Appeals Court Blocks ‘Alcatraz’ Ruling

By Dara Kam, The News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — Siding with the DeSantis and Trump administrations, a federal appeals-court panel Thursday put on hold a judge’s ruling requiring the wind-down of operations at a controversial immigrant-detention center in the Everglades.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a preliminary injunction issued last month by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams and could allow authorities to resume sending detainees to the remote complex that state officials dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Thursday’s majority opinion found that Williams erred in agreeing with environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, which alleged that officials failed to comply with a federal law requiring that an environmental-impact study be conducted before the detention center was constructed.

Lawyers for the DeSantis and Trump administrations argued that the federal law, known as the National Environmental Policy Act, did not apply because the state — not the federal government — built the facility and operates it.

The opinion, authored by Judge Barbara Lagoa and joined by Judge Elizabeth Branch, said Williams erred when relying on statements by people including Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said the Trump administration would reimburse Florida for the detention center. Williams pointed to federal funding in ruling that the National Environmental Policy Act applied.

“And to the extent the district court credited those ‘public assertions of federal funding’ as establishing by a preponderance that ‘the reimbursement funding decision has in fact been made,’ we have no trouble concluding that its finding was clearly erroneous,” Lagoa wrote.

Williams’ preliminary injunction prevented additional construction and bringing additional detainees to the facility. Williams also ordered the removal within 60 days of temporary fencing, detention-center lighting and such things as generators.

The state appealed the decision and requested a stay of the preliminary injunction. Thursday’s ruling granted a stay, effectively putting the preliminary injunction on hold while the underlying legal battle continues to play out.

DeSantis quickly praised the ruling, which came in a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida joined the lawsuit.

“We said we would fight that, we said the mission would continue,” the governor said in a video posted on X. “Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, open for business. The mission continues and we’re going to continue leading the way when it comes to immigration enforcement.”

Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, called Thursday’s ruling “a heartbreaking blow to America’s Everglades and every living creature there” but said the court fight is far from over. The groups and the tribe contend the facility, which is surrounded by Big Cypress National Preserve, poses a series of environmental threats.

“I know many are questioning why the Trump and DeSantis administrations are insisting on pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into this dirty, destructive detention facility in the heart of the Everglades. Our legal system can and should stop this incredibly harmful boondoggle,” Bennett said in a statement.

The state has spent about $218 million to construct the center adjacent to an airstrip known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Center, with much of the work handled by private contractors. DeSantis and other state officials have touted the facility as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport people in the country illegally.

Thursday’s majority opinion noted that reimbursement from the Trump administration would not occur unless the state submits an application for funds, something Florida has not done.

Obtaining funding “from the federal government for a state project requires completing a formal and technical application process; a governor cannot apply for FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) aid via press conference, and a Facebook post does not somehow transfer funds from the federal fisc to Florida,” Lagoa, a former Florida Supreme Court justice, wrote.

Williams “clearly erred in finding that the funding decision” triggering the environmental-impact study has been made, Lagoa added.

Lawyers for plaintiffs in the lawsuit maintained that the federal environmental law applied because the DeSantis and Trump administrations were coordinating in the operation of the facility.

An environmental-impact study could be required if the state decides to pursue federal funding and the Trump administration decides to reimburse Florida for its expenses, according to Lagoa.

“But, having not yet formally ‘committed to funding that project,’ the federal defendants have taken no ‘major federal action’ subjecting them to the procedural requirements of NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act),” she wrote.

In a blistering dissent, Judge Adalberto Jordan said the state and federal governments’ request for a stay “should be a relatively simple denial” and accused the majority of overreaching.

Williams “did not abuse” her discretion in issuing a preliminary injunction, Jordan wrote.

The majority “mistakenly characterizes the lack of a formal state application for federal reimbursement as ‘nothing on which a (federal) decision can be made,’” Jordan wrote, adding that that interpretation “ignores the unique factual circumstances of the case.”

The detention facility was built at the request of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security “and used for a federal purpose — to house federal detainees,” Jordan wrote.

“Because this is a case in which the federal involvement is ‘so massive, so pervasive, that the acts of the state are in reality federal actions,’ it is subject to NEPA’s procedural requirements,” he wrote.

The appeals court judges also wrangled over who would suffer the most harm if Williams’ preliminary injunction remains in place — the state or the plaintiffs.

Potential damage to the environment around the facility is outweighed by the state’s need to detain undocumented immigrants, the majority opinion said.

“We are convinced that, if the injunction were to stay in place, it would bring the state’s already stressed and overcrowded system to a breaking point,” Lagoa wrote. “While the environmental effects mentioned by the plaintiffs may result in down-the-line harm, the injuries facing the defendants and the public are critical, immediate, and concrete.”

But Jordan disagreed.

“The state and federal defendants will suffer some harm absent a stay. But this cannot be the end of the analysis,” he wrote.

The “balancing of equities is a quintessential judgment call based on the exercise of discretion,” Jordan said.

“The majority — whose analysis is devoid of any deference—cannot conduct abuse of discretion review by simply ignoring the determinations of the district court. Second, even if the majority could ignore those determinations, it cannot balance the equities by removing all of the weight from one side of the scales,” he added.