Siding with Gov. Ron DeSantis, a federal appeals court decided Thursday that “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, will not shut down.

The 2-to-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit stayed federal judge Kathleen Williams’ order to the state to stop bringing people to the site and to dismantle much of it by September’s end. The higher court’s decision came just two weeks after Williams handed down her preliminary injunction.

“Florida will undoubtedly be harmed if it cannot ‘apply its own laws’ to respond to an immigration crisis,” Judge Barbara Lagoa, appointed by President Donald Trump, wrote in the 33-page order.

“Given that the federal government has an undisputed and wide-reaching interest in combatting illegal

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