The Trump administration Thursday argued a federal judge should deny a request to block operation of a detention center in the Everglades for undocumented immigrants, saying Florida has been responsible for the project dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”U.S. Department of Justice attorneys filed a nine-page document opposing a request by environmental groups for a temporary restraining order to halt operation of the facility. Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit last week, accompanied by the request for a temporary restraining order.And the first group of immigrants has arrived at the new detention center deep in the Florida Everglades, a spokesperson for Republican state Attorney General James Uthmeier told The Associated Press.

As the large commercial trucks roar one after another onto the airfield property in the Everglades where a massive detention camp for immigrants is being built, one State of Florida-contracted company name stands out among them: IRG Global Emergency Management.The company has brought everything from large trailers to golf carts to a command post into the detention camp that Gov. Ron DeSantis has dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” — and maybe even a kitchen sink or two.

Environmental groups say damage from Alligator Alcatraz is already obvious in light pollution and other issues.

Florida already has the country’s largest number of local agreements to assist federal deportation, according to ICE, and the governor has even bigger plans. Governor Ron DeSantis has unveiled his “Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan” detailing his administration’s vision of a new state-run immigration enforcement system to “circumvent federal agency bureaucracy” and essentially operate on its own rules.The 37-page plan paints a vision of immigrant holding camps where thousands of arrested immigrants would be detained in jails as well as tents and other makeshift facilities (“soft-side detention”) that it specifically notes may be built and run by for-profit prison companies. And it’s all part of the state’s effort to assist “President Trump’s fight against the ‘deep state’ within federal agencies,” according to the plan.

A visit Tuesday by President Donald Trump to a immigration detention camp in the Florida Everglades dubbed the "Alligator Alcatraz" was being described as a roundtable discussion on illegal immigration.The president arrived at the former jetport project site shortly before 11 a.m. He was joined by Governor Ron DeSantis, Attorney General James Uthmeier, U.S. Representative Byron Donalds, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Immigration and Custom Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons and Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie.The governor spoke to reporters alongside President Trump after he disembarked from Air Force One.

Environmental groups filed a federal lawsuit to block a migrant detention center being built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades. The lawsuit filed Friday seeks to halt the project until it undergoes a stringent environmental review as required by federal law. The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court says there is also supposed to be a chance for public comment. Gov. Ron DeSantis says Friday on "Fox and Friends" that the center he dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" is set to begin processing people who entered the U.S. illegally as soon as next week.

Florida officials are pursuing plans to build a second detention center to house immigrants, as part of the state's aggressive push to support the federal government's crackdown on illegal immigration. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he's considering standing up a facility at a Florida National Guard training center known as Camp Blanding, about 30 miles southwest of Jacksonville. That location would be in addition to the site under construction at a remote airstrip in the Everglades that state officials have dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz." Democrats and activists have condemned the plan in South Florida as a callous, politically motivated spectacle.

Gov. Ron DeSantis is directing the state to build an immigrant detention center on so-called "Alligator Alcatraz" — a partially-built airstrip in the Everglades.

New York City Comptroller and Democratic mayoral candidate Brad Lander has been arrested by federal agents at an immigration court after he linked arms with a person that authorities were attempting to detain. A reporter with The Associated Press witnessed Lander’s arrest on Tuesday. The person Lander was walking out of the courtroom with was also arrested. Lander had spent the morning observing immigration court hearings and told an AP reporter that he was there to “accompany” some immigrants out of the building. The episode occurred as federal immigration officials are conducting large-scale arrests outside immigration courtrooms across the country.

Florida House Democrats in Tallahassee are demanding answers from the state Department of Children and Families over its role in handing over a foster child from Honduras to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. The boy, Henry, is a suspected undocumented immigrant.