Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, US President President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tour 'Alligator Alcatraz'. Photo: AFP / Andrew Caballero-Reynolds
A US federal judge has barred the Trump administration and Florida state government from bringing any new migrants to the detention centre known as 'Alligator Alcatraz' and ordered much of the site to be dismantled, effectively shutting the facility.
Florida's government swiftly announced it would appeal the decision.
The detention centre was hastily assembled in just eight days in June, with bunk beds, wire cages and large white tents, at an abandoned airfield in Florida's Everglades wetlands, home to a large population of alligators.
President Donald Trump, who had vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants, visited the centre last month, boasting about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators would serve as guards.
The White House nicknamed the facility 'Alligator Alcatraz', a reference to the former island prison in San Francisco Bay that Trump said he wanted to re-open.
The centre was planned to hold 3000 migrants, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, but it has come under fire from both environmentalists and critics of Trump's crackdown on migration, who consider the facility to be inhumane.
An aerial view of a migrant detention centre dubbed 'Alligator Alcatraz'. Photo: Chandan Khanna / AFP
The new ruling by District Judge Kathleen Williams came after a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity.
The environmental groups argued that the detention centre threatens the sensitive Everglades ecosystem and was hastily built without conducting the legally required environmental impact studies.
Sixty-day deadline
Earlier this month, Williams ordered further construction at the centre to be temporarily halted.
Now she has ordered the Trump administration and the state of Florida - which is governed by Republican Ron DeSantis - to remove all temporary fencing installed at the centre within 60 days, as well as all lighting, generators, and waste and sewage treatment systems.
The order also prohibited "bringing any additional persons onto the... site who were not already being detained at the site".
Several detainees spoke with AFP about conditions at the centre, including a lack of medical care, mistreatment and the alleged violation of their legal rights.
"They don't even treat animals like this, this is like torture," said Luis Gonzalez, a 25-year-old Cuban, who called AFP from inside the centre.
He recently shared a cell with about 30 people, a space enclosed by chain-linked fencing that he compared to a chicken coop.
The Trump administration said it wanted to make this a model for other detention centres across the country.
- AFP
