‘Alligator Alcatraz’: What to know about Florida’s new controversial migrant detention facility

Deep in the marshy wetlands of the Florida Everglades – less than 50 miles west of President Donald Trump’s resort in Miami – sits the latest battleground in his administration’s immigration enforcement efforts: A makeshift detention facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

In a matter of days, workers have transformed the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport from an 11,000-foot runway into a temporary tent city that Trump is expected to visit Tuesday.

When completed, it will house up to 5,000 migrants as they await deportation, officials told CNN.

“We had a request from the federal government to do it, and so ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ it is,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference last week, adopting the nickname coined by his attorney general for the Everglades facility.

“Clearly from a security perspective, if someone escapes, there’s a lot of alligators you’re going to have to contend (with),” DeSantis said. “No one is going anywhere once you do that. It’s as safe and secure as you can be.”