Federal judge demands evidence showing Alligator Alcatraz is closed for good
Gov. Ron DeSantis may have announced that Alligator Alcatraz is closed and the tents are gone, but that’s not enough for civil rights lawyers or a Florida federal judge.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation want the state and feds to confirm in federal court that the controversial immigration detention center hastily erected in the Everglades has permanently closed and will not reopen.
On Thursday, a federal judge sided with the civil liberties group.
U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell denied the state and federal governments’ request to pause all future proceedings in a lawsuit brought on behalf of immigrants who were held at Alligator Alcatraz, saying the center had been closed.
“At this juncture, beyond counsel’s briefs, the Court has seen no evidence from a State or Federal official with authority to declare Alligator Alcatraz permanently closed,” Polster Chappell wrote in order.
The Fort Myers judge, serving in the Middle District of Florida, ordered state and federal officials, within four days, to present “such evidence” or a timeline for when they expect to do so. The judge also asked them to explain why the court should find the case resolved, beyond them saying so.
READ MORE: Alligator Alcatraz is no more. Tents, cars, signs disappear from airport site
Lawyers for the state and federal governments filed a notice with the court last week, saying that because DeSantis announced in June that the detention center was closed, there was no point in continuing the lawsuit filed against them.
The ACLU filed the suit last year on behalf of immigrants who were held at the detention center, who claimed their First Amendment rights had been violated and were seeking unrestricted access to their lawyers.
In their brief, the government attorneys had pointed to comments by DeSantis that any future reopening of the closed facility would be “negligible.”
“With the detainees removed and the Facility closed, the Court can no longer grant Plaintiffs’ requested relief,” state lawyers wrote in their request that the case was now “moot.”
The ACLU said that was not enough.
The civil rights lawyers in their brief Wednesday said the government had “failed to provide Plaintiffs with any concrete information about what is happening with the Facility, besides pointing to publicly reported, contradictory statements from various officials.”
They said that for the case to be resolved, they need “actual evidence that the facility is permanently closed,” and that if there are plans for the facility to reopen, then “there remains a live case and controversy.”
The immigrants represented in the lawsuit included a class of all present and future detainees at the Everglades detention center. The lawsuit is one of several challenging the state’s operation of an immigration detention center. Immigration is governed by federal laws, not state laws.
Environmental groups also sued the state and federal governments, arguing they did not comply with federal environmental laws when building the detention facility.
Last month, DeSantis announced at a press conference that the first-of-its-kind, state-run detention center built on the runway of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport had fulfilled its purpose and was officially closing. He said the facility was always meant to be temporary. During its year of operation, it held more than 21,000 immigrants.
Photos show empty Alligator Alcatraz
On Sunday, aerial views of the airport shared with the Miami Herald showed that all the diesel generators, industrial tents and cages had been removed. The blue sign at the entrance that read ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ had been taken down.
To get the center built quickly and to run it, the DeSantis administration awarded more than a billion dollars in no-bid contracts to private companies, many of which were Republican donors and DeSantis allies. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had promised the state $608 million in reimbursement. In May, the state received the first installment of $58 million.
The Florida Division of Emergency Management and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the Herald’s requests for comment.
READ MORE: How DeSantis signed away $1 billion for state-run immigrant detention centers
Carmen Iguina Gonzalez, deputy director for immigration detention with ACLU’S National Prison Project, said in statement that they were “pleased the court is requiring clear and unequivocal evidence that the notorious ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ has been permanently closed.
“We requested court action because vague hand-waving assurances of ‘just trust us’ from Florida officials and ICE just don’t cut it. We will remain vigilant until we are sure this horrific facility is gone, once and for all.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated that the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport sign was taken down when Alligator Alcatraz was built.
This story was originally published July 16, 2026 at 7:27 PM.