Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
Appeals court rules Florida's "Alligator Alcatraz" detention site can stay open
A federal appeals court has halted a lower court ruling that required Florida and the Trump administration to dismantle parts of "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Everglades.
www.cbsnews.com
Washington — A federal appeals court on Thursday halted a lower court ruling that required Florida and the Trump administration to dismantle parts of "Alligator Alcatraz," a controversial immigration detention site in the Everglades.
The 2-1 ruling by a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit will effectively allow Alligator Alcatraz to stay open while a lawsuit challenging the detention center on environmental grounds works its way through the court system.
The Department of Homeland Security began moving detainees out of the site late last month. But the state has said
Alligator Alcatraz will ramp back up if the lower court ruling is overturned.
Here is the legal reason for the reversal:
The court concluded that state and federal officials are likely to succeed in showing that the site isn't subject to the National Environmental Policy Act, because it is a state-operated facility and Florida has not yet received any federal reimbursement for the cost of running the site.
That's not the real reason. The laws are so complicated that they can be interpretted an almost unlimited number of ways, depending on the skill of the lawyers and the biases of the judges.
In this case it is simple: The appeals court do not want to be the one to put the safety of Americans as a lower priority than the habitat of the snail darter, or whatever specious environmental purpose there supposedly was for the original order to shut down.
The plantifs might as well give up. Now that an appeals court has ruled in favor of the facility staying open, the USSC has plenty of reason/excuse to leave it open also. Jackson-Brown can throw as many tantrums as she wants.
During his first term, and Biden's only term, the goal was "GET TRUMP!" using the legal system. Now the goal is "STOP TRUMP!" through the courts. Won't work, because of the makeup of the USSC.
