Environmental groups file lawsuit over 'Alligator Alcatraz' in Florida Everglades

Emily L. Mahoney, Tampa Bay Times on Jun 27, 2025

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Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit against federal, state and Miami-Dade County officials Friday over the immigration detention center under construction in the Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity announced that they filed the suit because the plan for the detention center bypassed the required procedure for reviewing environmental risks and giving the public a chance to weigh in. The case was filed in a federal court in Miami.

“The site is more than 96% wetlands, surrounded by Big Cypress National Preserve, and is habitat for the endangered Florida panther and other iconic species,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, in a statement. “This scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect.”

The lawsuit calls for an injunction to halt the ongoing construction on the site, which is intended to house at least 1,000 people rounded up in the Trump administration’s immigration raids. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has said it will be ready to receive migrants next week.

A spokesperson for the governor’s office said state officials “look forward to litigating this case.”

“Governor Ron DeSantis has insisted that Florida will be a force multiplier for federal immigration enforcement, and this facility is a necessary staging operation for mass deportations located at a pre-existing airport that will have no impact on the surrounding environment,” DeSantis spokesperson Molly Best wrote in an email.

DeSantis, who has made Everglades restoration a centerpiece of his administration’s environmental agenda, has touted the harsh optics of the detention site — surrounded by miles of swamp filled with alligators and pythons. On Friday, Fox News aired a segment in which the governor gave the cable news outlet a tour of the construction zone, during which DeSantis said the facility is being “done by the book” and migrants would have access to air conditioning and legal services.

The Republican Party of Florida also posted on social media Friday that it’s selling “Alligator Alcatraz” T-shirts that include a graphic of a gator and a snake superimposed on a building.

The Florida Division of Emergency Management is operating the detention site, which is being built atop an air strip owned by Miami-Dade County. State officials have asserted that they have the authority to commandeer the site under a DeSantis-declared state of emergency over illegal immigration.

The lawsuit disagrees, saying that nothing in Florida law authorizes the emergency management agency “to convert county-owned property into a federal detention center without legislative authority, environmental review, or compliance with local land use requirements.”

An employee who answered the phone in the Miami-Dade County office of communications, who declined to provide her full name, said the county would not be providing comment. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit also argues that the public has been deprived of information about the quickly erected detention site, which sits amid protected land known for its vast wetland habitat and ultra-dark night skies.

“Cruelty aside, it defies common sense to put a mass of people, vehicles and development in one of the most significant wetlands in the world,” said Tania Galloni, managing attorney for the Florida office of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm representing the plaintiffs. “That’s why we’re going to court.”

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