do an environmental impact statement.”
Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier also appeared on Fox News to celebrate the win.
“Our victory at the appellate level will ensure that the judge’s 60-day clock for shutting down the facility is now stopped,” he said. “It’s now back open for business, no limits, and we will fill it up with thousands of detainees and we will get these criminal aliens back where they came from.”
In August, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami issued an injunction to halt any expansion at the detention facility in response to a lawsuit filed by two environmental groups and a Native American tribe. The lawsuit alleges the detention facility violates federal environmental laws and should be shut down.
The appellate court disagreed with Williams’ findings that state and federal officials violated the National Environmental Policy Act when constructing the facility.
The appeals court based its decision on the fact Alligator Alcatraz is a state-operated facility; therefore, it did not require the environmental review needed for federally funded construction projects, Reuters reported.
Florida argued that the environmental impact statement required by federal law doesn’t apply to states. Trump officials have visited the facility, but claim the federal government isn’t responsible for the detention center.
Reuters also reported that both DeSantis and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have said the federal government will pay for expanding the detention facility, but there is no evidence that federal funds have been used for construction, the court ruled.
Florida officials maintain the state has not received federal money or been reimbursed by the federal government for the cost of running the detention facility. But there have been previous reports Florida is seeking federal grant money to fund a portion of it, News 4 Jax reported.
Florida opened the detention facility in early July at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. The Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park surround the isolated airstrip.
Florida officials have refuted claims the self-contained facility poses environmental threats, citing the decades-long use of the airport for flight training in a remote area of the state.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security called the ruling a “huge victory,” adding, “Today’s order is a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense.”
“This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility,” DHS said in a statement shared on social media. “It has and will always be about open-borders activists and judges trying to keep law enforcement from removing dangerous criminal aliens from our communities, full stop.”
The split appellate panel also opined that President Donald Trump’s administration is likely to win a court battle against the two environmental groups that want it closed down.
The majority ruling was written by Judge Barbara Lagoa and joined by Judge Elizabeth Branch, both of whom were nominated in President Trump’s first term. Judge Adalberto Jordan, an Obama nominee, dissented, CBS News reported.
Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe filed the lawsuit, alleging the facility is endangering the Everglades and its wildlife.
They contend state and federal officials violated NEPA when they rushed to construct Alligator Alcatraz. Federal law requires evaluating potential environmental impacts before such a project can move forward.
“If the DeSantis and Trump administrations choose to ramp operations back up at the detention center, they will just be throwing good money after bad because this ill-considered facility — which is causing harm to the Everglades — will ultimately be shut down,” Friends of the Everglades’ executive director, Eve Samples, said in the Reuters report.
Also last week, Florida opened its second immigrant detention facility, known as the Deportation Depot, inside the former Baker Correctional Institution west of Jacksonville, Fox News reported.
As of Friday, 117 people were being held at the facility, which has the capacity to house up to 1,500 detainees awaiting deportation. Uthmeier told Fox News he doesn’t expect legal pushback since the site is a repurposed prison.
“The Baker County site was actually a pre-existing state jail that was no longer in use,” Uthmeier told Fox News. “So, it’s already retrofitted out to hold a lot of people. We’ll fill it up quickly, and we’ll put it to good use.”
