MIAMI — Environmental advocates are speaking out following a federal appeals court ruling that the migrant detention facility known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ will remain open.
Eve Samples of Friends of the Everglades and Elise Bennett of the Center for Biological Diversity are the plaintiffs in the landmark environmental law case at the intersection of the remote immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades.
The pair are disappointed, but not deterred, by the federal appeals court ruling overturning a district court’s order which temporarily hit pause on the facility.
“It does feel like a setback, of course, because we’ve lost that preliminary injunction,” said Bennett. “But what I would say, especially with today being Earth Day, is that we are more motivated than ever to get back to district court.”
The case was aimed at compelling state and federal defendants to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and conduct an environmental impact study.
“The government is supposed to study the impacts of its actions on the environment before it takes action,” said Samples. “NEPA is a look-before-you-leap law, and in this case the government took action before it looked.”
But in a 2-1 ruling, the appeals court said there was no federal action trigging the underpinning federal law in part because “to qualify as a major federal action - it must receive more than minimal federal funding” and “when the district court entered its injunction,” which was in August, “Florida has received no federal funding.”
Back in October, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told Local 10 News Florida did submit an application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and was awarded the full amount the state applied for, $608 million, which was money officials said could be applied to ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ or a second site opened dubbed the ‘Deportation Depot.’
At the time, the state was also working to bring online a third, to be called the “Panhandle Pokey,” in July. DHS officials estimated the total cost for that site would be $450 million for one year.
Samples said since the district judge’s order in August, they have learned this from documents obtained in a separate public records lawsuit.
She said the records showed that the state originally applied for a $1.4 million federal grant and that FEMA approved a $608 million grant, which she said is “a lot more evidence about the federal government’s commitment to fund ‘Alligator Alcatraz’.”
“There’s more evidence that the site is under federal control,” Samples said. “And we’re eager to get back to the district court to prove that.”
Bennett said the government “set up this project to try to avoid accountability.”
“They may have won this round,” she said. “But there are many more rounds in the legal fight.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the DHS said in the agency’s view, the lawsuit was about, “open-borders activists,” a phrase which stunned the environmental advocates.
“If someone believes that the Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity don’t care about the environment, then I’ve got a few acres of swampland to sell them in South Florida,” said Bennett.
That’s because what the facility does was not at issue in this environmental law case and the same goes for immigration policy.
“It has nothing to do with it,” said Samples.
Instead, she said the case is about whether the government followed the law.
“Any individual person, if they were to build like this in the middle of the Everglades, would have to get a permit,” said Bennett. “Why is it that the federal and state government don’t? Are they above the law? I don’t think so.”
Samples added, “We have a strong case to build. We also have filed notice of intent to sue under other laws. There are real impacts to endangered species and now that we have this opinion from the appeals court, we can get back, amend our original lawsuit to incorporate those claims and make our case even stronger.”
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