In a matter of days, an isolated training airport in the Everglades where endangered Florida panthers roam became a sprawling immigration detention center christened "Alligator Alcatraz," modeled after the state's frequent responses to hurricanes and built in part by companies whose owners have donated generously to Republicans.
It's been less than two weeks since the state seized the property from Miami-Dade County. Massive tents have been erected and a steady stream of trucks carrying portable toilets, asphalt and construction materials have been driving through the site inside the Big Cypress National Preserve around the clock in what environmentalists fear will have a devastating impact on the wildlife in the protected wetlands.
"We are dealing with a storm," said Jae Williams, spokesman for Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who is credited as the architect behind the proposal. "And the storm's name is immigration."
The first detainees arrived Thursday at the facility, which will cost 450 million to operate and consists of tents and trailers surrounded by razor wire on swampland about 45 miles 72 kilometers west of downtown Miami.
Republicans named it after what was once one of the most notorious prisons in the U.S. and have billed it as a temporary lockup that is essential to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.