US 'Alligator Alcatraz' to remain open for detainees, court rules

Washington DC [US], September 5 : An immigration detention centre in the Florida Everglades can remain open, and the government can resume sending detainees there, after a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday against a lower court's decision effectively shutting down the facility, The New York Times reported.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta granted the state and federal governments' petition to pause the ruling by a federal judge in Miami last month. Under that ruling, no additional detainees could be sent to the centre known as Alligator Alcatraz, and much of it had to be dismantled within 60 days.

The latest ruling was a victory for Florida officials, who pushed the boundaries of traditional immigration enforcement when they opened the facility in July. The state became the first to run an immigrant detention centre, normally a federal role. Other states have since announced plans to house federal immigration detainees in state-owned facilities.

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Alligator Alcatraz will stay open— and so will our promise to remove every violent, criminal illegal alien from our country. https://t.co/rTdgSCIH2w— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) September 4, 2025

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The ruling was also significant for the Department of Homeland Security, which had argued in court that it was not running the Everglades detention centre.

In granting the stay, the appeals panel found that the lower court had misinterpreted a federal law requiring a review of potential environmental harms before building a major project in the ecologically fragile Everglades. It found that because the detention centre had so far been entirely funded by Florida, and because the state operated the centre, the National Environmental Policy Act would not apply.

Florida has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the detention centre, an outlay that Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has repeatedly said will be reimbursed by the federal government. Even if that should happen, the appeals panel ruled, it would be "insufficient" grounds to consider the detention centre a major federal project subject to environmental review.

"Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we've always said, open for business," DeSantis said in a video posted to X shortly after the appellate ruling. "The mission continues, and we're going to continue leading the way when it comes to immigration enforcement."

Between 120 and 125 detainees remain, a lawyer for the federal government said on Thursday at a hearing in federal court in Fort Myers. The hearing was on a different case regarding the Everglades detention centre.

During that hearing, Nicholas JP Meros, an attorney for the state, told Judge Sheri Polster Chappell that Florida was not bringing any additional detainees to the Everglades detention centre but intended to keep it running and to bring in more detainees if Judge Williams's ruling were reversed.

The appeals panel found that the state and federal governments would suffer "irreparable harm" if the Everglades detention centre were shut down while the case played out in court.

Among the reasons the appeals panel cited for allowing the detention centre to remain open was that the state said it would cost USD 15 million to USD 20 million to dismantle much of the facilityand then the same amount to rebuild if it were to succeed in its appeal, as per the New York Times.

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