Washington — A federal appeals court on Thursday halted a lower court ruling that required Florida and the Trump administration to dismantle parts of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a controversial immigration detention site in the Everglades.
The 2-1 ruling by a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit will effectively allow Alligator Alcatraz to stay open while a lawsuit challenging the detention center on environmental grounds works its way through the court system.
The Department of Homeland Security began moving detainees out of the site late last month. But the state has said Alligator Alcatraz will ramp back up if the lower court ruling is overturned.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered the state of Florida and federal government to immediately stop expanding the facility and to start dismantling its fences, lights and generators within 60 days. The judge sided with environmental groups and a Native American tribe who argued that Alligator Alcatraz — located in the middle of the sensitive Florida Everglades — should have been subject to federal environmental reviews.
But on Thursday, the panel of appellate court judges froze that ruling. The court concluded that state and federal officials are likely to succeed in showing that the site isn’t subject to the National Environmental Policy Act, because it is a state-operated facility and Florida has not yet received any federal reimbursement for the cost of running the site.
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.
DHS lauded the ruling, calling it 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,” the department wrote in a post on X. “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.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a video on X that Alligator Alcatraz remains “open for business.”
“The mission continues and we’re going to continue leading the way when it comes to immigration enforcement,” he said.
Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, two of the groups that sued over Alligator Alcatraz, said in a statement they believe the case will ultimately be decided in their favor.
“While disappointing, we never expected ultimate success to be easy. We’re hopeful the preliminary injunction will be affirmed when it’s reviewed on its merits during the appeal,” Friends of the Everglades executive director Eve Samples said.
Center for Biological Diversity senior attorney Elise Bennett said: “This is a heartbreaking blow to America’s Everglades and every living creature there, but the fight isn’t even close to over and I’m confident we’ll ultimately prevail.”
Located on an abandoned airstrip, Alligator Alcatraz is part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to increase the number of immigration detention beds as Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests surge. In some cases, the federal government has partnered with Florida and several other GOP-led states.
The Trump administration has presented Alligator Alcatraz as a cost-effective way of holding detainees and said it serves as a deterrent for undocumented immigrants. But critics have alleged inhumane conditions at the site.
Several other lawsuits have challenged Alligator Alcatraz, including a suit arguing that detainees there have limited access to attorneys. Another suit argues that Florida doesn’t have the legal right to operate an immigration detention facility.
