{"id":1224,"date":"2025-10-14T03:19:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T03:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/1224\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T03:19:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T03:19:15","slug":"feds-reimburse-florida-608-million-for-alligator-alcatraz-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/1224\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds reimburse Florida $608 million for ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ costs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federal officials on Friday confirmed that Florida has been reimbursed $608 million for the costs of building and running an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, exposing \u201cAlligator Alcatraz\u201d<\/a> to the risk of being ordered to close for a second time.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an email that the state of Florida was awarded its full reimbursement request.<\/p>\n

The reimbursement exposes the state of Florida to being forced to unwind operations at the remote facility for a second time because of a federal judge’s injunction in August. The Miami judge agreed with environmental groups who had sued that the site wasn\u2019t given a proper environmental review before it was converted into an immigration detention center and gave Florida two months to wind down operations. <\/p>\n

The judge’s injunction, however, was put on hold for the time being by an appellate court panel in Atlanta that said the state-run facility didn’t need to undergo a federally required environmental impact study because Florida had yet to receive federal money for the project. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the federal defendants ultimately decide to approve that request and reimburse Florida for its expenditures related to the facility, they may need to first conduct an EIS (environmental impact statement),\u201d the three-judge appellate court panel wrote last month.<\/p>\n

The appellate panel decision allowed the detention center to stay open and put a stop to wind-down efforts.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model<\/a> for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations.<\/p>\n

Environmental groups that had sued the federal and state governments said the confirmation of the reimbursement showed that the Florida-built facility was a federal project \u201cfrom the jump.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a federal project being built with federal funds that\u2019s required by federal law to go through a complete environmental review,” Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “We\u2019ll do everything we can to stop this lawless, destructive and wasteful debacle.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal officials on Friday confirmed that Florida has been reimbursed $608 million for the costs of building and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1842,1839,1111,1838,1107,28,30,29,477,1837,1841,1840,1110],"class_list":["post-1224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-1842","tag-alligators-and-crocodiles","tag-article","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-courts","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-general-news","tag-immigrant-detention","tag-immigration","tag-prisons","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}