Federal Judge Says The Closure Of ‘Alligator Alcatraz' Must Continue

By Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

August 28, 2025

A federal judge in Miami is refusing to pause her order winding down the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” while the federal government appeals her ruling.

“Defendants rehash the same general arguments about the importance of immigration enforcement they presented during the Preliminary Injunction Hearing,” U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida wrote Wednesday night.

“As Defendants provide no new evidence or argument about the particular dangerousness of the detainee population at the TNT site or the need for a detention facility in this particular location, the Court will not repeat the shortcomings of Defendants’ claims here.”

Judge Williams’ decision came six days after she ordered that no more immigrant detainees be sent to the detention facility, and after a published report surfaced on Wednesday that it might soon be shutting down.

Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had said in their request for a stay of that order that, if carried out, it would disrupt the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws.

“Without this facility and its detention capacity, many of these individuals would either be released back into the community or not arrested at all, placing significant strain on local communities,” said Garrett Ripa, Miami field office director for the DHS.

“The inability to detain criminal aliens due solely to a lack of detention space creates a serious public safety risk. Notably, it is estimated that among the millions of aliens who entered the United States under the previous administration, one in four provided a release address in the State of Florida. “

Two environmental groups — Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, as well as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida — filed a lawsuit against the state and federal government immediately after they announced plans for the facility at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Collier County.

They contended the government failed to conduct the environmental assessments required by the National Environmental Policy Act before constructing and operating the facility.

In a ruling made last Thursday, Judge Williams ordered that no more immigrant detainees be sent to the facility and gave both the state and federal government 60 days to move out existing detainees and begin removing temporary fencing, lightning features, and generators, gas, sewage, and waste and receptacles installed to support the project.

Meanwhile, Florida Division of Emergency Management executive director Kevin Guthrie told a rabbi in South Florida in an email on Aug. 22 that “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days,” according to a report published Wednesday by the Associated Press.

Rabbi Mario Rojzman, and an executive assistant for the rabbi who’d corresponded with Guthrie, confirmed to the AP Guthrie’s emailed response.

In a statement sent to the Phoenix, a DHS spokesperson acknowledged the agency is transferring detainees out of the Everglades facility. “DHS is complying with this order and moving detainees to other facilities. We will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to remove the worst of the worst from American streets.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis said the reduction in detainees at the facility is being led by DHS.

“DHS is taking people out of there and they’re moving them out,” the governor said during a press conference in Orlando on Wednesday. “Our role is to provide more space for processing detention leading into deportation. DHS determines who goes into those facilities, and who goes out of those facilities.”

He added that there remains a need for more detention centers to hold immigrants without documentation arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and that construction continues for a second such facility in northeast Florida’s Baker County that could hold up to 1,300 detainees.

It’s not known how many detainees are being held at the Everglades facility.

Orlando Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost said in a legal document that he visited Alligator Alcatraz on Aug. 20 and was told by a site manager that around 350 detainees remained on site, that ICE has advised that it now only needs space for 72-hour holds of detainees, and that ICE decides “everything” that occurs at the facility.

Attorneys for the state have filed a motion with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit seeking a stay of Judge Williams’ preliminary injunction issued last week.

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