Alligator Alcatraz remains ‘open for business’

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(The Center Square) – Alligator Alcatraz is staying open for business.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday put U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams’ preliminary injunction on hold. She had ruled from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Aug. 21 to halt any more expansion, halt any more people detained from being brought to the facility and gave expectation the facility population would decline within 60 days.

The governor’s office of second-term Republican Ron DeSantis responded that “deportations will continue.”

The case’s plaintiffs, appellees and intervenors are the Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe. Defendants and appellants are U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem; Todd Lyons, interim director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency; Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management; and Miami-Dade County.

“We said we would fight,” DeSantis wrote on social media. “We said the mission would continue. So, Alligator Alcatraz is in fact, like we’ve always said, open for business.”

Homeland Security said the appellate ruling is “a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense.”

Alligator Alcatraz is a detention facility in the Everglades capable of housing up to 3,000. The Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport assists with deportation efforts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The 30-square mile airport owned by Miami-Dade County is located roughly 60 miles west of Miami near the Everglades National Park.

Its 10,000-foot-long asphalt runway is used for military training exercises and was intended to be part of Miami's new airport before a public outcry halted construction in 1970.

President Donald Trump toured in July. Last month, DeSantis unveiled a northern Florida facility dubbed Deportation Depot.