MIAMI — An appeals court on Thursday set aside a federal judge’s order that had forced Florida’s state government to slowly shut down Alligator Alcatraz and blocked the Trump administration from sending new detainees to the Everglades detention camp.

The split decision by a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals paused District Judge Kathleen Williams’ Aug. 21 order effectively closing down Alligator Alcatraz while a lawsuit challenging the construction of the facility proceeded.

The judges in their ruling sided with the government’s argument that the National Environmental Protection Act does not apply to state agencies, and shutting down the facility would stymie the state’s ability to carry out immigration enforcement. They wrote that the district judge had misread the law, based on the fact that the federal government had promised to eventually reimburse the DeSantis administration.

Judges Barbara Lagoa and Elizabeth Branch sided with the state, stating that neither the construction nor the operation of the facility constituted “a major federal action” under the NEPA.

The two appellate court judges agreed with the DeSantis administration’s argument that NEPA was just a procedural check for agencies when doing a major project and did not apply to the state. “The goal of the law is to inform agency decisionmaking, not to paralyze it,” their ruling stated.

The judges disagreed with the district court’s assessment that the federal government was involved in the operation of the site and ruled that Williams’ order was against the public interest in combating illegal immigration.

The decision was a success for the DeSantis and Trump administrations, which argued that the immigration detention camp was crucial to detaining immigrants prior to their deportations. The state had touted the site as an example of how states could partner with the federal government’s mass-deportation mandate.

The Department of Homeland Security called Thursday’s decision a “victory for the American people.”

“This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility. It has and will always be about open-borders activists and judges trying to keep law enforcement from removing dangerous criminal aliens from our communities, full stop,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.

Thursday’s appeals court ruling allows the government to continue operations at the facility after it had begun transferring detainees to other detention facilities. Before the appeals court ruling, the state and federal governments had already begun adhering to Williams’s order. DeSantis, in a press conference last month, said DHS had increased its speed of detainee removals. Contractors at the site began furloughing hundreds of employees. And the director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, Kevin Guthrie, said in an August email that the site would probably be emptied “within days.”

In a video on X, Gov. DeSantis said that Alligator Alcatraz has always been “open for business.”

“The mission continues, and we’re going to continue leading the way when it comes to immigration enforcement,” DeSantis said.

Williams, an Obama appointee, had granted a preliminary injunction in August in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe, which argued that the state and federal governments had not followed federal environmental regulations while establishing the site. They maintained that the facility caused harm to the surrounding Everglades habitat. Williams’ ruling had barred any new construction from taking place, and ordered the government to begin stripping down the site.

Thursday’s decision was a loss for the environmental groups, who had been hopeful they had provided sufficient evidence that the facility built in the heart of the Everglades wetlands caused irreparable harm to the surrounding ecosystem. The two appeals court judges who ruled in favor of the state signaled otherwise — they stated the state was likely to prove in their appeal that environmental groups had failed to provide sufficient evidence.

The groups were disappointed by the decision. Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, one of the environmental groups in the lawsuit, said the “case was far from over.”

“We’re hopeful the preliminary injunction will be affirmed when it’s reviewed on its merits during the appeal,” Samples said in a statement. “In the meantime, if the DeSantis and Trump administrations choose to ramp operations back up at the detention center, they will just be throwing good money after bad because this ill-considered facility — which is causing harm to the Everglades — will ultimately be shut down.”

As the controversial site was being constructed on an airstrip on the edge of the Big Cypress National Preserve, the Miccosukee Tribe members had joined protests and voiced concerns about the impact on their local community, and also joined the lawsuit.

“We are disappointed in the majority’s decision to stay the injunction. We were prepared for this result and will continue to litigate this matter. We find some solace in the dissent’s accurate analysis of the law and will continue to fight for our Mother Everglades,” said the Tribe’s chairman, Talbert Cypress.

Twenty-two states had also entered the fray, filing a support brief on Wednesday, which supported the state’s appeal. The judges said the facility as currently run is all funded and operated by the state therefore not in violation of NEPA. However, they said the state could be in violation should it ever receive reimbursement from FEMA.

Judge Adalberto Jordan disagreed with the decision of his colleagues. Jordan said the judges had ignored the district court’s determination, which was based on the testimony of numerous environmental experts who had testified to the harm the detention facility was causing to the wetlands. Jordan, dissenting from the majority decision, said his colleagues, by their ruling, were “refusing to acknowledge the irreparable harm faced by the plaintiffs.”

Although Thursday’s appeals court decision grants a win to the government, which had been confident in the outcome, the final appeals court ruling is still pending litigation. The state and environmental groups still have to make arguments on the merits of their appeal.

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