Eleventh Circuit Vacates the Alligator Alcatraz Preliminary Injunction

The Eleventh Circuit’s published opinion in the Everglades detention case carries a Date Filed of 04/21/2026. The disposition: “We VACATE the preliminary injunction and REMAND for further proceedings.” The panel held the plaintiffs “failed to prove either a final agency action or federal control,” and that the injunction “violates a statutory prohibition of enjoining immigration enforcement.” One judge dissented, writing that “a majority of this court has once again relied upon its own factual findings and interpretation of this record.”

The opinion describes the injunction as prohibiting “bringing any additional persons onto the . . . site who were not already being detained.” It is the order a published piece described as closing the facility; the opinion’s own description is narrower.

The clerk’s mandate transmittal carries a Date Filed of 07/08/2026. On remand the federal defendants’ motion, entered 10/02/2026, asks that the case be “transferred to the Middle District of Florida” and calls the site “a detention facility closed months ago.” DHS OIG separately reports the facility “ceased operations in June 2026.”