When did Alligator Alcatraz announce a closure or pause (date/year)?

1. How and when the closure/pause first appears in court records

Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction in August 2025 that prohibited new detainees from being sent to Alligator Alcatraz and required relocation of existing detainees within 60 days; that injunction is documented in contemporaneous coverage and in a secondary reporting thread about an August 21 order ^[1]. Multiple outlets reported that a district-court order in late August directed the facility to wind down operations and that by Aug. 27–29, 2025 officials anticipated the site could be empty within days ^{[2] [3]}.

2. What reporters mean by “closure” vs. “winding down”

Coverage uses both “shutdown” and “wind down.” The district judge’s order was described as requiring the facility to be “shut down within 60 days” or to “wind down indefinitely,” and it barred new detainees while existing detainees were to be relocated — language that indicates an enforced operational pause and relocation timetable rather than an instant gate closure ^{[6] [2] [1]}.

3. The appeals-court pause: when and what it changed

After the district-court rulings in late August, a federal appeals panel put the shutdown order on hold on Sept. 4, 2025, pausing the lower court’s order and allowing operations to continue pending appeal ^{[4] [5]}. The pause effectively reversed the immediate effect of the August wind‑down directive and was widely reported as keeping Alligator Alcatraz open while the litigation proceeds ^[4].

4. Short timeline, based on reporting

• July 2025: Facility opens and draws national attention (filed dates in reporting reference early July construction/installation) ^[7].
• Aug. 21, 2025: U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issues a preliminary injunction banning new detainees and ordering relocation within 60 days (reported in coverage summarized Aug. 21 order) ^[1].
• Aug. 27–29, 2025: Coverage reports the judge’s shutdown/winding‑down order being upheld and state officials saying the facility could be empty within days ^{[2] [3]}.
• Sept. 4, 2025: U.S. Court of Appeals (Eleventh Circuit) issues a stay pausing the district judge’s order and allowing Alligator Alcatraz to remain open during appeals ^{[4] [5]}.

5. Conflicting narratives and motivations in reporting

Environmental and civil‑rights plaintiffs argued the site was built without required federal environmental review and that detainee rights were harmed — these claims formed the basis for the injunction and shutdown push ^{[8] [9]}. Conversely, state and some federal actors sought to keep the site open, framing it as an enforcement model; the appeals‑court stay — authored by a panel including Trump appointees and drawing scrutiny about potential ties between judges and Florida officials — complicated perceptions of judicial neutrality and political motives ^{[10] [11]}. The ACLU and advocacy groups continued legal and public pressure to close the site ^[12].

6. What the sources do not establish

Available sources do not provide a single, unambiguous “closure date” when operations ceased permanently; instead, they document a district‑court wind‑down order in late August 2025 and an appellate stay on Sept. 4, 2025, that paused that shutdown ^{[1] [4]}. Sources do not confirm a final, permanent closure date because litigation and appeals were ongoing in the reporting provided ^{[4] [5]}.

7. How to interpret “announced a closure or pause” for your question

If you mean the judicial action that first required the facility to stop intake and begin winding down, look to Aug. 21–27, 2025 (district‑court injunction and subsequent upheld shutdown reporting) ^{[1] [3]}. If you mean when that shutdown was paused or reversed, the appeals‑court stay came on Sept. 4, 2025 ^{[4] [5]}.

Sources cited: reporting and analysis above are from Friends of the Everglades and local/national coverage of the August 2025 district‑court order and the Sept. 4, 2025 appeals stay ^{[8] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}.