- Breaking — 11th Circuit slaps down judge, Alligator Alcatraz will remain open.
- DHS celebrates court ruling.
Alligator Alcatraz to Remain Open as DHS Appeals Shutdown Order
Sept. 4, 2025, 3:38 PM EDT
The entrance to the immigration detention center dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in the Florida Everglades in Ochopee, Fla.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The temporary migrant facility in the Florida Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz will remain open for the time being after a federal appeals court paused a judge’s order to wind down operations.
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Thursday granted the Department of Homeland Security’s motion to stay the preliminary injunction while the appeal plays out, meaning the government won’t have to dismantle the facility or pause further construction.
- DOJ considers new policy banning Transgenders from owning guns.
- Policy would involve declaration of mental illness.
Trump DOJ is looking at ways to ban transgender Americans from owning guns, sources say
By Evan Perez, Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
Updated: 4:02 PM EDT, Thu September 4, 2025
Source: CNN
In the wake of the Minneapolis Catholic church shooting, senior Justice Department officials are weighing proposals to limit transgender people’s right to possess firearms, according to two officials familiar with the internal discussions.
The talks, described as preliminary in nature, appear to build on an idea that has gained some currency in conservative media since the Minneapolis shooting that killed two children and injured 21, most of them children, at Annunciation Catholic Church, an attack that police say was carried out by a 23-year-old transgender woman.
Such a move would represent a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s fight against the rights of transgender Americans.
President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders on the topic, including one barring transgender people from serving in the military and another ordering federal prisons to move transgender inmates to facilities corresponding to their gender assigned at birth.
In addition, the idea of restricting gun rights has long been a red line for conservatives, with many Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups opposing red flag laws and or other policies aimed at keeping guns away from people suffering from mental health issues.
But Justice Department leadership is seriously considering whether it can use its rulemaking authority to follow on to Trump’s determination to bar military service by transgender people and declare that people who are transgender are mentally ill and can lose their Second Amendment rights to possess firearms, according to one Justice official.
Another senior Justice Department official cautioned that any such proposal, should it gain steam, would likely run into legal complications. Millions of Americans have mental health issues and many take medications, but are not a danger to society and therefore cannot have their rights infringed upon.
Federal law requires that a judge declare a person to be mentally “defective” before being stripped of their right to own firearms.
A spokesperson for the advocacy group GLAAD said the DOJ is using the transgender community as a scapegoat.
“Instead of actual solutions, the administration is again choosing to scapegoat and target a small and vulnerable population,” the GLAAD spokesperson said, noting that transgender people are less than 2% of the US population but four times as likely to be victims of crime. “Everyone deserves to be themselves, be safe, and be free from violence and discrimination.”
The vast majority of mass attacks in the US have no connection to transgender people. Still, after the deadly shooting last week, some conservative allies of the president quickly claimed that gender dysphoria – the psychological distress and discomfort some people feel when there’s a difference between their sex assigned at birth and their gender identity – is a mental illness that should bar citizens from purchasing a firearm.
The goal of the potential ban, according to the Justice official, is “to ensure that mentally ill individuals suffering from gender dysphoria are unable to obtain firearms while they are unstable and unwell.”
Because gender dysphoria is included in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, also called the DSM, it is diagnosed as a mental disorder. (The DSM is the handbook used by health care professionals as the authoritative guide in diagnosing mental disorders.)
But the gender incongruence – having a gender identity that’s not the one assigned at birth – isn’t what makes gender dysphoria a mental disorder. Having clinically significant dysphoria around the incongruence is what makes it a disorder.
The Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi has launched a broad effort to target gender-affirming care across the country, including sending more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics who have provided transgender medical procedures to minors earlier this summer.
One of those subpoenas, made public through court proceedings, demanded that the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia turn over swaths of sensitive information about its treatments, including patient data like birthdays, social security numbers and addresses.
Bondi has previously advocated for some gun restricting laws. As Florida attorney general, she defended a state law that raised the age requirements for gun purchases in the wake of the Parkland school shooting in 2018.
She also worked on the policy to ban the use of bump stocks – which allow a shooter to convert a semi-automatic rifle into a weapon that can fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute – during the first Trump administration. The US Supreme Court has since overturned the bump stock ban and Florida lawmakers are pushing to lower the age restriction on gun purchases.
We think this is a very slippery slope. Defining a ‘category’ of people who can be denied their constitutional rights in one fell swoop sets a dangerous precedent. That would be setting up the framework and depending who is in office they can just swap out the ‘category’. Each person should be looked at. I know it takes a long time but there are other ways to ensure security. Removing a constitutional right is not the way.