Appeals Court Blocks Obama Judge’s Order To Close ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ In Everglades
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed a major victory to the Trump administration and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week, pausing a lower court order that would have shut down the Alligator Alcatraz detention facility in the Florida Everglades.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams — an Obama appointee — had ruled last month that the facility must close within 60 days, with detainees transferred elsewhere and equipment dismantled. Her decision came after environmental activists and the Miccosukee Tribe sued, claiming the detention center created “light pollution” and “noise pollution.”
But the appeals court wasn’t buying it. In a 2-1 ruling, the panel stayed Williams’ order and sharply questioned her reasoning.
“The district court specifically noted ‘light pollution affecting members’ ability to observe the night skies’ and ‘noise pollution impacting members’ ability to observe and interact with wildlife,’” the judges wrote.
“In reaching this conclusion, the district court did not mention that, although located in the Big Cypress Reserve near the Everglades, the Site was a working airport with close to 28,000 landings and takeoffs in the prior six months alone, bright lights kept on ’24/7,’ and a lack of noise abatement requirements before the site’s conversion to a detention center.”
In other words, the site wasn’t a pristine wilderness — it was already a fully operational airport before being converted into a detention facility. Both President Donald Trump and Gov. DeSantis authorized the transformation as part of their crackdown on illegal immigration.
The Department of Homeland Security blasted the lawsuit, saying it had nothing to do with environmental concerns.
“This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility,” DHS said in a statement to Reuters. “It has and will always be about open borders activists and judges trying to keep law enforcement from removing dangerous criminal aliens from our communities, full stop.”
DeSantis celebrated the appeals court’s move, calling it a win for common sense and border security.
“The media was giddy that somehow Alligator Alcatraz was ‘shutting down,’” DeSantis said. “Now we told them that that wasn’t true. There had been illegal aliens continuing to be there and removed and returned to their home country.”
He accused Judge Williams of judicial activism for blocking Florida from using its own property to assist in immigration enforcement.
“Some leftist judge ruled implausibly that somehow Florida wasn’t allowed to use our own property to help the federal government in this important mission because they didn’t do an environmental impact statement,” DeSantis said. “Well, we said we would fight that … and I’m pleased to say that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has just stayed that ruling and stayed the case. So Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we always said, open for business.”
Framing the fight as part of a broader battle with the left over immigration, DeSantis declared:
“The mission continues on immigration enforcement. We told people from the very beginning that this was not shutting down — and now the court has affirmed that we were right.”