Appeals Court Blocks Obama Judge’s Order To Close ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ In Everglades
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has paused a lower court ruling that ordered the closure of the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in the Florida Everglades.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the original order last month.
She wrote that she expected the number of inmates to be reduced within 60 days, with many transferred to other prisons.
After that, she said, equipment such as generators, fencing, and lighting would be removed from the site, WOFL reported.
The lawsuit prompting her ruling came from environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe.
They claimed the detention center could damage the Everglades through noise, light, and other pollution.
On Wednesday, the appeals court issued a 2-1 opinion granting the government’s request to put the order on hold while the case continues.
“After careful consideration we GRANT the Defendants’ motions, and we STAY the preliminary injunction and the underlying case itself pending appeal,” the court wrote.
The panel directly challenged the logic of the lawsuit and Williams’ findings.
The district court specifically noted ‘light pollution affecting members’ ability to observe the night skies’ and ‘noise pollution impacting members’ ability to observe and interact with wildlife,’” the judges wrote.
“In reaching this conclusion, the district court did not mention that, although located in the Big Cypress Reserve near the Everglades, the Site was a working airport with close to 28,000 landings and takeoffs in the prior six months alone, bright lights kept on ’24/7,’ and a lack of noise abatement requirements before the sites conversion to a detention center.”
That means the detention facility was not placed randomly in the Everglades; the Trump administration and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis authorized the use of an existing airport site.
The Department of Homeland Security also responded to the court’s action.
“This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility,” the agency said in a statement to Reuters.
“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.”
Williams was nominated to the bench in 2011 by President Barack Obama.
The case will remain on hold while the appeals process continues.
Williams, an Obama appointee, had issued a temporary restraining order citing environmental concerns and the absence of a formal environmental impact statement. Her order suspended housing new detainees at the site and halted construction, forcing transfers of migrants to other detention centers across Florida.
DeSantis celebrated the outcome, calling it a win against judicial interference in immigration enforcement. “The media was giddy that somehow Alligator Alcatraz was ‘shutting down,’” DeSantis said. “Now we told them that that wasn’t true. There had been illegal aliens continuing to be there and removed and returned to their home country.”
He accused Williams of overreach by ruling that Florida could not use its own property for immigration enforcement without conducting an environmental review. “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,” he said. “Well, we said we would fight that … and I’m pleased to say that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has just stayed that ruling and stayed the case. So Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we always said, open for business.”
DeSantis has framed the legal battle as part of a broader clash with opponents of his immigration policies.
“The mission continues on immigration enforcement,” he said Thursday. “We told people from the very beginning that this was not shutting down — and now the court has affirmed that we were right.”
