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Deportation flights from the remote Everglades immigration lockup known as ”Alligator Alcatraz″ are underway and expected to increase soon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.
The first flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security have transferred about 100 detainees from the immigration detention center to other countries, DeSantis said.
Officials said that two or three flights have departed from the site so far, but they didn't say where those flights headed.
Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane. DeSantis and other Republican officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Building the facility in the Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents, DeSantis and other officials have said.