Environmental group drops Clean Air Act lawsuit against Florida after generators removed from Alligator Alcatraz
An environmental advocacy group dropped a lawsuit against the state Tuesday after evidence showed Florida had taken down generators used to power Alligator Alcatraz.
The Center for Biological Diversity withdrew the suit after satellite and aerial imagery showed the alleged "air-polluting equipment" had been largely dismantled and removed from Alligator Alcatraz, the state-run immigration detention center in Big Cypress National Preserve.
"We achieved the desired result with our Clean Air Act lawsuit. This detestable facility's air pollution will not continue," said Ryan Maher, staff attorney for the group. "But the fight continues to ensure that the site is fully remediated and the Trump and DeSantis administrations are held accountable."
Alligator Alcatraz closed on June 25, just shy of its one-year anniversary. But even before it opened on July 1, 2025, the facility faced numerous lawsuits on environmental, due process and civil rights grounds that sought to close it down.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in May, argued the Florida Division of Emergency Management violated the federal Clean Air Act by failing to get air quality permits for the facility.
The group alleged the diesel generators and equipment caused "substantial, unpermitted pollution," including the release of benzene, formaldehyde, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, and would result in more than $120,000 in daily fines.
The group will continue to pursue other litigation in federal court, including a lawsuit filed in June 2025 alleging the environmental review studies weren't completed before building the detention facility, a requirement before approval of federal contracts according to the National Environmental Policy Act.
"We and our partners will not stop until every piece of infrastructure tied to this facility is gone for good, the damage is assessed, and Big Cypress is restored," Maher said.
In the year it was open, Alligator Alcatraz helped the federal government deport 21,000 people and "fulfilled the role that it was designed to serve," Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the press conference announcing the closure of the facility.
Court records show Alligator Alcatraz cost the state approximately $1 million per day to run and was estimated to cost more than $1 billion if it remained open for two years, but DeSantis has defended the detention center's hundreds of millions of dollars in expenditures, saying the state had "to do whatever it takes to keep people safe."
"There's no question that people are safer as a result of that," DeSantis said. "We prevented preventable crimes."
Florida's other state-run detention facility, Deportation Depot, is still operating in Baker County.