A federal judge has denied a detainee’s bid for a preliminary injunction to close Alligator Alcatraz, a state-run immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades.
He sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction barring authorities from holding him and other detainees at the center.
However, U.S. District Judge Kyle Dudek on Thursday ruled that the detainee had not shown he suffered “irreparable injury” while being held in the detention center.
The detainee had claimed “numerous downstream irreparable harms,” including difficulties accessing counsel, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, lack of inmate tracking, and nonexistent systems for exchanging confidential communications.
“Plaintiff is essentially asking this Court to close a sizable and expensive detention facility, all before any decision on the merits of its legality,” he added.
“While there may indeed be deficiencies at Alligator Alcatraz that ultimately justify its dissolution, Plaintiff has not made the extraordinary showing needed to justify immediate relief of such magnitude.”
A Florida Highway Patrol officer looks on as protesters gather to demand the closure of the immigrant detention center known as ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Fla., on July 22, 2025. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images
Alligator Alcatraz opened at a remote airfield in the Everglades on July 1, less than two weeks after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier initially proposed launching the facility.
“I think this is the best one,” Uthmeier said of the abandoned Miami Dade-Collier airport, calling it a “one-stop shop” for carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“It presents an efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter,” Uthmeier continued. “If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go; nowhere to hide.”
The Ochopee-based facility covers about 40 square miles and is completely surrounded by the Everglades. It is capable of housing roughly 1,000 detainees.
The August lawsuit is just one of several legal challenges facing the immigration detention center.
“So Alligator Alcatraz is in fact, like we’ve always said, open for business … and we’re going to continue leading the way when it comes to immigration enforcement.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
