TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a lower court erred when issuing an injunction that would effectively dismantle the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
The court vacated a previous decision from a district court, which ordered the state to begin winding down operations at the detention center and said it couldn’t add to the population at the facility. In the majority decision, Chief Judge William Pryor wrote that environmental advocacy groups and the Miccosukee Tribe failed to prove Alligator Alcatraz is under federal control and that the detention center needed to go through a federal environmental review.
“The only federal action the environmentalists can identify is the decision not to conduct an environmental review,” wrote Pryor, a George W. Bush-era appointee. “And that decision alone, as all parties agree, is not final agency action.”
Until federal officials from the Department of Homeland Security decide to fund the facility, Pryor said, “no final agency action occurs.”
