U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued an order to move forward with the dismantling of Alligator Alcatraz.
“The Court found Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their NEPA claim because the project was adversely impacting the environment and was controlled in large part by the federal government, and Defendants had done no environmental analysis at all before building and commencing operations of the facility,” Williams wrote, discussing matters from her 82-page ruling from last week. “The Court described substantial evidence provided by Plaintiffs of several kinds of ongoing and likely future irreparable harm from the project, including to the surrounding wetlands, endangered species, and those who live, recreate, research in, and work to preserve the area.”
Williams added that federal government defendants “rehash the same general arguments about the importance of immigration enforcement they presented during the Preliminary Injunction Hearing.”
“As Defendants provide no new evidence or argument about the particular dangerousness of the detainee population at the [Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport] site or the need for a detention facility in this particular location, the Court will not repeat the shortcomings of Defendants’ claims here,” court documents read.
Williams’ previous ruling prohibited “State and Federal Defendants and their officers, agents, employees, attorneys, and any person who is in active concert or participation with them” from working on the site or bringing additional persons into the facility.
The Department of Homeland Security told CBS News that the facility’s dismantling is “another attempt to prevent the President from fulfilling the American people’s mandate to remove the worst of the worst.”
“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,” DHS said.
