The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals handed Florida — and the Trump administration — a major win on Thursday, ruling that the state’s controversial immigrant detention facility, known as Alligator Alcatraz, can keep operating while litigation plays out.
The 2–1 decision overturned an order issued last month by an Obama-appointed district judge, who had sided with environmental groups and an American Indian tribe seeking to halt operations at the former airfield-turned-detention complex deep in the Everglades.
That judge’s temporary restraining order blocked Florida and DHS from placing new detainees at the site and paused construction.
The appeals court majority was blunt: the lawsuit “failed to state a viable claim” under federal environmental law, and the lower court’s injunction ran counter to the public interest.
“Given that the federal government has an undisputed and wide-reaching interest in combatting illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is a matter of national security and public safety,” the panel wrote, “we think the injunction issued below goes against the public interest.”
HUGE VICTORY FOR ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ. Today’s order is a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense. This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility. It has and will always be about open-borders…
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 4, 2025
Homeland Security and Gov. Ron DeSantis quickly claimed victory. DHS declared the ruling “a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense,” dismissing the case as nothing more than a proxy fight by “open-borders activists and judges.”
DeSantis echoed that sentiment in a video message. “The media was giddy that somehow Alligator Alcatraz was ‘shutting down.’ And we told them that wasn’t true,” he said.
“There have been illegal aliens continuing to be there and being removed and returned to their home country. But they ran with the narrative because some leftist judge ruled, implausibly, that somehow Florida wasn’t allowed to use our own property to help the federal government in this important mission. So Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we’ve always said, open for business.”
