The controversial immigration detention facility, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” located in the Florida Everglades, has been granted permission to continue operations. An appeals court on Tuesday upheld its previous ruling, which blocked a judge’s mandate to close the center for failing to adhere to federal environmental regulations.
In a narrow 2-1 decision, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the facility is not bound by federal oversight and therefore not obligated to conduct an environmental impact assessment as per federal law.
The majority opinion emphasized that the facility was developed entirely under the direction and funding of Florida state authorities. “The construction and management of the facility were entirely executed by the state, without federal involvement,” the judges noted.
The legal contention revolves around the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which mandates that federal agencies evaluate potential environmental consequences before undertaking significant projects.
The court determined that since the facility remains state-operated and outside federal jurisdiction, it is exempt from the requirement to perform a federal environmental impact review. This conclusion was supported by the fact that Florida had not received federal funds when the U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued an injunction last year to phase out the facility’s operations.
The court wrote that Florida had received no federal reimbursement when U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’ preliminary injunction ordering a gradual winding down of operations was issued last year. Williams had found that a federal reimbursement plan had effectively already been made.
The appeals court paused Williams’ order just days after it was handed down in August, pending a hearing, which was held earlier this month.
In a dissent to the appeals court’s latest ruling, Judge Nancy Abudu wrote that immigration is a federal responsibility and that the federal government cannot relinquish its authority just because Florida officials built an immigration detention center.
“The facility would not, and could not, have been built and used as an immigration detention center without the federal defendants’ request,” Abudu said. “The evidence of federal control perhaps is most apparent when we acknowledge that immigration remains uniquely and exclusively within the federal government’s domain.”
The detention center was constructed last year by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to support President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. (Getty Images)
Two of the environmental groups that brought the lawsuit — Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity — said they would continue pursuing the case as it returns to Williams for further litigation.
“This fight is far from over,” Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, said in a statement. “Alligator Alcatraz was hastily erected in one of the most fragile ecosystems in the country without the most basic environmental review at immense human and ecological cost.”
The facility is located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport site, an area surrounded by protected wetlands within the Everglades ecosystem, according to court filings.
Officials in the Sunshine State also built a second immigration detention center in northern Florida.
Environmental advocates protest against the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center in Florida. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Earlier this month, a lawyer for two migrants detained at “Alligator Alcatraz” said in a court declaration that guards severely beat and pepper-sprayed detainees, causing injuries to their heads, shoulders and wrists.
“The officers beat several people during this incident and broke another detained individual’s wrist,” lawyer Katherine Blankenship wrote.
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