After a federal judge decided Thursday that the contentious Everglades prison camp, sometimes known as Alligator Alcatraz, must be demolished within 60 days, Florida’s infamous camp is now officially on death row.
A scathing injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams prohibits the state from accepting new inmates, stops plans for growth, and mandates that fencing, floodlights, generators, and trash cans be removed. It is anticipated that prisoners presently confined within the expansive compound will be moved before the deadline passes.
The ruling is a serious blow to Florida’s Republican leadership and their support of Donald Trump’s harsh detention and deportation policies. Built on an abandoned airstrip in the middle of the Everglades in less than two weeks, Alligator Alcatraz has come to represent the administration’s readiness to circumvent laws in order to imprison thousands of people, many of whom had no criminal records, on suspicion of being undocumented immigrants.
OUTRAGEOUS! A federal judge has decided that Florida must start destroying the Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention facility in the Everglades and cannot expand it.
Judge Kathleen Williams mandated that the state dismantle the facility’s fencing and halt construction.tweet.com/FtK54rDj0W
August 22, 2025: CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism)
The Miccosukee Tribe and environmental activists sued, claiming the camp destroyed the habitats of protected animals, endangered Florida’s drinking water, and broke decades of promises to protect the delicate ecology. The Los Angeles Times reports that Williams’ decision followed their lawsuit. The court concurred, noting that her ruling just reaffirmed the pledges made to preserve the Everglades by successive generations of state and federal representatives.
Former personnel and detainees describe the conditions behind the chain-link fencing as nothing short of dystopian. Bunkbeds are arranged in rows within the white canvas tents that resemble dog kennels. Inmates claim they frequently go days without taking a shower or taking their medication, are prohibited natural light, and are unaware of the time of day.
The conditions are almost grotesque: insects swarming in the humid Everglades heat, toilets overflowing and filling tents with raw sewage, and food purportedly infested with worms. Detainees are left to suffer from oppressive heat as air conditioners malfunction during the day. Most people can only make brief phone calls to attorneys or family members, which significantly limits their access to the legal system.
Breaking: Obama Judge Kathleen Williams directs the Trump Administration to begin demolishing Alligator Alcatraz and forbids them from bringing any additional illegal alien criminals there.
This decision needs to be overturned immediately since it is absurd and ridiculous.tweet.com/E3TJVzS6Wg
August 22, 2025 Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh)
Former workers described the facility as having human-sized kennels unsuited for basic decency, while human rights groups referred to it as a hurriedly constructed concentration camp.
In court, the environmental consequences were more important than the humanitarian outcry. At least 20 acres of asphalt had already been laid, according to witnesses, endangering wetlands with hazardous runoff. The damage, according to conservationists, could contaminate streams that provide millions of Floridians with their water and suffocate habitats for endangered Florida panthers.
The Miccosukee Tribe’s water resource director, Amy Castaneda, warned the court that the site’s nitrogen runoff could cause fish deaths and change the growth of plants on tribal territory. She testified, “This is about our survival.”
To everyone who is ecstatic to learn that a judge has ordered the cruel hellhole known as Alligator Alcatraz to shut down within 60 days, good morning and happy Friday.
Humans cannot be treated that way.AMERICA IS HERE.xsPLcGMFmF pic.twitter.com/
August 22, 2025 BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan)
Florida attorneys contended that federal environmental regulations shouldn’t be applicable because the state constructed the facility to alleviate the congestion in federal correctional facilities. That reasoning was refuted by Judge Williams, who stated that the facility was at least a combined state-federal initiative and thus governed by federal law.
Fears of another confrontation were heightened by news that the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis was considering another detention facility at a National Guard location in north Florida. A separate lawsuit has already been filed by civil rights organizations alleging that detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated, bond hearings are being canceled, attorneys are being barred, and individuals are being detained indefinitely without being charged.
The gates of Alligator Alcatraz may eventually swing shut for good in two months after Judge Williams’ slamming gavel.
