A federal judge in Miami ruled Thursday that the migrant detention facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Florida Everglades may continue operating but cannot be expanded or take in additional detainees.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams, an Obama appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the addition of new industrial-style lighting and any further expansion of the site. Her ruling further prevents “bringing any additional persons … who were not already being detained at the site at the time of this order.”
The ruling was issued late Thursday, allowing the requested injunction due to violations of the National Environmental Policy Act. Within 60 days, “and once the population attrition allows for safe implementation of this Order,” the facility must also remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project,” the 82-page ruling said, effectively ordering the facility closed.
The order also requires the removal of additional lighting that had been installed at the facility. Light pollution was a central issue during hearings earlier this month.
The government must remove the temporary fencing so that Native American tribe members can access the site as they did before the facility was built.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that the ruling “ignores the fact that this land has already been developed for a decade. It is another attempt to prevent the President from fulfilling the American people’s mandate to remove the worst of the worst, including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, terrorists, and rapists, from our country.”
“This activist judge doesn’t care about the invasion of our country facilitated by the Biden administration, but the American people do,” McLaughlin said. “We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.”
