The first immigrants arrived at Florida's "alligator Alcatraz"

The first group of immigrants was sent to a new detention center in Florida, called the "alligator Alcatraz" by authorities and media, the AP reported on Thursday, citing the spokesman for the attorney general of this state, James Uthmeier.

“There are people there,” Jae Williams, a spokesman for the governor, said. He did not specify how many people were at the facility or when they arrived.

“Next stop: where they came from,” prosecutor Uthmeier, who is considered the initiator of the project, told X on Wednesday.

The facility, built in eight days on the site of a former training airfield, will initially house 3,000 detainees, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. The number of beds will soon be increased to 5,000.

The site has more than 200 security cameras and 8,500 meters of barbed wire. The controversial facility, surrounded by swamps infested with alligators and pythons, is guarded by 400 personnel.

According to a Trump administration official who attended the opening of the facility on Tuesday, the “alligator Alcatraz” is intended to house migrants arrested by Florida immigration services under a program that allows police to question immigrants in custody and detain them for potential deportation.

The project is opposed by environmentalists who warn that the construction of the facility could harm wetlands that federal and state governments have spent a lot of money restoring.

The facility is estimated to cost $450 million annually to maintain. Its construction has been approved by the Department of Homeland Security. The department has announced that it will likely reimburse the state for at least some of the costs associated with operating the facility.

From Washington Natalia Dziurdzińska (PAP)

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