Overview
- The Eleventh Circuit panel, which ruled Tuesday, vacated a judge’s order to wind down operations and allowed the Everglades detention site to keep operating during the lawsuit.
- The majority found Florida built and controls the facility and said that, with no federal reimbursement in place at the time, the federal environmental review law known as NEPA did not apply.
- In a dissent, Judge Nancy Abudu argued immigration is a federal duty and warned that weak oversight could put detainees at risk, echoing court filings this month that allege guards beat and pepper-sprayed people held there.
- The plaintiffs — Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe — vowed to continue in district court over a camp they say was thrown up in eight days on a sensitive Everglades airstrip.
- The decision sends the case back to the trial court and could narrow when federal environmental review binds state-built projects that expect later federal support.