Judge ordered Everglades camp to close in 60 days, finding state and federal authorities broke environmental laws
Judge ordered Everglades camp to close in 60 days, finding state and federal authorities broke environmental laws
The state of Florida has appealed against a federal judge’s order that the harsh immigration jail in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” must close within the next two months, a ruling that pumps the brakes on Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda.
The Miami district court judge Kathleen Williams said state and federal authorities broke numerous environmental laws as they raced to build the tented facility at a disused airstrip in the fragile wetlands.
Since it opened in early July, touted by Trump as a base for the “the most vicious people on the planet” awaiting deportation, “Alligator Alcatraz” has built a reputation for brutality. Detainees have reported “inhumane” conditions including extreme heat, insects, and a lack of food and functioning toilet facilities.
The state filed a notice of appeal to the 11th US circuit court in Atlanta on Thursday night, within an hour of Williams’s preliminary injunction halting the intake of new detainees at the facility and setting a 60-day deadline for its dismantling.
Immigration advocates said on Friday that they believed only about 340 detainees were left at the camp after a concerted effort by officials to depopulate the facility in anticipation of the ruling. Authorities in Florida have previously said its capacity would be up to 3,000.
Attorneys for the defendants, which include the Florida emergency management department and federal Department of Homeland Security, will ask the panel to stay the order as legal arguments continue in the case.
They are expected to continue to assert that federal laws, including the requirement for an environmental impact study, do not apply because the jail was set up, managed and operated by the state of Florida using taxpayers’ money, independently of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice).
