Florida environmental groups said Wednesday that the expected closure of an immigration detention center in the middle of the Everglades, likely within the next month or two, is no accident in its timing. The closure coincides with the return of a legal challenge over the facility to the same federal judge who ordered it shut down last year.
A federal appellate court decided last month to keep the detention center operating, blocking the lower court’s order. But the case was sent back to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami, who now regains jurisdiction over the lawsuit as litigation over the facility’s fate continues.
“Knowing that the same district judge who previously enjoined the operation would soon reassume oversight — the defendants are now effectively waving the white flag,” said Paul Schwiep, an attorney for the environmental groups that sued, arguing the facility’s construction had not undergone a required environmental review.
The state-run facility, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” was opened last July by the administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, to support the immigration crackdown by the administration of President Donald Trump. Trump visited the center last summer. The remote airstrip site sits within the Everglades ecosystem and has drawn sharp criticism over both its environmental footprint and the conditions reported inside.
An attorney for two detainees has accused guards of severely beating and pepper-spraying detainees. Other detainees have reported worms in the food, toilets that do not flush, and pervasive mosquitoes and insects.
“This monument to cruelty, waste and environmental and tribal lands abuse should have never been built,” U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida, said Tuesday.
Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity sued state and federal officials shortly after the facility opened, claiming the site was not given the environmental impact review required under federal law before being converted into an immigration detention center. Judge Williams agreed in August and ordered the facility to wind down operations within two months. The appellate court blocked that ruling, finding the state-run facility was not under federal control and therefore not required to comply with federal environmental review law.
But Schwiep said the appellate court made clear that once Florida received federal reimbursement for the facility, it would have to comply with the federal environmental law.
DeSantis said Tuesday that the state expected to be reimbursed by the federal government for $608 million, an amount already approved by FEMA.
“There’s no negotiations on that,” DeSantis said Tuesday. On Wednesday, at a news conference in Titusville, he said he had not received “official word” that federal authorities would stop sending detainees.
“We didn’t build any permanent facilities down there because we knew it was going to be temporary,” DeSantis said at the news conference.
Asked about the future of the facility on Wednesday, the governor’s press secretary referred questions to the Florida Department of Emergency Management, which operates the center. The agency did not respond to an emailed inquiry. Vendors who supply and help run the facility have been told the closure could occur as soon as next month, according to reports by The New York Times and CBS News Miami.