In America today, even the law comes with an asterisk. With President Donald Trump back in the White House, nothing is straightforward.
By Nick Valencia | August 24, 2025
ATLANTA — On paper, the order is unambiguous: stop accepting detainees, stop building, and begin shutting it all down. But paper is one thing, enforcement is another.
This week, a federal judge issued a sweeping order against “Alligator Alcatraz,” the controversial immigration detention site carved out of the Florida Everglades. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams barred the facility from admitting new detainees, halted all expansion, and set a 60-day clock to wind down operations and dismantle the sprawling site.
The ruling was immediately appealed and wheels of justice once again grind to halt, as they often do when Donald Trump is at the wheel. After all, nothing it seems is straightforward in Trump‘s America.
It’s a dynamic that echoes the legacy of Andrew Jackson, Trump’s self-professed hero. Jackson is apocryphally quoted as saying of a Supreme Court ruling, “The court has made its decision; now let them enforce it.” That same defiance looms large today.
What good is a court ruling if the government simply refuses to comply?
A Facility Born in Controversy
The Dade-Collier Transition and Training Airport known by the people who work on the airstrip as TNT, opened hastily in July. It was billed as a temporary solution to overcrowding and pitched as a show of strength on immigration. From the start it drew outrage: built without full permits, accused of damaging fragile wetlands, and condemned by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe who argued their land and rights were being trampled.
Federal agencies and the state of Florida insisted the camp was necessary and lawful. But weeks of leaks, whistleblower accounts, and chaotic operations painted a different picture: a makeshift prison in the swamp, rife with mismanagement and secrecy. We reported exclusively about the leadership, mismanagement and rampant allegations of abuse and corruption.
Now, with Judge Williams’ injunction, officials have been ordered to stop. Florida, unsurprisingly, has already appealed.
The Shady Reality on the Ground
Even before the ruling, insiders say the camp was already in flux. One source familiar with detainee transfers told us on Saturday:
“They have gotten rid of pretty much everyone I had contact with. They are clearly trying to hide things. This is seriously one shady operation.”
That pattern—releasing or quietly transferring detainees, clearing out witnesses, and scrubbing the operation—suggests authorities anticipated legal trouble and began a cover-up long before the court order landed.
The Broader Stakes
The judge’s ruling was based partly on environmental grounds, but the implications reach much further. Alligator Alcatraz has become a symbol of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, a showpiece meant to project dominance rather than deliver justice.
Now, with a federal court calling the project illegal, the administration faces a test: respect the law, or bulldoze it.
If history is any guide, defiance is the safer bet.
Why This Matters
The Alligator Alcatraz saga isn’t just about one camp in the Everglades. It’s about whether the judiciary still has teeth in an era when executive power is openly hostile to checks and balances.
Trump has embraced Jacksonian defiance before. And if the government shrugs off this ruling, it won’t just be Alligator Alcatraz left standing in defiance of the law—it will be the very principle that courts can check the presidency.
In Jackson’s time he was defying a ruling that affirmed the sovereign rights of the Cherokee Nation. Today, it is the Miccosukee Tribe whose lawsuit resulted in the now-appealed closure order. From his disregard for judicial sovereignty to his disregard for Native sovereignty, Trump looks more and more like Jackson every day.