‘Alligator Alcatraz’ immigration centre can stay open, appeals court rules
A federal court of appeal has canceled a legal order requiring Florida and the administration of US President Donald Trump to close the Alligator Alcatraz, allowing the immigration detention center to remain open.
In a 2-1 decision, the Atlanta Court of Appeal in Georgia granted a request from the Florida State and the US Department of Homeland Security to block an injunction of the lower courtyard while a trial takes place.
“Alligator Alcatraz is actually, as we have always said, open to business,” said Florida governor Ron Desantis.
Last month, American district judge Kathleen Williams interrupted the expansion of the installation and for his dismantling to start within 60 days.
Judge Williams, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, agreed with environmental groups and an Amerindian tribe which had argued that the installation should have undergone federal environmental examinations.
The Ministry of Internal Security had started to transfer prisoners outside the Everglades, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, at the end of last month in accordance with this court order.
But Thursday, the American Court of Appeal for the 11th circuit concluded that state and federal officials would likely be able to show that the installation was not subject to the national law on environmental policy because it had not yet received federal funding.
Two judges appointed by Trump wrote the majority decision. A judge appointed by Obama is dissident.
Florida airport practically abandoned in sensitive wetlands was transformed into a detention center in July.
The Department of Internal Security said that the appeal decision was a “victory for the American people, the rule of law and common sense”.
“This trial has never concerned the environmental impacts of the transformation of an airport developed into a detention center,” wrote the department in an article on X.
“He has and will still be on the activists and the judges of the open borders who will try to prevent the application of the law from withdrawing criminal foreigners from our communities, a complete judgment.”
The Florida Republican Governor also praised the decision.
“A left judge found it improbably that Florida was not authorized to use our own goods on this important mission because they did not declare a declaration of environmental impact,” said Desantis.
A lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the complainants of the trial, said that the decision was “a heartbreaking blow for the American Everglades and all the living creatures there, but that the case is not even close”.
Friends of the Everglades, another applicant, said that it was examining the prescription.
The third applicant, the Miccosukee tribe, which argues that the installation threatens its ancestral lands, has not yet commented.
