Karoline Leavitt fumes over ‘despicable’ move to | Political News

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fumed over the “despicable” move to end the Florida-based Alligator Alcatraz, saying they had been “not backing down” on combating the shutdown order.

Speaking from the rostrum in the White House’s James S. Brady briefing room, Leavitt promised that the Trump administration wouldn’t go quietly. “The administration has not been shy in fighting back against what it calls activist judges, but why is it backing down this time?”

“We are not backing down,” Leavitt said. “We have always said that we are going to continue to fight for what is right in a court of law because we know what this administration is doing with respect to all policy, but immigration policy is all above the books.”

“And we are abiding by our nation’s immigration laws, and we think it’s despicable that an activist judge has inserted themselves in this migrant detention facility, and DHS is now having to relocate these illegal immigrants to other detention facilities,” Leavitt added. “That is an unnecessary burden on the Department of Homeland Security and these agents who should be removing these criminals from our community.”

“That is what the American people elected this president to do,” Leavitt, 28, added. “We’ve always maintained we were going to comply with court orders, but we are also going to fight back on them with the merits of the law. And DHS is in compliance while we make this decision and fight it in court.”

Shut down

It was reported last week that a federal court in Florida ruled that the state can’t convey further people to the Everglades detention middle, as doing so violates the state’s environmental legal guidelines. The preliminary injunction also requires the state to halt additional enlargement and take away fencing, turbines, lighting, and waste receptacles within 60 days.

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U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams said she expects inmates to be transferred to other services during the next 60 days. Her ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by the Miccosukee tribe and environmental activists, who claimed that the power’s construction imposes on the Everglades’ endangered species and ingesting water sources used by many Floridians.

The ruling is also a huge blow to the state’s Republican-led authorities, which adheres strictly to President Trump’s every decree. Florida has also been recognized to deport plenty of people believed to be undocumented, many of whom have no felony historical past.

Reports from inside the power, which critics likened to a hastily-constructed focus camp, had been accused by former staff as having inhumane, “human-sized” kennels where inmates would not have daylight, clocks, or common access to showers. Williams wrote that, for a long time, “every Florida governor, every Florida senator, and countless local and national political figures, including presidents, have publicly pledged their unequivocal support for the restoration, conservation, and protection of the Everglades. This Order does nothing more than uphold the basic requirements of legislation designed to fulfill those promises.”

Attorneys for the state and federal governments argued that, although the detention middle could be holding federal detainees, the construction and operation of the power was solely under the state of Florida, which means the federal environmental law didn’t apply. Williams has said the detention facility was, at a minimal, a joint partnership between the state and federal authorities

The injunction formalized a momentary halt she had ordered two weeks in the past as witnesses continued to testify in a multiday listening to to decide whether or not construction ought to end until the final word decision of the case.