TALLAHASSEE — Florida plans to resume taking in immigrants at a controversial detention center in the Everglades if an appeals court pauses a judge's order that required winding down operations at the facility, a new court filing says.
The filing Tuesday came after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said last week it had stopped sending detainees to the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” because of a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams.
Speculation about the future of the facility also has been fueled by an Associated Press report last week about an email exchange between state Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie and a South Florida rabbi. Guthrie said during the exchange, “We are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days” at the Everglades facility, the AP reported..
But state and federal officials have asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a stay of Williams’ preliminary injunction, which came in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and joined by the Miccosukee Tribe. If such a stay is issued, it would put the order on hold until the appeals court can rule on underlying issues in the case.
Tuesday’s filing, which was part of a separate lawsuit about the detention center, indicated the state plans to begin ramping up operations at the facility if a stay is issued.
“The state defendants remain confident that the Eleventh Circuit will stay, and eventually overturn, the preliminary injunction,” the document said. “When that occurs, the facility will resume accepting federal detainees.”
The document, which was a joint status report in the separate lawsuit, did not say how many detainees remain at the facility. It also did not say whether federal officials would send additional detainees to the facility if a stay is issued.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials have said they built the facility this summer to help President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport people in the country illegally. But the facility has been hit with three major legal challenges, including the lawsuit filed June 27 by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity and joined later by the Miccosukee Tribe.
That lawsuit contends state and federal officials violated the National Environmental Policy Act, a federal law that requires evaluating potential environmental impacts before projects can move forward. The groups and the Miccosukee Tribe argue that the facility, which is surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve, poses a series of threats to the environment.
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Siding with the groups and the tribe, Williams last month issued the preliminary injunction, which prevents additional construction and bringing additional detainees to the facility. Williams also ordered the removal within 60 days of temporary fencing, detention-center lighting and such things as generators.
State and federal officials filed appeals at the Atlanta-based appeals court and requested a stay. The state raised a series of issues in its motion for a stay, including that the preliminary injunction would harm efforts to detain people in the country illegally.
Also, the state’s attorneys contended that the National Environmental Policy Act does not apply to the facility. They said that is because the state — not the federal government — built the detention center and operates it, while citing what are known as 287(g) agreements in which Florida law-enforcement agencies help with immigration enforcement.
“The state controls the land on which the detention facility sits,” the state’s motion said. “The state funded its construction (though federal reimbursement is possible). The state accepts immigration detainees pursuant to 287(g) agreements with the federal government, but it exercises discretion over whether to accept any detainee. Thus, although the detention facility is used for immigration functions — like many facilities across Florida, including county jails — it remains a state facility under state control.”
But in a response filed Tuesday at the appeals court, attorneys for the environmental groups blasted such arguments. For example, they described an argument about the state building the facility as “myopic” and said it ignores “the very purpose for which the facility was built: to house individuals detained by and for ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for alleged violations of federal immigration laws.”
The response also said state and federal officials “cannot seriously argue that Florida would have built a 4,000-bed detention center in a federally protected national preserve to serve a federal function absent partnership with, and the promise of reimbursement from, the federal government.”
“Indeed, Florida cannot legally operate an immigration detention center without federal approval, necessarily making this federal action subject to NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act),” the groups’ attorneys wrote.
Williams last week refused to stay her order, and it remains unclear when the appeals court will decide whether to issue a stay. Meanwhile, the state has announced plans to open a detention center at Baker Correctional Institution, a shuttered prison in Baker County. Also, DeSantis on Tuesday raised the possibility of opening another detention center in Northwest Florida.
The joint status report filed Tuesday was part of a lawsuit that alleges detainees at the Everglades facility were unable to access legal representation or have private meetings with their attorneys. That case is pending in federal court in Fort Myers.
