(SANDERSON, Fla.) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday that his administration is opening a new immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot.”
The announcement of the new facility in north Florida comes one month after the state opened a detention center in the Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.”
“We are authorizing and will be soon opening this new illegal immigration detention, processing and deportation facility here in North Florida,” DeSantis said at a press conference.
The new immigration detention center will be located at the Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, Florida. The governor said the facility, which is near Lake City Airport, will not house people indefinitely.
“We’ve been securing the border, enforcing immigration laws and removing illegal aliens who are in our society now, sending them back to their home country,” DeSantis said. “We have done more on this than any other state by a country mile.”
DeSantis said the new facility will be able to hold more than 1,300 detainees.
A federal judge last week temporarily halted any further construction on the Alligator Alcatraz facility to prevent possible harm to the sensitive Everglades ecosystem.
The state of Florida and President Donald Trump’s administration can continue to use the facility and house detainees there, but any further construction must be halted for 14 days, the order said.
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