Judge Orders Shutdown of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ to Protect the Environment

Yesterday a federal judge in Miami ordered that the detention center known as “Alligator Alacatraz” must be shut down within the next 60 days. Starting immediately, no additional detainees can be brought to the site and within 60 days all of the infrastructure for the site has to be removed.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams entered a preliminary injunction 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.”…

Within 60 days, “and once the population attrition allows for safe implementation of this Order,” the facility must also remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project,” the 82-page ruling said.

It must also remove additional lighting that was installed for the detention facility. Light pollution was a hot topic during the hearings this month.

It’s unclear how the facility will remain operational if those resources are removed.

The answer to that last question is: It won’t. Gov. DeSantis had predicted this outcome earlier in the week.

Even before Judge Williams ruled, Mr. DeSantis had said he expected the ruling to go against his administration.

“It’s pretty clear we’re in front of a judge who is not going to give us a fair shake on this,” he said on Tuesday.

The lawsuit against the site was filed by a bunch of environmental groups back in June.

Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday to block a migrant detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” now being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades.

The lawsuit seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal and state law. There is also supposed to be a chance for public comment, according to the lawsuit filed in Miami federal court…

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity as well as the Friends of the Everglades, an organization started decades ago by “River of Grass” author and Everglades champion Marjory Stoneman Douglas to battle the original plan to build the airport. They are represented by the Earthjustice law firm and other attorneys including Florida writer Carl Hiaasen’s son, Scott Hiaasen.

The decision has already been appealed but I’m not sure they are going to win this one. Even if they get a stay for this particular order, the case will continue and it seems like the environmentalists really have the upper hand at this site which is about 40 miles west of Miami on land that hasn’t seen any development in decades.

In her ruling, Judge Williams cited President Harry Truman’s dedication of Everglades National Park in 1947, in which he called it an “irreplaceable primitive area.” Since the jetport proposal was abandoned two decades later, she said, preserving the Everglades has been paramount for both Republican and Democratic policymakers.

“Since that time, every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation and protection of the Everglades,” she wrote. “This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”

The state tried to argue that construction of the site didn’t have to meet federal environmental regulations (including time for public comments) because it was a state project, but the judge found it was essentially a federal immigration project. Is this decision by an Obama-appointed judge partisan? Possibly so, but she may still have enough of a legal argument here to make it stick. We shall see as the appeal of this decision moves forward.