TALLAHASSEE — As they continue to fight a legal effort by environmental groups to block an immigrant-detention center in the Everglades, lawyers for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration argued Monday that the lawsuit was filed in the wrong federal-court district.
Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity are seeking a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction to stop state and federal officials from adding more detainees and additional construction at the remote facility, which the state built adjacent to an airstrip known as the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.
The lawsuit, filed in the federal Southern District of Florida, alleges that officials failed to comply with a federal law requiring an environmental impact study before the facility, which has been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” could be developed. The Southern District stretches from the Keys through Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties and includes central counties surrounding Lake Okeechobee.
But in a court document filed Monday, lawyers for state Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie argued that “only a sliver” of the runway at the disputed detention center is in Miami-Dade County within the Southern District’s boundaries.
The address of the detention center is in Ochopee, “an unincorporated community in Collier County,” which is in the federal Middle District of Florida, Monday’s filing said.
“When a cause of action challenges government policy, venue is proper where the policy was made, not where the effects of the policy were felt,” Jesse Panuccio, an attorney with the Boies Schiller Flexner LLP firm who represents Guthrie, wrote in the document. “Here, all relevant decision-making was made or is being made by officials in Washington, D.C.; in Tallahassee, Florida; or onsite at the facility in Collier County, Florida. … No relevant decision-making is occurring in Miami-Dade County.”
The lawsuit “is about state policy decisions made in Tallahassee affecting property located in Collier County,” the state’s lawyer argued.
The environmental groups “have not shown a likelihood of success in proving venue” and so “are unlikely to succeed on the merits, which justifies denying a TRO (temporary restraining order) or preliminary injunction,” they said.
During a hearing Monday, Paul Schwiep, an attorney who represents the environmental groups, urged U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to immediately issue the requested temporary restraining order to prevent further development of the site while the legal wrangling plays out.
“A substantial portion of the events did occur here, including the property was commandeered from Miami-Dade County,” Schwiep argued. The state obtained the property through power derived from an executive order DeSantis originally issued in 2023 establishing a state of emergency due to illegal immigration. The governor has renewed the order six times.
“There’s no suggestion that your honor (Williams) doesn’t have jurisdiction now in your initial responses to our initial temporary restraining order motion,” Schwiep said.
But Williams, who took over last week after U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez recused himself from the case, told Schwiep she was not going to make a decision about whether to block progress on the detention center until further arguments are made.
The state’s court filing Monday “raises a venue issue which I think is rather important,” Williams said, giving the environmental groups until Friday to respond.
The judge also said she’s read all of the filings in the case and is aware of “some mixed factual and legal issues” raised in the lawsuit.
“I understand the plaintiffs have been waiting to have a hearing in front of a judge and have been emphatic about the need for a quick resolution,” she said.
Transferring the case to the Middle District would send the lawsuit to a different judge. Williams recently drew headlines when she held Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in civil contempt in a lawsuit stemming from a law passed during a February special legislative session that created state crimes for undocumented immigrants who enter or re-enter Florida. Uthmeier is appealing Williams’ contempt order.
In a statement Monday, Schwiep accused the state of seeking the change of venue to get away from Williams because of the contempt issue.
“Suddenly, in an obvious attempt at judge-shopping, the state objects to Judge Williams’ ruling on this case. The state of Florida commandeered the detention center site from Miami-Dade County, the site is partially within Miami-Dade County, the county is a defendant, and the case was appropriately filed in Miami-Dade County,” Schwiep said.
Williams on Monday also made clear her rulings in the environmental groups’ lawsuit would be restricted to the impact of the detention center, which state officials said can hold up to 3,000 people, on the surrounding wetlands and would not address issues raised in a separate lawsuit alleging, in part, that detainees are unlawfully being denied access to legal representation.
“I’m not wading into decisions about immigration. … I’m wading into, no pun intended, where this detention center has been put, in the middle of the Everglades. … I’m here to say, was the appropriate protocol entered into before the decision was made to put the facility there,” she said.
Williams said she would not weigh in on the decision about where to locate the facility, which is surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve, or conditions for detainees at the complex.
The lawsuit was filed in late June, days before detainees began being held at the site. Conditions at the detention center have changed significantly since then, Schwiep said Monday, pointing to news reports of overflowing toilets, sweltering heat and other problems.
“Let me be clear. That is not before me at all. To the extent that any sewage is not being contained appropriately and going into the water supply affecting the aquifer, then that is something that this lawsuit would address,” the judge said. “I am concerned with the appropriate environmental impact review and if it was not taken, which nothing in the record suggests there was, and how that can be effectuated to everyone’s satisfaction.”
Williams also is weighing whether to grant a request by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida to join the environmental groups in the lawsuit. The detention facility neighbors 10 villages that are home to the Miccosukee Tribe in the Big Cypress National Preserve — including a village 1,000 feet away from one of the detention center’s boundaries — as well as areas where tribal members work and attend school.
Williams slated a hearing for July 30 to consider the venue issue and another for Aug. 6 to take up the request for a temporary restraining order.
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