The Trump administration scored two legal victories this week in combating illegal immigration.
Appeals courts cleared the way for building a Florida immigration detention center President Donald Trump calls “Alligator Alcatraz” and halted a California law requiring agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to unmask.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday stopped enforcement of the California law.
“This Department of Justice stands in unwavering and total support of the brave men and women of ICE who put their lives on the line every day to enforce our immigration laws and keep American citizens safe,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a post on X, regarding ICE, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Justice Department’s Civil Division defended the case.
“Today’s legal victory in the 9th Circuit halts enforcement of California’s mask ban for ICE agents and is a big win to protect law enforcement,” Blanche continued. “Congratulations to DOJ’s Civil Division on this major win in the 9th Circuit—another decisive victory in this administration’s effort to remove illegal aliens from this country.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom had signed the bill requiring ICE agents to remove their masks, which he touted as the “first in the nation.”
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have argued that agents need masks for privacy reasons, as people have taken their photos for online posts threatening them and their family members.
California Gov. Rob Bonta’s office, which defended the state in the case, did not respond to an inquiry for this story by publication time.
In Florida, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals tossed a lower court’s injunction against construction of an ICE detention center for illegal aliens in the Everglades.
In a post on X, the Justice Department called the court ruling a “decisive victory in our effort to deliver on President Trump’s immigration agenda.”
The lower court had determined the facility did not comply with federal environmental review laws.
“This fight is far from over. Alligator Alcatraz was hastily erected in one of the most fragile ecosystems in the country without the most basic environmental review, at immense human and ecological cost,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, in a statement after the appeals court ruling. “We are pursuing every legal avenue available to right this wrong.”
