The immigrant detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” was presented on July 4, 2025, while construction ended at the Dade-Collier training and transitional airport in the Florida Everglades. A trial, brought by environmental groups and the Miccosukee tribe, has challenged the expansion and operations of the establishment.
Rebecca Blackwell / AP
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Rebecca Blackwell / AP
Miami – A trial brought by environmental groups and the Miccosukee tribe contesting the construction and operations of an immigration detention center in Florida Everglades wrapped Wednesday with several unanswered key questions.
At the top of the list is an American district judge, Kathleen Williams, asked several times during the four -day hearing: “Who directs the show?” to the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz”.
During the hearing, lawyers for two environmental groups cited comments made by Trump administration officials in interviews and publications on social networks that it is an immigration and customs application center. In court, Florida lawyers maintained a state detention center operating under the authority ICE but could not say to the judge who is really responsible on the site.
While immigration detention and other operations in the establishment continue as the legal process is advancing, the question of who is in charge at the center is important.
The environmental groups, the friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, have tabled the trial and were joined by the Miccosukee tribe, which has traditional use and access to the region. The three complainants say that the construction precipitated without contribution from the public or an assessment of the environmental impact violates federal law and that they ask the judge to close it.
The NEPA is in question – the National Environmental Policy Act – which obliges federal agencies to consider the alternatives, to initiate the public and to assess the environmental impact before continuing a project. Lawyers from Florida and Trump administration have declared to the court that federal law does not apply because the establishment was built and was operated by the state.
The demonstrators meet to demand the closure of the owling center for known immigrants under the name of “Alligator Alcatraz” at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida, July 22, 2025.
Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images
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Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images
“This case comes down to the control,” said lawyer for the Ministry of Justice Adam Gustafson. And on the site, he said: “The federal government has no action or power to control the activity.”
Paul Schweip, a lawyer at Friends of the Everglades, said Florida and Trump administration deliberately kept the question of who controlled the vague site. The detention center, he said, “serves a single function and it is the detention of immigration which, in law, is a federal authority”.
The installation, which has cage tents and cells for up to 5,000 immigration prisoners, is hosted in a rarely used and mainly abandoned aerodrome located in the wetlands of the large national cypress reserve.
During the hearing, lawyers for environmental groups presented testimonies detailing the impact of the activity and the increased population on the site on protected species and the water quality of the region.
Randy Kautz, an ecologist of fauna who helped write the panther recovery plan of the state, said that because of the lively lights, the increase in traffic and the human presence on the site, the Florida panthers would be pushed to at least 2,000 acres of their habitat. There are only 120 to 230 panthers endangered in Florida.
The ecologist of wetlands Christopher Mcvoy, who helped write the plan to restore the Everglades, raised concerns with the court about 20 acres again paving asphalt on the site and the impact that this will have on the quality of water in the fragile ecosystem. The Everglades ecosystem has a very low level of nitrates and phosphates, nutrients that promote plant growth, said McVoy. The runoff containing nutrients and pollutants, he said, would have a “drastic impact” on native vegetation and wetlands nearby.
Employees of the Miccosukee tribe testified on the impact that increased activity on site has on people who live in tribal villages, several of which are located a few kilometers from the establishment. They said that the site runs generally move to the south to the villages and is likely to contain contaminants that can affect the environment and human health. And they have raised concerns about the impact of the living lights of the establishment have an endangered species, the bat.
The groups and the tribe ask judge Williams to issue a preliminary injunction which would oblige the state and the federal government to remove the lighting, fencing and waste waste, restoring access to the members of the miccosukee and to carry out operations there within 14 days.
The judge made a two -week temporary ban order on August 7 on the new construction at the establishment. She said that she would reign at the request of a preliminary injunction before the expiration of this order.
