{"id":157,"date":"2026-05-20T19:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T19:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=157"},"modified":"2026-05-20T19:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T19:09:12","slug":"court-clears-path-for-alligator-alcatraz-on-sacred-tribal-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=157","title":{"rendered":"Court Clears Path for \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d on Sacred Tribal Land"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This story was originally published by\u00a0<\/em>Inside Climate News\u00a0and is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0<\/em>Climate Desk\u00a0collaboration.<\/em><\/p>

Read more Alito Said Racism Was Over. Southern States Are Now Rushing to Revive Jim Crow.<\/a><\/p>\n

Every spring,<\/span> Florida\u2019s Miccosukee Tribe observes its corn dance season on lands the tribe holds as sacred within the fragile Everglades. But this year\u2019s festivities are different because of the migrant detention site that now looms among the tribal lands, Alligator Alcatraz.<\/p>\n

One hindrance is that the light emanating for miles from the facility interferes with an important aspect of the Miccosukee\u2019s religion, the orientation of the stars, said Curtis Osceola, the tribe\u2019s chief operating officer. If not for the light pollution, the stars would gleam bright here in the night sky above the vast sawgrass prairies and cypress marshes of the remote river of grass.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain, and not everyone will understand our relationship with the land,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s as if someone went to a holy place, whether it was like church land, and said, \u2018We\u2019re going to raze this church land and put up a prison and put up a detention center.\u2019 People would be up in arms. This is our place of worship. This is a sacred place. This doesn\u2019t seem fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tribe, along with environmental groups, says they will continue their litigation over Alligator Alcatraz, where thousands of undocumented migrants have been detained since the facility opened last summer as part of the Trump administration\u2019s immigration crackdown. The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals\u00a0last week invalidated a preliminary injunction\u00a0issued by District Judge Kathleen Williams, who had ordered in August a winding down of the facility. The case now will go back to Williams, who will decide the next steps.<\/p>\n

The ruling means the detention site may keep operating while the environmental groups and the tribe\u2019s litigation proceed. In this case, the Miccosukee and their fellow plaintiffs accused the federal and state governments of unlawfully rushing the facility to completion without a required environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The government agencies have contended that the site is a state and not a federal one, and that the federal review is not necessary. The agencies also said the facility\u2019s impact on the environment is minimal. The Everglades, which span central and south Florida, are responsible for the drinking water of millions of people in the state. A $27 billion restoration effort is among the most ambitious of its kind in human history.<\/p>\n

The appeals court, in siding with the government agencies, said the plaintiffs failed to prove the federal government controlled the site. Judges William Pryor and Andrew Brasher also said Williams\u2019 preliminary injunction violated, in part, a statutory prohibition on enjoining immigration enforcement. The judges reasoned that for the site\u2019s Florida operators to follow federal immigration standards does not transform the facility into a federal one. They compared the situation with that of an office building owner who adheres to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Compliance with the federal law does not make the building federal, they said.<\/p>\n

But Judge Nancy Abudu dissented. She characterized the federal and state roles in Alligator Alcatraz as one where the federal government enlisted the state not as an equal partner but as a \u201cdeputy of the federal government operating at its request.\u201d She said her colleagues\u2019 analogy involving the office building owner and the Americans with Disabilities Act was weak.<\/p>

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\u201cHere, the detention facility\u2019s only goal is to house thousands of people under DHS and ICE\u2019s control, in a secluded area, away from the public, without any accountability,\u201d Abudu wrote. \u201cIf not for its partnership with DHS and ICE, Florida\u2019s housing of these individuals (and in some cases families) would be more akin to kidnapping and, at its most extreme, perhaps human trafficking. The state cannot detain a non-citizen without the proper authority to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s ruling was disappointing, but the environmental groups and tribe remain optimistic they eventually will prevail, said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were prepared for any potential outcome, but that doesn\u2019t make it sting any less because we know that there is irreparable harm ongoing in the Everglades, from water pollution to impacts to the Florida panther and bonneted bat,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were hopeful we would put an end to that harm in the early stages in the case. Now we\u2019re reinvigorated to get back in there and win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends of the Everglades, the third plaintiff in the case, said public records obtained through a separate lawsuit filed by the advocacy group show the Federal Emergency Management Agency promised hundreds of millions of dollars to Florida to build and operate the facility. Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit last June in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, with the Miccosukee Tribe joining later on. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, and Miami-Dade County, which owns the property, are named as defendants in the case. The government agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the appeals court ruling.<\/p>\n

During the First and Second Seminole Wars, in the first half of the 19th century, the Miccosukee were pushed deep within the watery wilderness of the Everglades and found sanctuary on the tree islands scattered here. For them, the land is sacred because it saved their tribe from annihilation. Osceola said the detention site\u2019s close proximity to tribal lands and the Big Cypress National Preserve is a concern. Within a three-mile radius of Alligator Alcatraz are 10 Miccosukee villages, including one a mere 1,000 feet from the facility. A school is 10 miles away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe survived in the Big Cypress. It cared for us. The Everglades likewise cared for us and helped us survive. The plants and animals of those lands sustained our existence, and we were able to make it through that wartime period,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a very strong religious connection with the land. And so activities like this are going to disrupt that relationship, that sort of strong relationship we have with the sacred land.\u201d<\/p>

Read more As Household Bills Soar, Activists Dream of a Green New Deal Remake<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miccosukee leaders warn that the sprawling complex is interfering with ceremonies as the case moves forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment"],"yoast_head":"\nCourt Clears Path for \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d on Sacred Tribal Land - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=157\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Court Clears Path for \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d on Sacred Tribal Land - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Miccosukee leaders warn that the sprawling complex is interfering with ceremonies as the case moves forward.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=157\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-20T19:09:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/a1ba762b18809461c6606f6b1ab81f84.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=157#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=157\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"Court Clears Path for \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d on Sacred Tribal Land\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-20T19:09:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=157\"},\"wordCount\":1112,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=157#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/a1ba762b18809461c6606f6b1ab81f84.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Environment\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=157#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=157\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=157\",\"name\":\"Court Clears Path for \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d on Sacred Tribal Land - 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