Key Points

  • Eleventh Circuit vacates preliminary injunction, holding NEPA does not apply because Florida—not the federal government—funded, built, and controlled the detention facility
  • Panel finds no final agency action under the APA and applies 2023 NEPA amendments requiring both substantial federal funding and control for non-federal projects to trigger review
  • Court separately holds that barring new detainees from the facility violated 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1)'s bar on enjoining immigration detention operations
  • A dissenting judge argues the majority improperly overrode the district court's factual findings and that Section 287(g) agreements show substantial federal control

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction that had halted construction and use of a Florida-built immigration detention facility in the Everglades, ruling that the National Environmental Policy Act did not reach a project the state itself designed, funded, and built.

The case arose after Florida officials, invoking emergency powers, commandeered the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Big Cypress National Preserve to construct what became known as the South Florida Soft-Sided Facility South. Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, later joined by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, sued the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and state officials, arguing that construction without an environmental review violated NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act. The district court agreed, entering a preliminary injunction that froze further construction, ordered removal of lighting and fencing, and barred new detainees from being brought to the site.

The panel held that the plaintiffs could not identify a final agency action to support APA review. 'The Administrative Procedure Act permits review only of "circumscribed, discrete agency actions."' The court found that Florida, not federal officials, controlled the land and built the facility at state expense, and that a federal request or reimbursement promise does not itself constitute reviewable agency action.

The panel also rejected the argument that the facility qualified as a 'major federal action' under NEPA. Citing the 2023 amendments to the statute, the court explained that a non-federal action is excluded from NEPA review if it receives no or minimal federal funding or involves no or minimal federal control—two independent, disjunctive conditions rather than a single combined test as the district court had assumed.

'A property owner who builds an office building must comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but his compliance with federal law does not make it a federal building,' the court wrote, rejecting the theory that federal detention standards or Section 287(g) cooperation agreements transformed Florida's project into a federal one.

The court emphasized that Florida retained final authority over every construction decision, noting that Florida officials retained final authority over every decision regarding the project, from "the size of the detention facility" and "how many beds it has" to "who will build it, or what materials will be used." It added that ongoing federal supervision of detention operations was legally distinct from the construction decision the plaintiffs actually challenged.

Separately, the panel held that even if the environmental claims had merit, part of the injunction—the provision barring officials from bringing additional detainees to the site—violated 8 U.S.C. § 1252(f)(1), which strips district courts of authority to enjoin the operation of statutory provisions governing alien detention except as to individual aliens. The court found this restriction applied '[r]egardless of the nature of the action or claim' underlying the injunction.

A dissenting judge argued that the majority substituted its own factual assessment for the district court's findings after a four-day evidentiary hearing and understated the federal government's role. The dissent wrote that the Section 287(g) agreements reflected 'a clear and classic delegation of federal authority,' not an arm's-length state initiative, and warned that the ruling encourages the federal government to 'abandon its constitutional and statutory responsibilities for the care and safety of the human beings detained at this facility.'

The panel vacated the injunction and remanded for further proceedings, leaving venue and other unresolved issues, including the underlying merits determination, for the district court to address on a fuller record.