Florida, which had teamed up with the administration for the project, has already appealed the order to stop it. The decision is another major blow to Trump's plans for the detention camp, whose capacity to hold up to 3,000 migrants at once was meant to be a crowning feature.
Judge's Findings and Restrictions
District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, an appointee of former-President Barack Obama, issued the 82-page ruling Thursday. She announced that the facility was causing "irreparable harm" to the Everglades and wildlife. Williams also requested the shutdown of generators, sewage systems, and waste at the site, actions that would effectively make the site inoperable.
In her decision, she invoked a decades-old plan for a colossal airport in the Everglades that failed, adding that leaders had pledged for generations to protect and restore the area. "This order simply reaffirms the mandates of a law that was crafted to keep those promises," Williams wrote.
The decision serves as a preliminary injunction, in effect restricting operations while lawsuits filed by environmental groups proceed. Earlier this month, Williams entered a temporary restraining order that halted new construction on the site.
Criticism and Legal Battles
Environmental groups hailed the decision as a pivotal step in protecting the Everglades. Advocates said the facility had the potential to undo decades of expensive restoration in Florida. "This sends a strong message that revolutionary leaders at the highest levels of government are not above environmental laws," said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades.
It's the facility in the Miami wetlands that Trump touted as a model for future detention centres. Filled with alligators, crocodiles and pythons, it became known as "Alligator Alcatraz." Trump boasted that its placement would make it difficult for the people held inside to escape and called it a place for detaining what he said were the "most dangerous migrants."
Despite all of this, the site has continued to be bogged down in multiple lawsuits, local opposition and environmental concerns. The damage put endangered species at risk and threatened to unravel decades of multibillion-dollar restoration efforts in the Florida Everglades, experts said.
