President Donald Trump tours “Alligator Alcatraz,” a new migrant detention facility at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
The Trump administration responded in federal court on Thursday after two environmental nonprofit groups sued to block the construction of a temporary detention center at an airstrip in the Big Cypress National Preserve in the Everglades, a facility President Donald Trump, his Florida allies, and the DOJ itself have called “Alligator Alcatraz.”
In a court filing, lawyers from the DOJ”s Natural Resources Section said that there are multiple reasons that plaintiffs Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity cannot succeed in obtaining the preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order they seek at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida: DHS isn’t funding the construction of the detention center, Florida is; there has been no “final agency action” on the part of DHS; and the suit is based on “too speculative and conclusory” a theory of “irreparable harm” to the environment and on those who wish to take in the wildlife.
The case was brought on an expedited basis last Friday against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting ICE Director Toddy Lyons, Miami-Dade County and Kevin Guthrie, the executive director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.
In it, the plaintiffs argued that the National Environmental Policy Act demands that federal agencies, such as DHS or ICE, undertaking a “major federal action” must put together an “Environmental Impact Statement” on the effects of the project on the environment. The absence of such an assessment and moving forward with construction “without public notice or comment,” the complaint continued, “constitutes final agency action” that is “subject to judicial review” under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
The groups asserted that the Miami County-owned Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, within Big Cypress National Preserve and where “Alligator Alcatraz” is located, is not only a threat to the environment but also represents a cognizable legal injury to their members, who enjoy taking in the wildlife and “night skies” in the area and who have interest in preserving endangered species and more.
“Friends of the Everglades’ and the Center’s members are being injured by Defendants’ unlawful actions, which threaten the integrity of Big Cypress National Preserve’s waters and pristine night skies, the wellbeing of the plants and wildlife living there, and thus the Plaintiffs’ interests in them,” the filing said. “Friends and the Center are also injured by being deprived of critical information and a public process to analyze and address significant environmental impacts associated with the detention center.”
In a statement on the suit, Friends of the Everglades executive director Eve Samples said the “Alligator Alcatraz” site is “more than 96% wetlands, surrounded by Big Cypress National Preserve, and is habitat for the endangered Florida panther and other iconic species.”
“This scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect,” said Samples. “Friends of the Everglades was founded by Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 1969 to stop harmful development at this very location. Fifty-six years later, the threat has returned — and it poses another existential threat to the Everglades.”
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In a response on Thursday, the DOJ stated that the construction of “Alligator Alcatraz” is being paid for by Florida, so there isn’t any “final agency action” and no applicability of the APA.
“Neither ICE nor FEMA has implemented, directed, or controlled the construction work at the temporary detention center,” the DOJ said. “Plaintiffs fail to identify any federal funding for the facility that could serve as a final agency action. Neither ICE nor FEMA has sent any funds to Florida in connection with the temporary detention center.”
Paragraphs later, the DOJ emphasized that the “federal government has not paid any money for the facility.”
Even in the event of future detainment decisions, those too would be Florida’s, so the “decision to detain aliens at the temporary detention center is not a federal final agency action,” the government said.
“Florida’s general authority to perform immigration functions is authorized by the federal government based on an agreement under subsection 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” the DOJ’s opposition filing continued, “which authorizes DHS to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies to delegate authority to carry out immigration functions.”
“Thus, any decision to detain aliens under [an] agreement at the temporary detention center would be Florida’s decision, not DHS’s,” the DOJ added.
Finally, the DOJ argued that the groups fell well short of showing “irreparable harm” to their nature enjoyment activities, since the “existing airport” doesn’t have “meaningful public access for wildlife viewing or enjoying nearby wetlands” anyway.
“Plaintiffs claim an interest in observing sensitive wildlife and enjoying ‘natural’ environments, like preserved wetlands and the dark night sky. But Plaintiffs fail to show that this temporary detention center will irreparably harm these interests,” the government said.
“They never identify what specific ‘[t]ransportation, construction, and detention infrastructure’ connected with the facility will result in an irreparable injury to their interests in enjoying the flora and fauna of the existing airstrip,” the filing concluded. “Connecting these dots is crucial to establishing irreparable harm because the facility is temporary, and the existing airport makes for an already developed, largely unnatural landscape.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that the environmental groups’ lawsuit is “baseless” and “politically motivated” effort to stop the administration from carrying out its immigration enforcement agenda.
