Alligator Alcatraz gets huge check from the Feds, which may bolster claims by opponents that it should be shut down
News and views for Florida's Left Coast
“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck.”
— Federal Judge Kathleen Williams
Turns out, Alligator Alcatraz is a duck.
When she ordered the concentration camp in the Everglades shut down, that’s what Miami-based U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams concluded.
She had the challenging task of sorting through conflicting arguments between the State of Florida and the U.S. government about whose responsibility it was to build and run Alligator Alcatraz.
The Feds and Florida were pointing fingers at one another, both trying to avoid responsibility in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, who claimed that construction of the prison camp was illegal because it was hastily thrown together before any study could be completed about its impact on the fragile Everglades environment.
Federal projects are required to do so. So, the Feds pointed to the state. Judge Williams didn’t buy it and ordered the gulag closed.
But a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, on a 2-1 split decision, ruled otherwise and stayed Williams’ order.
From my earlier column on this:
In granting the stay, the appeals court said Williams had misinterpreted a federal law requiring a review of potential environmental harms before building a major project. It said that because the Everglades detention center was entirely funded by Florida, and because the state operated the center, the National Environmental Policy Act doesn’t apply.
The key there is “entirely funded by Florida.”
Uh, small problem.
Last week, the U.S. government sent Florida a check for more than $600 million to cover the costs of building and running the concentration camp. In other words, the federal government just handed Alligator Alcatraz’s opponents a $600 million argument why Judge Williams was right on the money.
Here’s what she said in full:
“Defendants essentially tell the Court that the project is purely state action because its employees (presumably) wear uniforms bearing state agency logos, and because the federal government seems to have held back on sending its reimbursement until some unidentified impediment (perhaps, this litigation) has abated,” she wrote.
“Meanwhile, the project was requested by the federal government; built with a promise of full federal funding; constructed in compliance with ICE standards; staffed by deputized ICE Task Force Officers acting under color of federal authority and at the direction and supervision of ICE officials; and exists for the sole purpose of detaining and deporting those subject to federal immigration enforcement. Detainees are brought onto the site by federal agents and deported from the site by federal agents on federally owned aircraft. In concluding the camp is a major federal action, the Court will ‘adhere to the test-tested adage: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck.’”
The tribe and environmental groups have asked the full court in Atlanta to expedite the appeals process, and this, surely, will bolster their case.
The court has agreed, but most people might have a different interpretation of what the word “expedited” means. A decision isn’t expected until 2026.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice just pulled the rug out from under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
As the Associated Press reports:
U.S. government lawyers say that detainees at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” likely include people who have never been in removal proceedings, which is a direct contradiction to what Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been saying since it opened in July.
Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice made that admission Thursday in a court filing arguing that the detainees at the facility in the Everglades wilderness don’t have enough in common to be certified as a class in a lawsuit over whether they’re getting proper access to attorneys.
DeSantis has been saying that ever since Alligator Alcatraz opened, each person imprisoned there has already gone through the process of determining that they may be deported.
Apparently, not so.
Which opens a Pandora’s Box of questions about who all are there and how many, if any, people have been deported without due process.
Some duck.
What do you think? Share your views by clicking on the COMMENTS link at the end of this newsletter. Thanks!
Today is …
National Taco Day. This holiday migrates a bit around the calendar so that it always ends up on a Tuesday because, as everyone knows, Tuesdays are Taco Tuesdays because of the clever alliteration. Nobody knows why it isn’t Taco Thursdays.
Thought for the day
“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Florida factual
There were 84,678 people in Florida state prisons in 2022, with the Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) also supervising over 144,000 offenders in the community as of early 2025, bringing the total under FDC oversight to over 230,000 people.
More online
Thank you for reading the Tropic Press newsletter. You also have access to the Tropic Press website for additional and previous posts, copies of the Monthly Memo, an archive of posts from our advice columnist, Miss Mingo, occasional guest commentaries, and information about The Strange Files series of mysterious adventures and other books.
J.C. Bruce, journalist and author, is the founder of Tropic Press. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and his native Florida. When he’s not blogging, he’s in training for the Florida Man Underwater Ping Pong Championships. Forward this email to your friends. They will love you for it.
Thanks to our sponsor
Today’s report is brought to you by Tropic Press Books, home of The Strange Files. Interested in sponsoring these reports? Contact: Advertising@Tropic.Press
It’s good to share
Tropic Press is a reader-supported publication. Here’s a big shout-out to all our loyal subscribers. Feel free to forward this email to your friends so they can enjoy it too. The more people we reach, the greater community of like-minded people we build. This is your chance to be part of all that. Thank you.
And the dominoes start to fall.
Let's just face facts, the US is now being ruled by a dictorship unless it is torn down. The concentrate camp called Alligator Alcatraz should be demolished. Who is going to fix this mess?