Nearly two months after the hasty and controversial birth of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a federal judge has slammed the brakes on the operation, ruling that no more detainees can be sent to the remote migrant detention camp deep in the marshy wetlands of the Everglades.
Built in just a matter of days, the facility garnered sharp criticism for its treatment of migrants who have been confined in cages amid sweltering heat, bug infestations and meager meals, prompting members of Congress and state representatives that witnessed the conditions to demand its immediate closure.
US District Judge Kathleen Williams on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction in a federal lawsuit filed by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The Miccosukee Tribe, a Native American tribe whose reservation lies within miles of the facility, raised serious concerns about the impact the facility will have on their land and the environmentally sensitive area, including the plants and animals that inhabit the Everglades.
“The project creates irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area,” Williams said in the order.
A preliminary injunction is a temporary order put in place until a court can make a final decision in a case. The state has initiated an appeal of the judge’s order, a spokesperson for the Florida attorney general said in a post on X.
“We got news last night that we had a judge try to upset the apple cart with respect to our deportation and detainee processing center down in South Florida at ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ I just wanted to say this was not something that was unexpected,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Friday. “We knew that this would be something that will likely happen and we will respond accordingly.”
“We’re not going to be deterred,” DeSantis said. “We are totally in the right on this.”
DeSantis is doubling down on immigrant detention centers in his state – including the announcement of a new immigration detention facility he dubbed “Deportation Depot,” which can hold as many as 2,000 detainees.
For now, the installation of any additional industrial style lighting is prohibited, as is any paving, filling, excavating, fencing, or erecting any additional building or tents at “Alligator Alcatraz.” The order also mandates no detainees beyond those currently housed at the facility can be moved there.
Lighting, fencing and “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project” and added to Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport must also be removed within 60 days of the order, Williams said, effectively shutting the facility that’s become a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown – which Americans largely oppose.
“Alligator Alcatraz remains operational, and we will not stop in our mission to detain, deport, and deliver for the American people,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a social media post Friday.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin condemned Williams’ ruling as an attempt to derail the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown efforts.
“This ruling from an activist judge ignores the fact that this land has already been developed for a decade,” McLaughlin said. “It is another attempt to prevent the President from fulfilling the American people’s mandate to remove the worst of the worst including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, terrorists, and rapists from our country.”
Williams was nominated by former President Barack Obama.
In June she found Uthmeier, who has championed “Alligator Alcatraz,” in civil contempt of court after he appeared to publicly defy her order to pause a new state immigration law making it a crime to enter Florida illegally.
DeSantis also called Williams an “activist judge” at his briefing Friday.
“This is a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake. This was preordained, very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench,” the governor said.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called the ruling a victory for freedom, local communities and the environment.
“Most importantly it is a victory for the families who have endured unimaginable hardship because of what happens at this facility,” Cava said. “The people who have been held here, the detainees have faced conditions that have shocked our community, our nation and in fact, the world, conditions that have betrayed the very values that define America.”
Around 400 people are still detained at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the mayor said, adding that she doesn’t know the exact number since she hasn’t been permitted to enter the facility.
The outcome of the state’s planned appeal and whether the facility will be permanently closed remain uncertain.
“We can’t predict exactly what will happen. They have appealed other rulings by Judge Williams that have not been sustained,” Cava said. “In this case, it’s on environmental basis and hopefully, higher courts will sustain her ruling.”
Legal expert Michael Romano, director of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School, says what happens next hinges on the outcome of the appeal.
“A preliminary injunction is just that – it’s preliminary. They usually stand up, but let’s say the appeal fails,” Romano told CNN. “It’s not the end of the story. They would then go for what’s called a permanent injunction, and they’ll appeal that. So it’s going to drag on for a while.”
It remains to be seen whether the DeSantis administration will fall in line with the injunction’s demands, including halting new detainee arrivals and tearing down the mandated infrastructure as ordered by Williams, or if they’ll resist.
“If you defy a court order, you can be held in contempt, and I think there have been a number of circumstances within the new (Trump) administration where they have tested the court’s willingness to impose a contempt order,” Romano said.
“The administration definitely tests limits, but they don’t always go over them,” he added. “I think it’s safe to predict that they will test the limits of this court if they can’t get the decision reversed.”
Members of Congress and state representatives who were given a limited tour last month to inspect conditions described the facility as “inhumane,” with detainees “packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District, said at the time.
Each cage contained three small toilets with attached sinks, which detainees use for drinking water and brushing their teeth.
Lawmakers were concerned about reports of unhygienic conditions due to toilets not working and “feces being spread everywhere,” but were denied access from viewing units where migrants are currently detained and were not permitted to view the medical facilities, Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who was also on the tour, said.
Despite criticism and reports of harsh conditions, “Alligator Alcatraz” is serving as a model for other states to establish similar facilities, including the “Deportation Depot” in northern Florida, as well as additional immigration detention centers in Indiana and Nebraska.
DeSantis’ “Deportation Depot” will be located within the Baker Correctional Institution, a temporarily closed state prison about 45 miles west of Jacksonville near the Osceola National Forest.
“The reason of this is not to just house people indefinitely. We want to process, stage and then return illegal aliens to their home country,” DeSantis said last week.
The facility will likely be ready soon, Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said.
In Bunker Hill, Indiana, the Miami Correctional Facility is offering 1,000 unused beds to ICE for detaining migrants. The Department of Homeland Security has nicknamed the facility the “Speedway Slammer,” according to a DHS news release.
In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen announced on August 19 that ICE is establishing a detention center in McCook, a city with a population of around 7,000. The Department of Homeland Security has dubbed the facility the “Cornhusker Clink.”
Ruling points to environmental concerns and impact on Indigenous lands
Cava said it was “painful” to watch state leaders dismiss the community’s concerns and the potential environmental impact on both the land and the people living nearby, “particularly the tribe whose sacred lands are being violated.”
The migrant detention center is surrounded by Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve and the tribal lands of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, a plaintiff in the case.
Everglades National Park is an environmentally critical subtropical wetland, home to threatened species and one of the world’s largest mangrove ecosystems. It also provides essential services to South Florida, including drinking water for more than 8 million Floridians and protection from hurricanes and floods, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
“Every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades,” Williams said in the order. “This Order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”
Williams said the facility has not been compliant with its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act. NEPA, signed by President Richard Nixon, is considered one of the foundational environmental laws formed at the beginning of the modern environmental movement.
Prior to the construction of the facility, the defendants were required, under NEPA, to conduct an environmental assessment, or issue an environmental impact statement, a government document that outlines the impact of a proposed project on its surrounding environment, but they did neither.
“The EIS or EA must precede any ‘major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment,’” Williams wrote in her ruling. “Under the statutory language, the Defendants cannot put the cart before the horse — they cannot construct a facility and, then only in response to litigation such as the instant case, decide to fulfill their legal obligations.”
According to the ruling and testimony from the Miccosukee Tribe, runoff and wastewater discharge from “Alligator Alcatraz” pose a threat to the water supply in the Miccosukee Reserved Area, home to 80% of tribe members located just a few miles downstream from the facility.
The court also reviewed plans and photos showing that operation of the facility has so far involved paving approximately 800,000 square feet of land and the installation of industrial lighting impacting the night sky at least 20 to 30 miles away.
Increased lighting from the project will push animals out of the area, Director of Water Resources Amy Castaneda and Fish and Wildlife Department Director Dr. Marcel Bozas said during testimony, according to the ruling.
The artificial lighting also reduces the endangered panther habitat “by 2,000 acres, as studies suggest panthers are unlikely to come within 500 meters of a large artificial light source,” Williams writes in the ruling.
Bozas also pointed to the facility’s interruption of the tribe’s traditions of hunting, fishing, and collection of ceremonial and medicinal plants around the site, specifically on off-road trails with trailheads on the detention facility’s fence line, which Williams has ordered to be removed so the tribe has access to the trailheads again.
“This is not our first fight for our land and rights,” Talbert Cypress, the chairman of the tribe, said in a news release. “We will always stand up for our culture, our sovereignty, and for the Everglades.”
