Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, will be allowed to resume operations after a new court ruling.
A federal appeals court panel in Atlanta ruled 2-1 on Thursday to stay US District Judge Kathleen Williams’s order to end operations indefinitely at the controversial center, saying it was in the public interest to keep it open.
Williams, an Obama-appointed federal judge, had issued a preliminary injunction last month ordering operations at the facility to be wound down by the end of October, with detainees transferred to other facilities and equipment and fencing removed.
Her ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Miccosukee Tribe, who used the National Environmental Policy Act to challenge the federal government’s use of the facility.
The law requires that the federal government conduct an environmental impact study before construction can begin on any project, and the plaintiffs claim the project could cause harm to the delicate ecosystem of the Everglades.
But in June, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by wetlands to aid President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport people in the U.S. illegally.
In her ruling, Williams held that the plaintiffs had standing to bring the suit against the federal government, based on the fact that the Trump administration has said it would reimburse Florida for its construction on the facility – making the detention center effectively a federal facility.
But Judges Elizabeth Branch and Barbara Lagoa – both of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump – determined on Thursday that Florida ran the immigration detention center, and not the federal government, ABC News reports.
Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, will be allowed to resume operations. President Donald Trump is seen visiting the center in July
The detention center had been ordered to close under a federal judge last month
They then sided with Florida officials, who claim that the law requiring environmental impact statements does not apply to states.
‘To the extent the district court took these statements to mean that Florida may one day be reimbursed for its expenditures on the facility, such an expectancy is insufficient as a matter of law to “federalize” the action,’ they ruled.
The judges also determined that keeping Alligator Alcatraz open is in the public interest.
‘Given that the federal government has an undisputed and wide-reaching interest combatting illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is a matter of national security public safety, we think the injunction… goes against public interest,’ Branch and Lagoa wrote.
Lagoa added that the state of Florida ‘will undoubtedly be harmed if it cannot “apply its own laws” to respond to an immigration crisis and serve the public interest.’
Judge Adalberto Jordan, who was also appointed by Obama, stood as the lone dissent in the Atlanta appeals court’s ruling.
He argued that his colleagues had overstepped their authority in dismissing the lower court’s findings that the Everglads ecosystem could de damaged by the massive detention center.
‘The district court properly balanced the equities and the public interests,’ Jordan wrote in his dissent.
‘The court considered the significant ongoing and likely future environmental harms to the plaintiffs from the detention facility, as well as the importance of immigration enforcement to the state and federal defendants.’
The appeals court ruled on Thursday that Florida ran the detention center, and state officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis were not required to conduct an environmental impact study
T he Miccosukee Tribe has now expressed their disappointment with the ruling, though it said it was ‘prepared for this result and will continue to litigate the matter.
‘We find some solace in the dissent’s accurate analysis of the law and will continue to fight for the Everglades,’ the tribe added.
Elise Bennet, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, also told the New York Times that Thursday’s ruling is a ‘heartbreaking blow to America’s Everglades and every living creature there.’
Still, she said ‘the fight isn’t even close to over.’
The detention center is located in a vast subtropical wetland that is home to alligators, crocodiles, and pythons – imagery that the White House leveraged to show its determination to remove migrants it says were wrongly allowed to stay in the US under former President Joe Biden.
DeSantis has said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after.
Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.
A police officer urges Art Sennholtz, 80, center, and Christy Howard, 70, of Just Us Volusia to be careful of fast-moving traffic as they hold protest signs outside the entrance to Alligator Alcatraz last month
DeSantis said on social media Thursday, after the appellate panel issued its ruling, that claims that the facility’s shutdown were imminent were false.
‘We said we would fight that. We said the mission would continue,’ DeSantis said. ‘So Alligator Alcatraz is in fact, like we’ve always said, open for business.’
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier also celebrated the decision as a ‘win for Florida and President Trump’s agenda.
‘Great win for Florida and our mission to help President Trump detain, deport and deliver for the American people,’ he wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security called Thursday’s ruling ‘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.
‘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.’
