MIAMI — Months of debate has left the future of the ICE detention facility known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in the hands of a federal judge.
In a Miami federal courthouse Wednesday, the attorney representing environmental groups told the judge the suggestion that an immigration detention facility built in a preserve, deep in the Everglades, has no environmental impact is “absurd.”
The attorney said that’s especially true since the state and federal government didn’t bother to follow the law in analyzing the potential environmental impacts in the sensitive ecosystem that intersects with wildlife, water quality and a Native American tribe when they commandeered the site from Miami-Dade County.
Eve Samples is the executive director of Friends of the Everglades, one of the plaintiffs in the case asking the judge to stop any further construction or use of the site for the purpose of immigration detention until the state and federal government defendants comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.
“We heard from expert witnesses who testified about the harm to the Everglades that this facility stands to cause,” said Samples. Light pollution, water pollution, endangered species impact. This is a common sense ‘look before you leap’ law that requires the government to analyze the impacts of its actions, to take public input, and to consider alternatives that could be less damaging, and the government didn’t do any of those things at Alligator Alcatraz.”
An attorney representing the federal government said there was no study performed because “there has been no federal action.”
Working to distance itself from the state-run facility, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney argued the federal government did not initiate the idea of placing a facility in the Everglades.
An attorney for the state told the judge that federal environmental law doesn’t apply, in part, because there has been no federal funding for the site, and, in their view, future potential federal reimbursement doesn’t qualify as final federal action.
“I think our lead counsel Paul Schweip put it best when he said the federal and state defendants are dancing a wild two-step together,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean Director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “They are trying to bend over backwards to avoid accountability.”
Added Samples: “We’re hopeful that the judge will find that the evidence has been compelling to shut down the site so that the state and federal government can comply with the law.”
During its rebuttal, the plaintiffs argued it may be a state-run facility, but it serves one function: to serve the needs of ICE and the Trump administration’s federal immigration policy of mass detention and deportation, which is a federal function.
This issue is paramount in this case since the federal environmental law only applies to federal agencies.
Legal analyst David Weinstein said the judge will try to decide whether “the plaintiffs have met their burden of showing irreparable harm” to the environment.
“So they have to show that there’s been an impact on the environment, that no study was done and that unless she stops any new construction and potentially the operation of the facility itself, the Everglades is going be harmed,” he said. “And if they’ve met that burden, it’s irreparable harm, she will issue a temporary injunction.”
He said plaintiffs will also have to prove that the facility is being operated by the federal government, something the defense has argued to the contrary.
“That’s the only way that particular statute comes into play,” he said. “That’s the only way that there has to be an environmental study done. If they can’t establish that, they don’t even get to the irreparable harm standard.”
The defense, Weinstein said, has been arguing three things: That the suit hasn’t been filed in the right district, that there’s been no federal involvement and that there’s no environmental impact over and above that of the existing airport.
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