MIAMI — Environmental groups who brought a lawsuit forward to halt operations at “Alligator Alcatraz” said Friday they are “cautiously optimistic” following a judge’s ruling that, while the Florida migrant detention facility can remain operational, it cannot be expanded or used to detain additional migrants.
The lawsuit argued that the detention facility in the Everglades’ construction skirted environmental laws. The suit said that the center was built without ecological reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act and without public notice or comment and that the government failed to comply with other state and federal statutes, including the Endangered Species Act.
Environmental groups sued in June to halt the project, a month before it opened on an airstrip in Ochopee’s Big Cypress National Preserve.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams entered a preliminary injunction Thursday to prevent the installation of any additional industrial-style lighting and any site expansion. Her ruling further prevents “bringing any additional persons … who were not already being detained at the site at the time of this order.”
This ruling meant no filling, paving or installation of additional infrastructure was allowed, but it did not affect the center’s immigration enforcement activity.
Environmental groups, including Friends of the Everglades, called Williams’ ruling a “preliminary” win during a Friday morning news conference.
“It is important to remember that environmental laws in our countries stand on equal footing with other laws, and they are being tested in ways that we haven’t seen in more than a half century,” Friends of the Everglades Executive Director Eve Samples said, calling the order “a victory for the rule of law and for holding government accountable.”
Samples, however, noted that while this decision is significant, “it is not a final win.”
“We already know there will be an appeal, so I’m going to stop there,” she said.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, said the state “expected a loss” when it came to the detention facility because it did not do its due diligence in any environmental study in building it.
“So, they were intentionally transferring individuals to other facilities, and now they’re pushing for Baker CI (correctional institution) to be established as a detention facility as quickly as possible, because they know the Everglades is not going to be suitable for this,” she said at the news conference.
During a separate news conference on Friday morning, Gov. Ron DeSantis admitted that the judge’s decision to halt operations at “Alligator Alcatraz” was not unexpected.
“This is a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake,” DeSantis said about Williams. “This was preordained, very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench. This is not going to deter us. We’re going to continue working on the deportations, advancing that mission. We knew that this would be something that would likely happen, and we will respond accordingly.”
DeSantis said his administration is working on opening more facilities like the one in the Everglades.
“So, I did announce that we are going to be opening another facility right outside of Jacksonville, in Baker County, and we’ve called that the ‘Deportation Depot.'”
In response to the government’s overnight appeal filed in response to the halt order, Paul Schwiep, counsel for Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, said during Friday’s briefing that they are prepared to fight it.
“We are sure that the defendants will seek a stay of the judge’s order, and we’re prepared to meet that motion to stay with the same energy vigor with the law and the facts that we brought to seeking the injunction in the first place,” he said.
Thursday’s injunction is expected to stay in place while the lawsuit challenging the detention center is heard, according to the ruling.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that the ruling “ignores the fact that this land has already been developed for a decade. 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.”
