Here's the 2-1 order (Lagoa for the majority, joined by Branch and Jordan in dissent).
Judge Lagoa ends her order with this:
While the power to determine immigration policy lies with the Federal government, “[t]he pervasiveness of federal regulation does not diminish the importance of immigration policy to the States,” which “bear[ ] many of the consequences of unlawful immigration.” Arizona, 567 U.S. at 397. Many of those harmful con-sequences are present here. Governor DeSantis has declared a state of emergency under Florida law because Florida is experiencing an “immigration crisis of unprecedented magnitude.” DE 137-1 ¶ 3. According to Joseph Harrison, a Lieutenant Colonel and Deputy Director for the Florida Highway Patrol (“FHP”), forcing Florida to shutter the detention facility will lead to overcrowding and will kneecap the State’s immigration-enforcement efforts. Id. ¶¶ 5, 6. Furthermore, he offers non-speculative evidence that in-sufficient detention space will lead to detainees being released back into the community: “[B]efore the detention facility at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport was established,” he ex-plains, “ICE regularly informed FHP officers that the federal government lacked sufficient detention capacity to detain illegal aliens intercepted by FHP,” and, “[i]n those instances, FHP was forced to let those illegal aliens go.” Id. ¶ 5. We are convinced that, if the injunction were to stay in place, it would bring the State’s already stressed and overcrowded system to a breaking point.
On the other hand, the Plaintiffs have submitted declarations indicating that the conversion of the Site from a working air-port into a detention center will have a range of deleterious effects on the environment, including “light, water, and noise pollution, increased vehicular traffic, wildlife habitat degradation, and waste management issues.” These declarations assert that these effects may “negatively impact” the ecosystem of the Everglades and the survival of various threatened or endangered species, although it is unclear whether these declarations have accounted for the Site’s former use as an airport in order to establish a reliable baseline to evaluate possible future environmental impacts. DE 5-2 ¶¶ 13–14. We need not, however, wade into that issue here. As the Supreme Court reminds, there is no governmental project, especially one enacted in exigent circumstances, that does not pose some coun-tervailing risk. Cf. Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 26 (2008) (holding that the balance of equities and consideration of overall public interest weighed in favor of the Navy, in spite of the fact that the Navy’s use of “mid-frequency active” sonar might cause “harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals,” be-cause blocking the Navy from using this technology would jeop-ardize the “safety of the fleet”). Our job, at this stage, is to balance the equities, as well as the overall public interest, and we are com-pelled in this case to conclude that these factors favor the Defend-ants: While the environmental effects mentioned by the Plaintiffs may result in down-the-line harm, the injuries facing the Defend-ants and the public are critical, immediate, and concrete.
We conclude that the balance of the harms and our consideration of the public interest favor a stay of the preliminary injunction.
Judge Jordan starts his dissent this way:
Given the applicable burden on litigants who move for a stay, the deferential abuse of discretion standard that governs review of a preliminary injunction, and the clearly erroneous standard that limits appellate review of factual findings, the stay motion filed by the state and federal defendants should be a relatively simple denial. The majority, however, essentially ignores the burden borne by the defendants, pays only lip service to the abuse of discretion standard, engages in its own factfinding, declines to consider the district court’s determination on irreparable harm, and performs its own balancing of the equities. I therefore respectfully dissent from its decision to grant a stay of the preliminary injunction.
19 comments:
Lagos betraying the immigrant community of Miami she came from.
Jordan is a marxist.
lol today applying the legal standard is called Marxist.
1. Learn to spell. 2. There is a big difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration. 3. Judge Lagoa's duty is to follow the Constitution and the law, not display loyalty to the "immigrant community" of Miami. She did her duty here. We should be grateful for jurists like Judge Lagoa and wary of activist judges whose loyalties lie elsewhere.
Exactly. The state is not allowed to enforce federal law let alone run an immigration gulag. They also aren’t allowed to violate environmental law to throw it up quickly to score political points. And the background of all this is supporting a bunch of idiot wannabe fascists in the White House. So spare me the lecture on what the nobility of the law requires.
None of the judges owe loyalty anywhere but to the law. Lagoa though missed the mark to get to an outcome. Every time judges skip past the structures that make our system of law orderly and reliable they undermine confidence in it.
“Hanging around. Hanging around. The kid’s got alligator blood. “ KGB Teddy.
What is the difference between legal and illegal immigration? Lagoa's parents came after the revolution in Cuba. Anytime there is a revolution of any sort, there are many people who have or want to leave, because their physical safety and economic well-being are genuinely threatened. Do you really think the Cubans who came here after the revolution were doing so because of American law? They were doing so because of Cuban law and what it was becoming. They had to leave, they were desperate, and yes, because America was anti-revolution in Cuba America set up a legal regime that allowed them to come here, but that has nothing to do with whether we should or should not blame people for fleeing a revolution.
Maduro's seizure of power in Venezuela is no less revolutionary than Castro's in Cuba, in some ways it is worse as one could argue Castro had popular support due to excesses of the previous Cubans in power and their collaboration with America to drain Cuba's resources. In Maduro's case, though, the reality is transparent. He badly lost an election and held power, in violation of Venezuela's domestic law and the constitution and all international laws and norms. That's a revolution. One day Venezuela had a constitutional system of electoral governance, the next it did not, it had a dictator. He is no less brutal to opponents/dissidents than Castro was. A lot of those Venezuelan opponents/dissidents fled to Miami, just like the Cubans did back then. And they were given legal status, it is just being revoked now, after the fact. But sure, they are blameworthy and should be sent back to death or extreme hardship, and the daughters of the Cubans who fled their own country have become the judges OK'ing throwing those fleeing their own countries now into concentration camps.
Also note to the editor, it was Lagoa and Branch, not Grant.
fixed; thanks.
@11:35 "bunch of idiot wannabe fascists in the White House"
Okay, who are the dems gonna appoint to run against tRump in 2028? Hillary or Kamala? Bad orange man took the presidency owed to two women. Blame the idiot voters?
Did I say anything praising the Dems? Yes their candidates and campaigns sucked, yes they have their share of the blame. They aren't the ones who enacted the unconstitutional program we're talking about and Lagoa approved, state run gulags to house and punish federal immigration violations. That was Republican at every level, including the level of the judges from the 11th who OK'd it.
Years and years of people in this community falling back on labeling someone a communist when they disagree with you. It’s lazy and tired. Jordan is the only one who gets it right here.
RE: "state run gulags to house and punish federal immigration violations."
As I understand, Alligator Alcatraz is a temporary holding facility located by an airfield to facilitate the deportation of fence jumpers. The fence jumpers have alternatives: 1, they can self-deport via a government app and get relocation money and a free plane ticket home. 2, they can go back home on their own, and if still interested in the USA, apply for legal entry to the United States, i.e., follow the rule of law.
Why is Trump doing this? Because it was a campaign promise. Trump voters want enforcement of immigration, and voted for Trump on that basis. Trump is a politician who listens to the voters. Trump does not hate immigrants; his current wife is an immigrant.
Who are the dems gonna appoint to run against tRump in 2028? The operative word is "appoint" because dems do not believe in actual primary presidential elections. Hillary was appointed over Bernie Sanders in 2016, giving the win to tRump. Kamala was a switch after tRump showed sleepy Joe was incompetent, giving the win to tRump again.
In a democracy (including our representative republic), the will of the voters is supposed to control our elections and politics. But the leaders of Democratic party (all lawyers) favor other lawyers over the will of the voters. You also complain about the courts. Fine, lawyers run the courts too. Why is the issue of "state run gulags to house and punish federal immigration violations" even in a federal court? Under the Younger v. Harris abstention doctrine, state courts provide fair and sufficient opportunity for vindication of federal constitutional rights, correct?
Why does the left ignore state run gulags to house and punish ordinary Americans? "How many innocent people are in federal prison?" https://sdfla.blogspot.com/2017/04/how-many-innocent-people-are-in-federal.html
As you understand it, you don’t understand it. That place is not reserved for “fence jumpers” whatever that is, has held people for weeks without access to counsel or the courts, including people who dutifully reported to immigration authorities and appointments for years, and all those promises of money and the ability to come back “the right way” are totally false. There is no process to supposedly claim those funds and people who are deported are barred by law from coming back for years if not forever. Lastly even wrongfully detained Americans are not held in cages in tents in mosquito-infested swamps in peak summer and hurricane season. At least not in the U.S.
OK I’ll play ball.
1) Alligator Alcatraz is “a temporary holding facility . . . to facilitate the deportation of fence jumpers” and they can self-deport and avoid it. First, it was built and funded and is staffed and served by the state, immigration offense are federal. Supposedly the feds are going to reimburse the State, but they haven’t. This is a Desantis/Uthmeier project, not a Trump project. Desantis was so eager to make that point that he held a media event there in advance of Trump’s media event, pissing off Trump. That should be the end of the matter, the state and its taxpayers are not responsible for or even empowered to enforce federal law violations. Your dismissal of the dignity of human beings on the notion they are “fence jumpers” is inaccurate and gross. Some crossed a line in the dirt, some overstayed a visa, some just have the wrong color skin and the state figures they’ll throw them in detention and sort it out later. Before we lawfully detain people in America, they get legal process. We fought a war of independence over this. The Civil War also boils down to this principle. These detainees received no process. Without a judicial determination of their immigration status, there is no basis but demagoguery to claim they are “fence jumpers”. And even if they are present illegally, so fucking what. This is the biggest problem with your sides argument, these laws haven’t been enforced for decades and that is because it has been in the interest of those in power to have a large cheap domestic labor force with limited legal protections. You don’t like that aspect of our economy, that’s fine, but many of these people came due to it and then had families and established lives. It is one thing to “close the border”, it is quite another to throw those already here in detention outside the legal system. These are our neighbors, established in our communities, not some random person caught crossing the Rio Grande. And it is awfully telling that there has been almost no enforcement against companies that hire undocumented immigrants, and Trump even had to publicly state they would stop raiding farms and food factories as this was affecting the rich too much. If you actually wanted to stop illegal immigration, you would go after the demand, not the supply. It’s a big world, and this is a country of immigrants and always has been. The supply will always be there, as shitty as they are determined to make America there will continue to be plenty of shittier places. Immigration is by far a net positive for the country. The people who have the physical, mental, and emotional strength to leave their lives behind and start a new one here are people that make this country run. We generally get the best, not the worst, from these countries. The greatest thing about this country is the lack of homogeneity. It is our major competitive advantage against China, India, Japan, Russia, even Europe to a lesser but significant extent. You’re fighting a losing battle against long-term trends for short-term political points. It’s pointless, it’s counterproductive, and it won’t work.
2) Trump promised this on the campaign trail, he’s just keeping his promise. What a dumb argument. Again, Trump didn't build Alligator Alcatraz, Florida/Desantis/Uthmeier did. To the extent you are relying on public opinion as support for policy, you are both wrong on what the public opinion is and wrong on whether it matters. Recent polling has Trump under 50 percent support on immigration. 79 percent of Americans say immigration is a good thing for the country. Alligator Alcatraz specifically has 35 percent approval. Thus if we were judging solely on what the public wants, we would not have Alligator Alcatraz or similar facilities. But, this is totally irrelevant because we don’t govern by public opinion. Trump didn’t even win the popular vote, if public opinion was the metric Kamala would be President. He did run on the issue, and the Trump base certainly supports him on it, because like you they are racist, ignorant, and easily pandered to. This doesn’t matter in the least legally, the question presented was whether a law passed by Congress requiring environmental review before building federal projects applies as the government concededly did not do the review. Lagoa’s argument is it isn’t a federal project, it’s a state project, so the review isn’t required. That is wrong because it was funded, built, and staffed by the state on the promise of repayment by the feds. And it is for a federal purpose. Once the feds said they will repay it and Trump went and did his dog and pony show for the press there, it becomes a federal project. The environmental review law passed by Congress does not have an exception for projects that the public really wants or that align with the president’s priorities. They had to follow that law or get Congress to modify it, and they didn’t do either.
3) Who are Dems gonna appoint to run against Trump in 2028 and various criticism of Democrats. Rare point of agreement. The Dems suck. A marginally competent party would not have lost to Donald Trump twice, once after he tried and failed a coup. The suckiness of the Dems is irrelevant to whether Trump/Desantis/Uthmeier are following the law.
4) Younger v. Harris absention. This might be your dumbest point, a high (low) bar. That doctrine is about feds not interfering with state court prosecutions. Harris was prosecuted for a state law violation and claimed his federal free speech rights were violated by the prosecution. The Court said such a claim had to wait until the state criminal case was decided. This is plainly irrelevant here since there is no state court prosecution or proceedings of any sort, there couldn’t be since immigration is federal. This lawsuit was brought in federal court because the environmental review law violated is a federal law, passed by Congress. Federal laws are enforced in federal courts. This is not complicated.
5) What about how shitty regular prisons are? Wow, throwing in an argument from the left, how original. Yes, we should have a better and more humane prison system overall in this country. But people in regular prison have access to courts and they are there because they either pled to or were found by a jury to have violated a law, in an open, public proceeding where they were counselled. And we still don’t house them in tents in the middle of the Everglades. Should the standards of criminal detention be better? Sure. Are they comparable to what we’re doing to these immigrants? Not even a little bit. Apples and oranges, these detainees are whisked to the prison with no due process, no judicial review, and minimal access to counsel. Generally acceptable conditions of confinement in America do not include the constant need to fight off huge mosquitos or live without indoor plumbing.
Miami-Dade is a community of immigrants. It’s the only major urban area in America that is wholly run by Hispanic immigrants or their descendants. They think, and Lagoa likely thinks, that they and theirs are protected from discrimination and mistreatment as they are on the right side. They are wrong, as they have already started to find out (Hispanic Trump approval is 27-70) and as is plain to all with eyes. Someone like Lagoa is no more “American” in the eyes of the Trump base than the farmworker crossing the border. You say Trump doesn’t hate immigrants, you may be right, I don’t know what is in the man’s addled head. He doesn’t seem to hate white immigrants. What I do know is what Trump wants is power, as much as he can get, however he can get it. He ultimately views immigration like everything else, as a means to an end. The immigration issue allows him to amass a military/police force accountable only to him that can be deployed domestically and it allows him to set up a system where he can detain people he wants detained, without judicial involvement. Desantis shares Trump’s fascist heart and soul and thinks he can get in on the spoils of Trump-ism this way, although he’s obviously wrong and will have no political future after vacating the governor’s mansion no matter what he does since everyone who meets him hates him immediately and he is a political moron as evidenced by his attempt to run in 2024 against Trump, go all in on Iowa, and lose every single county in one of the biggest electoral failures in American history. His attempt to install his wife to replace him and continue his legacy was destroyed by his and Uthmeier stealing $10 million of taxpayer money to give to her fake charity. Lagoa and those like having done a lifetime's work to gain power in this country, something they had to take, something that was not given to them by the white men who used to run Miami-Dade, only to immediately cede it to enable a fascist and white supremacist project of this sort is tremendously short-sighted and legacy-defining.
Re: 12:48 PM, 12:49 PM, 9:02 AM
Fence jumpers is the term I use. Re "my side's argument"? This is the Left's problem. You see the world in Blue v Red. I am not a republican. I did not vote for Trump. I am NPA, No Party Affiliation. As far as I'm concerned, DeSantis ought to be in AA (Alligator Alcatraz) too. Yes AA is a DeSantis project that Trump supports. Difference without a distinction. We need immigrants as you noted. They must follow the law. Fence jumpers get kicked out. I work with immigrants who came here legally and I respect them. I have attended naturalization ceremonies. But fence jumpers get kicked out. Or they can self-deport via the app, get relocation money, and a plane ticket home. Reapply for entry to the United States when they can follow the law. Sounds reasonable.
You conveniently overlook the fact that a number of fence jumpers commit serious crimes, including murder. Laken Riley, an American killed by a fence jumper, can't use an app to get relocation money, or a plane ticket home, from her grave. See the Laken Riley Act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laken_Riley_Act
The April 24, 2017 post of Mr. Marcus, "How many innocent people are in federal prison?" cites 20,000 innocent people according to Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski. Marcus wrote, ""That's a lot of people!" The number is almost definitely higher…" Yes, I agree, the number is higher. None of those innocent people can leave prison via an app with relocation money, and a plane ticket home.
So please tell us what you plan to do about 20,000+ innocent Americans in federal prison? Where is their due process? Where are their constitutional rights?
Thirty-one inmates died in the Marion County Jail over the last 4 years, according the Ocala Gazette. Go help the surviving families of the dead inmates. None of those dead inmates can leave their grave via an app with relocation money, and a plane ticket home.
I'm tired of hearing about the rights of fence jumpers when ordinary Americas get similar or worse treatment. At least fence jumpers can leave via an app with relocation money, and a plane ticket home.
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