The Department of Homeland Security has reimbursed Florida $608 million for the construction and operating costs of the Everglades immigration detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” risking the reopening of a lawsuit seeking its closure.
Florida’s full reimbursement request was awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency this week before the government shutdown took effect, according to a local news reporter in Miami.
Shortly after opening in July, Alligator Alcatraz faced a wave of federal lawsuits. One of them sought to challenge the facility based on environmental concerns, alleging the site’s location in the swampy ecosystem would disrupt the wildlife habitat and harm endangered species.
A federal judge sided with the environmentalists in August, issuing a preliminary injunction that ordered the facility designed to house illegal immigrants to be closed within 60 days. The ruling was overturned by an appeals court that concluded Florida and the Trump administration would have been irreparably harmed by having to shutter the facility.
While the plaintiffs in that case argued an environmental impact review was required by federal law, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said it was not required yet because the federal government hadn’t given Florida money for the project at that point in time.
“If the Federal Defendants ultimately decide to approve that request and reimburse Florida for its expenditures related to the Facility, they may need to first conduct an EIS [environmental impact statement],” the appellate court panel wrote in the order issued last month.
“But, having not yet formally ‘committed to funding that project,’ the Federal Defendants have taken no ‘major federal action’ subjecting them to the procedural requirements of [the National Environmental Policy Act],” they wrote.
Now that Florida has received the reimbursement, it remains to be seen what happens next in the legal case.
One of the plaintiffs pointed to the new reimbursement as evidence that Alligator Alcatraz needs to be shut down.
“This seems to be the smoking gun proving that our lawsuit challenging Alligator Alcatraz is entirely correct,” Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement on Thursday.
“This is a federal project being built with federal funds that’s required by federal law to go through a complete environmental review,” she added. “The Trump administration can’t keep lying through their teeth to the American public at the expense of Florida’s imperiled wildlife. We’ll do everything we can to stop this lawless, destructive and wasteful debacle.”
After news of the reimbursement broke, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) responded on X: “Another bogus narrative bites the dust. I said all along that we would be reimbursed.”
APPEALS COURT BLOCKS ORDER SHUTTERING ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ
Florida runs Alligator Alcatraz in partnership with DHS. The detention facility’s operating costs were estimated at $450 million per year for a planned capacity of up to 5,000 beds. It’s located next to a single-runway training airport, useful for deporting illegal immigrants from the swampy environment.
The first state-run immigration detention center inspired DHS to partner with other states to open similar facilities with catchy names. Florida has another site nicknamed “Deportation Depot,” located at a revamped correctional institution in northwest Florida. It opened last month after the appeals court ruled in favor of southern Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz.
