TALLAHASSEE, Florida — In the face of a court order requiring the state to dismantle its touted and controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida remains “committed to the mission” of carrying out President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts.
State officials, led by the GOP governor, quickly rebuffed the Thursday night ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, an Obama-era appointee. The ruling would make it impossible to operate Alligator Alcatraz by requiring the removal of fencing, lighting and generators. Florida already appealed the decision Friday morning, as the state prepares to open a second immigrant housing facility in a vacant prison outside Jacksonville.
“This is a judge that was not going to give us a fair shake,” DeSantis said Friday during an event in Panama City. “This was preordained, very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench.”
“This is not going to deter us. We're going to continue working on the deportations, advancing that mission.”
The comments from DeSantis underscore how Florida is taking a hard-line position against illegal immigration and hoping to lead on the state level in enforcing Trump’s deportation push. State leaders have been vocal and public supporters of the country’s revamped immigration policies, authorizing state agencies to sign 287(g) illegal immigration assistance agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Florida this week dispatched Lt. Gov. Jay Collins to California to ensure an immigrant from India who allegedly killed three people in a semi-truck crash was “extradited back" to the state.
While some of Florida’s moves, including the establishment of the Alligator Alcatraz facility in the Everglades, are being fought in court, DeSantis pledged the state will “make sure to get the job done in the end.”
“You have people that are in this country that have already been ordered to be removed by the current system, and yet the previous administration didn't want to do anything about it,” DeSantis said Friday. “We're now in this position where we're leading the state efforts to help the Trump administration actually enforce the law and actually remove these illegal aliens from not just Florida, but from our country.”
In Thursday’s court order, Williams challenged the "Alcatraz" facility’s operation on environmental grounds and ordered the state to stop construction at the facility and, within 60 days, remove fencing, lighting and generators. This case is now slated to play out in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
The state, meanwhile, is gearing up to open a second migrant detention center in Baker County, west of Jacksonville, that is expected to hold some 1,300 people — and eventually up to 2,000.
“We're not going to be deterred; we're totally in the right on this,” DeSantis said Friday. “But I would also note, because of the success of Alligator Alcatraz, there's demand for more."
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