Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, will be allowed to resume operations.
A federal appeals court panel in Atlanta ruled 2-1 on Thursday to stay US District Judge Kathleen’s order to end operations indefinitely at the center, saying it was in the public interest to keep it open.
Williams, a federal judge based in Miami, 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 was issued 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’ use of the facility.
The law requires the government to conduct an environmental impact study before construction can begin, but Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis administration in June 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 lawsuit against the federal government, based on the fact that the Trump administration has said it would reimburse Florida for the facility – making it 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.
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.
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.’
The Department of Homeland Security called Thursday’s ruling ‘a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense.’
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
‘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.’
The state and federal government defendants appealed Williams’ ruling, asking that it be put on hold. The state of Florida said in court papers this week that it planned to resume accepting detainees at the facility if the stay was granted.
