People held at the brand new Florida immigration detention center that officials have dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” say worms turn up in the food, toilets don’t flush and floors flood with fecal waste.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration left many local officials in the dark about the immigration detention center that rose from an isolated airstrip in the Everglades.

On July 16, days after the first media investigations about sparse criminal backgrounds among the population were published, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., characterized the migrants at Alligator Alcatraz as "military-age males, and a lot of them have criminal records."

Five Florida state lawmakers who were denied access to a new immigration detention center in the Everglades are suing Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” the massive tent detention complex built deep in the Florida Everglades can hold 3,000 and could be the template for other facilities in other states.

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

Florida has converted an isolated airport in the Everglades into a massive immigration detention center called "Alligator Alcatraz."