OAN Staff Katherine Mosack and Brooke Mallory
4:29 PM – Friday, August 22, 2025
Florida Republicans and Trump administration officials are pushing back against a federal judge’s order to begin phasing out operations at the Alligator Alcatraz detention center — which holds illegal aliens awaiting deportation.
The pushback is being led by Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who called the ruling an act of an “activist judge,” vowing not to be deterred.
Florida has now filed an appeal and is moving ahead with plans to open another facility in Baker County with capacity for up to 2,000 detainees.
DeSantis emphasized Florida’s commitment to aiding the Trump administration’s federal deportations and expanding its immigration enforcement infrastructure — despite any legal or political pushback.
Federal judge Kathleen Williams had issued a preliminary injunction ordering the “winding down” of the immigration detention center, known as Alligator Alcatraz, located in the Florida Everglades.
The ruling mandated that no new detainees be admitted and required the relocation of current detainees within 60 days, along with dismantling generators, fencing, lighting, and waste systems — once population declines safely flow.
Judge Williams’ ruling argued that Florida officials and the federal government “unlawfully bypassed required environmental reviews” before constructing the facility. Williams also claimed that the center presents significant environmental risks to the Everglades ecosystem, which she emphasized is protected.
She issued a preliminary injunction sought by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose members live in the area.
Former Acting ICE Director Jonathan Fahey commented on the ongoing legal feud on Fox News.
“Once the population attrition allows for safe implementation of this Order,” the facility must purge “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this project,” the 82-page ruling declared.
Meanwhile, Democrat politicians in Florida have cheered on the judge’s recent ruling — despite the GOP-led appeal.
“It’s about damn time,” Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) said in a statement. “After so much pressure from me and my colleagues, finally Alligator Alcatraz is closing down.
“The Everglades Immigrant Detention Center is nothing more than a state-sponsored, government-funded internment camp designed to keep Black and Brown immigrants in hellish conditions while Donald Trump pretends it makes our country safer,” said Representative Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.).
“But our fight doesn’t end here. I remain committed to holding this administration accountable, and I will continue to show up unannounced to this and any other facility like it in Florida and across the country to protect innocent immigrants who are being racially targeted,” he continued.
The Sunshine State filed a notice of appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court in Atlanta on Thursday night, less than an hour after Williams’ preliminary injunction halting the intake of new detainees at the facility and setting a 60-day deadline.
In response, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 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.”
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