A federal judge on Thursday handed environmentalists a win, ordering the rapid closure of a migrant detention facility in Florida dubbed by state officials as “Alligator Alcatraz” that has widely been criticized for what inmates and advocates describe as inhumane conditions.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams issued an 82-page order that determined the facility was causing significant damage to the Florida Everglades, giving the state 60 days to effectively shutter it.
In the meantime, she also said that migrants can’t be moved there, tents can’t be added, new lights can’t be installed and no more swamp can be dredged and paved over.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, with help from the Trump administration, earlier this year converted a mostly bare landing strip into a sprawling tent prison inside Big Cypress National Preserve and right on the northern edge of Everglades National Park. But Williams found that the state and federal governments violated a federal law that required them to study what impact it might have on protected land.
In a poetic twist, the same nonprofit whose environmental advocacy led to the creation of the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act sued citing that law, which is what led to the judge’s decision to close the site down.
“The state defendants also insisted that the detention camp’s remoteness was an important consideration,” the judge wrote, criticizing officials for being unable to adequately “explain why such a place needs to be in the Everglades. What is apparent, however, is that in their haste to construct the detention camp, the state did not consider alternative locations.”
The judge expects government officials to swiftly dismantle the detention camp, which was built over the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.
State officials in the 1960s planned to build a massive airport complex on the site, but ultimately canceled construction due to the environmental impacts.
In her ruling Thursday night, Williams acknowledged this history, writing: “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.”
“This order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”
In her order, the judge forbade federal and state officials from “bringing any additional persons onto the TNT site who were not already being detained at the site” and instructed them to stop installing “any additional industrial-style lighting … or doing any other site expansion.”
Williams also gave officials 60 days to remove fences that kept out local Miccosukee tribe members from accessing the land the facility sits on as they had done for centuries — and remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project.”
Federal officials have claimed in court to have little involvement in the project, though President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have boasted publicly about it and even visited the site, fueling concerns over the way government agencies have tried to bureaucratically shield themselves from scrutiny. In what could be perceived as the judge’s anticipation that government officials try to find a way around her orders, Williams expanded her order to include all people “who are in active concert or participation with” state or federal officials, including “any contractors, subcontractors, or any other individuals.”
Despite the national outcry over the treatment of migrants at the detention camp — who reported experiencing extreme humidity, blazing summer heat that topped 100 Fahrenheit, giant bugs, rotten food and prohibitions against showers for days — the judge’s order didn’t touch on those humanitarian concerns.
Instead, she stuck to the legal challenge over environmental law violations, citing expert testimony that “human activity from the project risks loss of habitat and increased mortality for the estimated 120 to 230 remaining Florida panthers.” She also noted evidence that showed “the light pollution is far worse now than before the camp’s construction.”