The immigrant detention facility often called “Alligator Alcatraz” is proven on July 4, 2025, as building 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 enlargement 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 building and operations of an immigration detention middle 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 throughout the four-day listening to, “Who’s working the present?” on the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Throughout 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 courtroom, legal professionals for Florida maintained it is a state detention middle working underneath ICE authority however could not inform the choose who truly is in cost on the web site.
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 middle is vital.
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 realm. The three plaintiffs say the rushed building with out public enter or an environmental affect evaluation violate federal legislation and so they’re asking the choose to close it down.
At problem is NEPA — the Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act — which requires federal companies to think about alternate options, interact the general public and assess the environmental affect earlier than continuing with a venture. Attorneys for Florida and the Trump administration advised the courtroom that federal legislation would 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 middle often called “Alligator Alcatraz” on the Dade-Collier Coaching and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., on July 22, 2025.
Chandan Khanna/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Chandan Khanna/AFP by way of Getty Photos
“This case boils down to regulate,” Justice Division lawyer Adam Gustafson stated. And on the web site, he stated, “The federal authorities has no motion or energy to regulate the exercise.”
Paul Schweip, an legal professional with Mates of the Everglades, stated Florida and the Trump administration have been intentionally maintaining the query of who managed the positioning imprecise. The detention middle he stated, “serves one single operate and that is immigration detention which as a matter of legislation is a federal authority.”
The power, which has tents and caged cells for as much as 5,000 immigration detainees, is housed at a hardly ever used and largely deserted airfield situated throughout the wetlands of the Massive Cypress Nationwide Protect.
Throughout the listening to, legal professionals for the environmental teams offered testimony detailing the affect the elevated exercise and inhabitants on the web site is having on protected species and the realm’s water high quality.
Randy Kautz, a wildlife ecologist who helped write the state’s Panther Restoration plan, stated due to the intense lights, elevated visitors and human presence on the web site, Florida panthers can be pushed out of not less than 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 courtroom about 20 acres of latest asphalt paving on the positioning and the affect it should have on water high quality within the fragile ecosystem. The Everglades ecosystem has a really low stage of nitrates and phosphates, vitamins that promote plant development, stated McVoy. Runoff containing vitamins and pollution, he stated, would have a “drastic affect” on native vegetation and close by wetlands.
Workers of the Miccosukee tribe testified on the affect the elevated exercise on the web site is having on individuals who reside in tribal villages, a number of of that are situated inside a number of miles of the power. They stated runoff from the positioning sometimes travels south towards the villages and is prone to comprise contaminants that will hurt the surroundings and human well being. They usually raised considerations concerning the affect shiny lights on the facility are having on one other endangered species, the bonneted bat.
The teams and the tribe are asking Decide Williams to problem 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 choose issued a two-week short-term restraining order Aug. 7 on new building on the facility. She stated she would rule on the request for a preliminary injunction earlier than that order expires.
