Big news out of Florida on Tuesday as the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals just handed a significant win to both the state and the federal government regarding the immigrant detention center best known as "Alligator Alcatraz."
In August, District Judge Kathleen Williams found that the construction of the facility on the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport likely violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and issued a sweeping injunction that halted construction and limited detention at the facility, ultimately ordering the facility to be cleared within 60 days. In other words, this wasn't just a pause — Williams ordered a wholesale undoing of the efforts made previously to erect the detention facility.
The state and federal defendants appealed the injunction and scored a stay pending appeal. Now, the 11th Circuit has vacated the lower court injunction and remanded the case for further proceedings.
Big: 11th Circuit Takes a Bite Out of Lower Court Injunction With Stay in Alligator Alcatraz Case
Some highlights from the Court's ruling:
Florida, not federal, officials constructed the facility. They control the land and “entirely” built the facility at state expense. The only federal action the environmentalists can identify is the decision not to conduct an environmental review. And that decision alone, as all parties agree, is not final agency action. See Pub. Citizen v. U.S. Trade Representative, 5 F.3d 549, 552 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (“[A]n agency’s failure to prepare an [environmental impact statement], by itself, is not sufficient to trigger [Administrative Procedure Act] review in the absence of identifiable substantive agency action.”).
...
The facility was constructed “with no or minimal federal involvement,” and Homeland Security could not “control the outcome of the project.” 42 U.S.C. § 4336e (10)(B)(i)(II); see also United States v. S. Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist., 28 F.3d 1563, 1573 (11th Cir. 1994) (holding that a project cannot be called federal “when the state agencies retain their state law authority to make the decisions concerning the project”). As the Secretary explains, Florida officials retained final authority over every decision regarding the project, from “the size of the detention facility” and “how many beds it has” to “who will build it, or what materials will be used.” Indeed, if Florida officials decided to stop building or to dedicate the land to address a new emergency, such as hurricane relief, federal officials could not overrule them. Federal authority is, at most, indirect: it is involved in the construction only insofar as it sets the terms for which the facility may be used for detention of aliens, but Florida officials dedicated its land to that use. The Environmental Policy Act applies “only when there is federal decision-making.” S.Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist., 28 F.3d at 1573. Federal officials made no construction decision capable of triggering the Act.
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Even if the environmentalists and Tribe were likely to succeed on their claim, we would still vacate a portion of the injunction. The district court enjoined federal officials from “bringing any additional persons onto the . . . site who were not already being detained” there. The injunction conflicts with a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that strips the “authority” of district courts “to enjoin or restrain the operation of [sections 1221–1231 of Title 8 of the United States Code]. . . other than with respect to the application of such provisions to an individual alien.” 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1); Reno v. Am.-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm., 525 U.S. 471, 481 (1999).
The opinion isn't particularly lengthy, but the TL;DR version of it is this:
- There’s no federal action to challenge in the first place
- Even if there were, the project is not federal enough to trigger environmental law
- And even if it were, courts can’t block immigration operations this way
This was a 2-1 decision, with Judges William Pryor (Bush 43) and Andrew Brasher (Trump) in the majority, and Judge Nancy Abudu (Biden) authoring a dissent, in which she accuses the majority of minimizing federal involvement and reworking the factual findings.
Ultimately, though, the 11th Circuit drew a fairly definitive line here, finding that if the federal government didn't actually run the project, NEPA isn't the proper mechanism for challenging it — and in any event, immigration law may well block that remedy.
This decision sends the case back to the district court (without the injunction in place), where we can expect the defendants to challenge the venue and move to dismiss the case. In the meantime, Plaintiffs may seek rehearing en banc at the 11th Circuit, and ultimately file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court. So, this tussle isn't over — but Tuesday's ruling marks a notable win for the State of Florida and the Trump administration.
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