The answer could play a key role in a legal battle over the facility’s fate. And it has bigger implications, too.

More than five dozen Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, demanding “critical” information on the Trump administration’s plan for the new Florida immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.

Records analyzed by the Times/Herald found that nearly two out of every five immigrants listed in early July as being detained at Alligator Alcatraz or headed there were still recorded as detainees at the site at the end of the month.

Orlando Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost delivered sharp criticism of the site, describing it as "inhumane" and calling for it to be shut down.

A federal judge tossed out part of a lawsuit brought by detainees at the "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center in the Florida Everglades, handing a partial victory to the Trump administration.

Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, hopes the judge rules to temporarily stop "Alligator Alcatraz" from expanding.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office has deployed 10 officers to the Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention facility in the Florida Everglades