MIAMI — An immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz ” must keep moving toward shutting down operations by late October, a judge has ruled, even as the state and federal governments fight that decision.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams late Wednesday denied requests to pause her order to wind down operations at the facility, which has been plagued by reports of unsanitary conditions and detainees being cut off from the legal system.
The facility was already being emptied of detainees, according to an email exchange shared with The Associated Press on Wednesday. The executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, said on Aug. 22 “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days,” in a message to South Florida Rabbi Mario Rojzman about chaplaincy services at the facility, implying there would soon be no need.
The detention center was quickly built two months ago at a little-used training airport, where chain-link cages now surround large white tents filled with rows of bunk beds. State officials signed more than $245 million in contracts for building and operating the facility, which officially opened July 1.
President Donald Trump toured the facility last month and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration races to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.
Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in their request for a stay that Williams’ order last week, if carried out, would disrupt the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws.
But the judge in Wednesday night’s order noted that the detainee population already was dwindling at the facility, and that the federal government’s “immigration enforcement goals will not be thwarted by a pause in operations.”
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida.
Williams said in last week’s order that she expected the population of “Alligator Alcatraz” to decline within 60 days through the transferring of the detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote the state and federal defendants can’t bring any new detainees onto the property.
State officials said shutting down the facility for the time being would cost them $15 million to $20 million and that it would cost another $15 million to $20 million to reinstall structures if they ultimately are allowed to reopen the facility. They also said that the Florida Division of Emergency Management will lose most of the value of the $218 million it has invested in making the training airport suitable for a detention center.
“Alligator Alcatraz” has been targeted by several lawsuits, ranging from its impact on the Everglades to civil rights concerns.
Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe said further construction and operations should be stopped until federal and state officials complied with federal environmental laws. Their lawsuit claimed the facility threatened sensitive wetlands that are home to protected plants and animals and would reverse billions of dollars spent over decades on environmental restoration.
Civil rights groups filed a second lawsuit last month against the state and federal governments over practices at the Everglades facility, claiming detainees were denied access to the legal system. Another federal judge last week dismissed parts of the lawsuit and moved the suit to another court district for procedural reasons.
A third lawsuit by civil rights groups last Friday described “severe problems” at the facility which were “previously unheard-of in the immigration system.” The suit alleges detainees were being held for weeks without any charges, had disappeared from ICE’s online detainee locator, and no one at the facility was making initial custody or bond determinations.
The groups want a federal court in Fort Myers to issue a restraining order and a temporary injunction that would bar Florida agencies and their contractors from holding detainees there.
Since immigration is a federal issue, the rights groups say Florida agencies and the state’s private contractors have no authority to operate the facility. The rights groups want their lawsuit to be certified as a class action.
Meanwhile, almost two dozen Republican-led states urged the appellate court reviewing Williams’ order to overturn it. The 22 states argued in a court filing that she overstepped her authority and that the federal environmental laws only applied to the federal agencies, not the state of Florida.
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