The future of the makeshift prison is in doubt.
The Donald Trump administration isn’t happy about a “radical decision” by a Barack Obama-appointed Judge throwing the future of Alligator Alcatraz into doubt.
“I don’t think this Judge went down and toured the facility, because I think the decision’s bad,” said border czar Tom Homan on “America’s Newsroom.”
Whether Judge Kathleen Williams made a bad decision or not, Florida’s Director of Emergency Management Kevin Guthrie said the converted airstrip will soon have zero inmates.
But as Homan told Fox News viewers, Williams’ decision had more to do with an “anti-immigration enforcement” stance than an evaluation of America’s most famous pre-deportation tent prison.
After spending time at the facility, Homan concluded the detainees were in “clean and well-kept” housing, with a “great medical program” and waste taken out of the facility daily.
Williams imposed a court order to wind down activities at Alligator Alcatraz within 60 days. She ruled that no more state and federal defendants can be brought to the facility to add to its current population. The injunction includes “those who are in active concert or participation with the state of Florida or federal defendants or their officers, agents, employees.”
Homan said the long-term preference is for “brick-and-mortar” facilities, such as the converted Baker County prison called “Deportation Depot.”
“We have the money now to do it. We need to build an infrastructure that’s going to last,” Homan said, though he said he thanked God the “Governors are stepping up” and creating “transitional facilities.”
While the state has appealed Williams’ ruling, a second lawsuit championed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others alleges there are “atrocious conditions” at Alligator Alcatraz, including insufficient water, a plague of mosquitoes, and solid waste allowed to dry and cake up after the hastily installed toilets overflow in the tent cell blocks.
That suit also says private contractors who do the bulk of the work don’t have sufficient authority under federal law to handle immigration detentions.
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