Florida ordered to dismantle Alligator Alcatraz over environmental impact

A man protests at the entrance to "Alligator Alcatraz" at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida. Photo / Getty Images

A federal judge in Miami gave the state of Florida 60 days to clear out the immigrant detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz, handing environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians a win after they clashed with Governor Ron DeSantis over the environmental impacts the makeshift site was having in the federally protected Everglades.

The ruling from US District Judge Kathleen Williams, which forbids state officials from moving any other migrants there, deals a blow to what had become a marquee symbol of US President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.

The environmentalists who sued called it “a huge relief for millions of people who love the Everglades”.

“This brutal detention centre was burning a hole in the fabric of life that supports our most iconic wetland and a whole host of endangered species, from majestic Florida panthers to wizened wood storks,” attorney Elise Bennett of the Centre for Biological Diversity said in a statement. “The judge’s order came just in time to stop it all from unravelling.”

The state filed a notice of appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit less than an hour after the judge issued her order.

At a news conference in Panama City, DeSantis said Williams “upset the applecart” with her ruling. He said the state is working on converting an old prison in North Florida into a migrant detention centre.

“This is not going to deter us,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to continue working on the deportations, advancing that mission. We knew that this would be something that would likely happen.”

In July, Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem toured the facility of trailers and tents, erected with chain-link fencing atop an old airstrip and intended for what Trump described as the “most vicious” migrants. By detaining them there, “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator”, he said. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation.”

But it was the location the state chose that plagued the facility from the start, according to critics.

In her ruling, Williams said an environmental assessment was required before the site was erected in the Everglades, but “the defendants chose not to do so”.

Despite what DeSantis described as a facility that would have “zero” impact on the surrounding wetlands, Williams cited expert testimony and said the project will have “considerable environmental impacts” and should have been reviewed by relevant federal agencies.

The project “creates irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area”, including the Florida panther, she wrote.

Her order expands the pause on new construction that was part of a temporary restraining order two weeks ago and directs the state government and the federal Government and contractors to begin dismantling the centre, including fencing, lighting, generators and all waste receptacles “that were installed to support this project”.

The isolated airstrip sits deep in Big Cypress National Preserve, near the border with Everglades National Park. A 3200m runway is all that remains of a 1960s plan to build the world’s largest airport. Environmentalists, led by renowned Everglades conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, managed to thwart the project and get the Government to protect nearly a million wetland acres. The organisation Douglas created to fight the jetport, Friends of the Everglades, was among the groups that sued over Alligator Alcatraz.

“For today we are cautiously optimistic and celebrating this preliminary win,” Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, said during a virtual news conference. “We know that we will have to fight hard on appeal. We believe we have a very compelling case.”

The site has no electricity, so everything is powered by generators, including portable air conditioners. Drinking and bathing water has to be trucked in and sewage, trash and wastewater trucked out.

Environmentalists and the Miccosukee tribe sued under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to “prepare detailed statements assessing the environmental impact of and alternatives to major federal actions significantly affecting the environment”.

Williams’ order specifies that the state must remove fencing that blocks members of the Miccosukee tribe from using the land as they’ve been accustomed to, and noted the potential harm to them from pollution.

“Eighty percent of the tribe’s residences, two schools, and the tribal governmental building, are all located in the Miccosukee Reserved Area a few miles southeast of the TNT site in Miami-Dade County,” the order states. “This increased runoff creates risks of carcinogens entering the tribe’s water supply and of sediment and nutrients impacting the plant and wildlife in the areas within Miami-Dade that the tribe uses for hunting, fishing and gathering certain plants.”

Miccosukee chairman Talbert Cypress said he welcomed the order.

“This is not our first fight for our land and our rights,” Cypress said in a statement posted on social media. “The Miccosukee Tribe remains steadfast in our commitment to protect our ancestral lands in Big Cypress from development as a permanent detention facility.”

The first tents and detention cages went up on June 23 after the state seized the property from Miami-Dade County under a 2-year-old emergency order issued by DeSantis. He said he wanted Alligator Alcatraz to be a “force multiplier” for Trump’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

It would house up to 5000 men and women awaiting deportation, according to the governor, though to date its greatest count has been about 1000 people. US Representative Maxwell Frost visited earlier this week to try to meet relatives of constituents and said afterward that only 346 men were there.

A separate lawsuit over detainees’ legal rights, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups, was in part dismissed earlier this week when US District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz ruled some of their claims moot. He then moved the remainder of the case to a different jurisdiction.

Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, noted on social media that Ruiz had concluded the detainees sued in the wrong venue. The state made a similar claim in the environmental case, but Williams rejected it.

“Once again she oversteps her authority, and we will appeal this unlawful decision,” Redfern wrote.

Noem spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin called Williams “an activist judge”.

“We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side,” McLaughlin said in an email statement.

Dozens of House and Senate Democrats pressed Noem this week for more details about the facility and the department’s role in supporting it.

“Given that DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] is working directly with the Florida state government on a detention facility with alarming implications, DHS should ensure transparency and accountability surrounding the facility’s financing operations,” Senator Jeff Merkley, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz and 63 other Democrats wrote in a letter to the secretary and other administration officials.

The governor maintained from the start that the Everglades will eventually overtake the site once the state ends the temporary operation. The Florida Division of Emergency Management, an agency usually tasked with natural-disaster preparation, built the facility in eight days.

Environmentalists presented photos and other evidence in court that showed the state paved over at least 20 adjacent acres of wetlands. Security lighting there turned a DarkSky International location – one of only two in the Southeast – into a brightly lit compound visible from 24km away.6

A July 29 “Preliminary Ecological Assessment” by a state contractor noted at least 10 endangered or threatened species in the area, including the Everglade snail kite, wood storks and the bonneted bat.

The DeSantis administration said in court documents that the study determined “there would not be meaningful impacts on species native to the area”. Attorneys for the state wrote that contractors who built the site installed silt fences and 40 speed bumps on the service road leading to the facility. A drainage basin “to provide further protection for surrounding wetlands” was under construction, they noted.

Williams, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, issued her initial restraining order on August 7.

Last week, DeSantis moved to convert an old prison in North Florida into a second immigrant detention site, which he named “Deportation Depot”. Some Democratic lawmakers said the announcement signalled that the state was worried about having to close down Alligator Alcatraz and find a place for the detainees there.

The cost of converting the prison will be US$6 million ($10.2m), state officials said. They said the cost of building and operating Alligator Alcatraz was an estimated US$450m.

– Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.

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