DarkSky International in 2016 designated Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve as the nation’s first preserve to achieve “dark sky” status.

Attorneys, advocates, detainees and families are speaking out about the makeshift migrant detention center Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration raced to build on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland. The center began accepting detainees on July 2.

The unbelievable cruelty of the DeSantis and Trump Administrations towards hard working, honest, and law abiding Hispanic, Haitian, and other foreign born residents of this state needs to stop,” Justin Mendoza-Routt,

It is unbecoming of public officials and corrosive of the common good to speak of the deterrence value of ‘alligators and pythons’ at the Collier-Dade facility.’

Detainees are telling their families about what it’s like to live in cells inside heavy-duty tents erected on an airstrip in Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida.

GardaWorld, an international security company whose U.S. headquarters are in Boca Raton, is one of several contractors hired to do work for Alligator Alcatraz. Anyone can view a sampling of recent comments, but you must be a Times subscriber to contribute. Log in above or subscribe here.

In pursuit of immigration enforcement, the DeSantis administration quickly seized Everglades land to construct the center. A fleet of trucks transported crucial equipment into the sensitive area. Meanwhile, environmentalists sued to prevent the facility from operating, citing potential ecological damage.