The immigrant detention facility referred to as “Alligator Alcatraz” is proven on July 4, 2025, as development was ending on the Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition airport within the Florida Everglades. A lawsuit, introduced by environmental teams and the Miccosukee tribe, has challenged the growth and operations of the power.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
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Rebecca Blackwell/AP
MIAMI — A lawsuit introduced by environmental teams and the Miccosukee tribe difficult development and operations of an immigration detention center within the Florida Everglades wrapped up Wednesday with a number of key questions unanswered.
On the high of the checklist is one U.S. District Decide Kathleen Williams requested a number of instances in the course of the four-day listening to, “Who’s working the present?” on the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Through the listening to, legal professionals for 2 environmental teams cited feedback made by Trump administration officers in interviews and social media posts that it is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. In court docket, legal professionals for Florida maintained it is a state detention heart working below ICE authority however could not inform the decide who really is in cost on the website.
Whereas immigration detentions and different operations on the facility will proceed because the authorized course of strikes forward, the query of who’s in cost on the heart is necessary.
The environmental teams, Mates of the Everglades and the Middle for Organic Variety, filed the lawsuit and have been joined by the Miccosukee tribe, which has conventional use and entry to the world. The three plaintiffs say the rushed development with out public enter or an environmental impression evaluation violate federal legislation and so they’re asking the decide to close it down.
At challenge is NEPA — the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act — which requires federal businesses to contemplate alternate options, have interaction the general public and assess the environmental impression earlier than continuing with a mission. Attorneys for Florida and the Trump administration advised the court docket that federal legislation does not apply as a result of the power was constructed and is operated by the state.
Protesters collect to demand the closure of the immigrant detention heart referred to as “Alligator Alcatraz” on the Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., on July 22, 2025.
Chandan Khanna/AFP through Getty Pictures
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Chandan Khanna/AFP through Getty Pictures
“This case boils down to regulate,” Justice Division lawyer Adam Gustafson mentioned. And on the website, he mentioned, “The federal authorities has no motion or energy to regulate the exercise.”
Paul Schweip, an lawyer with Mates of the Everglades, mentioned Florida and the Trump administration have been intentionally protecting the query of who managed the positioning imprecise. The detention heart he mentioned, “serves one single operate and that is immigration detention which as a matter of legislation is a federal authority.”
The ability, which has tents and caged cells for as much as 5,000 immigration detainees, is housed at a not often used and principally deserted airfield positioned throughout the wetlands of the Huge Cypress Nationwide Protect.
Through the listening to, legal professionals for the environmental teams introduced testimony detailing the impression the elevated exercise and inhabitants on the website is having on protected species and the world’s water high quality.
Randy Kautz, a wildlife ecologist who helped write the state’s Panther Restoration plan, mentioned due to the brilliant lights, elevated visitors and human presence on the website, Florida panthers can be pushed out of at the least 2,000 acres of their habitat. There are solely an estimated 120 to 230 endangered panthers remaining in Florida.
Wetlands ecologist Christopher McVoy, who helped write the plan to revive the Everglades, raised considerations with the court docket about 20 acres of recent asphalt paving on the positioning and the impression it is going to have on water high quality within the fragile ecosystem. The Everglades ecosystem has a really low degree of nitrates and phosphates, vitamins that promote plant development, mentioned McVoy. Runoff containing vitamins and pollution, he mentioned, would have a “drastic impression” on native vegetation and close by wetlands.
Workers of the Miccosukee tribe testified on the impression the elevated exercise on the website is having on individuals who stay in tribal villages, a number of of that are positioned inside just a few miles of the power. They mentioned runoff from the positioning usually travels south towards the villages and is prone to comprise contaminants that will hurt the atmosphere and human well being. They usually raised considerations concerning the impression vivid lights on the facility are having on one other endangered species, the bonneted bat.
The teams and the tribe are asking Decide Williams to challenge a preliminary injunction that will require the state and federal authorities to take away lighting, fencing and waste from the positioning, restore entry for members of the Miccosukee and to wind down operations there inside 14 days.
The decide issued a two-week temporary restraining order Aug. 7 on new development on the facility. She mentioned she would rule on the request for a preliminary injunction earlier than that order expires.
