Florida officials failed to disclose that they had applied for federal reimbursement for an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” leading to a false impression before an appellate court panel that put on hold a judge’s order to wind down operations at the facility, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.
The public records lawsuit was filed in state court in Tallahassee by the Friends of the Everglades, which along with another environmental group and the Miccosukee Tribe, sued federal and state agencies, alleging they didn’t follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams agreed and ordered in August that the facility needed to wind down operations within two months. However, that injunction was put on hold in early September when a federal appellate court panel in Atlanta issued a stay, pending the outcome of an appeal, allowing the facility to stay open for the time being.
A majority on the three-judge panel said the state-run facility didn’t need to undergo a federally required environmental impact study because Florida had yet to receive federal money for the project.
“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 judges wrote in their Sept. 4 stay order.
The state of Florida had applied for federal funding on Aug. 7 but never mentioned it to the federal court judge or the appellate court panel and hasn’t corrected the panel’s “misimpressions,” according to Monday’s public records lawsuit.
Earlier this month, federal officials confirmed that Florida had been approved for a $608 million reimbursement for the costs of building and running the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades.
The public records lawsuit was seeking communications and documents between the state and federal governments, which Friends of the Everglades says has been withheld despite making numerous requests since June.
“Government officials in Florida have misled the public they are supposed to work for, and the Everglades have been harmed as a result,” Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Emergency Management on Monday didn’t respond to a request for comment over the public records lawsuit.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration in late June raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by wetlands to aid President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport people in the U.S. illegally. The governor said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after.
Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.
By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press
