Judge Orders Trump's "Alligator Alcatraz" Phased Down

 

The Malignant Fascist's cruel immigrant detention plans receive a slap from a Federal judge in Florida:

A federal judge on Thursday barred the DeSantis and Trump administrations from bringing new detainees to Alligator Alcatraz and demanded the state scale down operations at the immigration detention facility within 60 days. 

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, in her 82-page ruling, prohibited the state and federal governments from sending more immigrants to the detention center, built on an airstrip on the edge of the Big Cypress National Preserve. She also told the state to remove all generators, gas, sewage, lighting, fencing and other waste items over the next nine weeks that helped transform the airstrip into a detention center, eventually rendering the site uninhabitable.

Williams said she expects the continued transfer of detainees out of Alligator Alcatraz to allow the eventual phasing out of equipment to be done “in a safe, humane, and responsible manner.” 

Williams’ order — a preliminary injunction that will hold as the case continues to be litigated — comes in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe arguing that the state and federal governments cut important corners when erecting the site in a matter of days. The Tribe and environmental groups had requested that the judge grant a preliminary injunction shutting down the site until and unless a proper environmental review is conducted, citing “irreparable” harm the facility could cause to the Everglades. 

Williams wrote that the facilities at Alligator Alcatraz were likely to have consequences for the Tribe and the surrounding environment, including endangered species like the Florida Panther. She said runoff from 800,000 new square feet of paving would flow southeast into tribal territory, and lighting that could be seen for up to 30 miles at night would interrupt the ecosystem for the Florida bonneted bat. 

She also said it was clear the state and federal governments made no effort to conduct any study of the site’s impact before seizing the airstrip from Miami-Dade County and hastily building a detention center big enough to hold thousands of detainees...

The bootlickers in Florida will appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, and have already started moving detainees (prisoners?) out of the facility:

At the end of July, there were roughly 1,400 detainees held at the detention camp. By the middle of this week, that number was below 400, and the state had announced plans to open a new immigration detention center in north Florida.

But, luckily the shitwads in Gov. "Bootsie" DeSantis' office were able to find some humor in the situation:

“The deportations will continue until morale improves,” said Alex Lanfranconi, communications director for Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The cruelty is always the point.

(Photo:  Alligator Alcatraz, a.k.k. Alligator Auschwitz / Pedro Portal, Miami Herald)