Critics have condemned the detention facility and what they call the state’s apparent reliance on alligators as a security measure as a cruel spectacle, while DeSantis and other state officials have defended it as part of Florida’s muscular efforts to carry out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has announced a plan to build an immigrant detention center in the heart of the Everglades. Native Americans are furious at the desecration of their ancestral lands.