MIAMI — A federal judge Wednesday appeared to lean toward keeping an environmental challenge against the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention facility in the Southern District of Florida after a state challenge arguing it should be moved elsewhere.
But the district judge, Kathleen Williams, didn’t immediately make a decision or say when one would come. She said instead that the court would press ahead on another hearing where witnesses will testify next week.
The case centers on an environmental lawsuit that seeks to quickly shut down or halt expansion of the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention center. The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Everglades, the organizations who sued, say opening the facility amounts to an end run around federal environmental laws.
The groups argue federal and state officials did not conduct environmental reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act. They are concerned about noise, lights and other activity from the facility harming endangered nocturnal species, such as the Florida panther and the Florida bonneted bat.
