Judge who ordered Alligator Alcatraz shut down overstepped, appeals court rules

Churchill Ndonwie and Claire Heddles, Miami Herald on Apr 21, 2026

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MIAMI — An appeals court on Tuesday overturned a Miami judge’s order that briefly required the Florida Division of Emergency Management to begin shutting down Alligator Alcatraz last summer and barred new detainees from being held at the site.

The split decision by the three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said District Judge Kathleen Williams’ Aug. 21 order — paused by the same appeals court just days after it was issued — was improper because the environmental groups and Miccosukee Tribe bringing the lawsuit “failed to prove” that the federal government controlled the site.

Chief Judge William Pryor and Judge Andrew Basher sided with the state, saying the lower court’s ruling violated a 1996 federal law that hardened immigration enforcement and restricted judicial power on immigration.

A third judge on the panel, however, dissented with the decision. Judge Nancy Abudu said the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to show that the district court abused its power.

She accused her colleagues on the panel of making a decision that “absolves both the state and federal defendants of their collective responsibility to the human beings currently detained.”

Tuesday’s appeals court ruling sets a dangerous precedent, according to Abudu.

“One day in the unknown future the state of Florida could decide it no longer wants to participate in the detention scheme,” she wrote. “It cannot, and should not, be the case that the federal government, which all parties agree has exclusive control over the detention of migrants, can abdicate its responsibility.”

Tuesday’s ruling has no practical effect on the day-to-day operations of Alligator Alcatraz, given that Williams’ order has been paused since September, when the same appeals court allowed the state and federal governments to continue to use the Everglades detention camp for immigrants while judges hashed out the arguments of the lawsuit.

The ruling vacating Williams’ ruling and remanding the case back to her court means operations at the controversial facility will continue while the lower court litigates whether the state and federal government should be subjected to federal environmental regulations at the site.

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