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

While Alligator Alcatraz was promoted as a place where migrants with heinous criminal histories would be detained and quickly deported, records show it was largely used during its first month in

As thunder boomed on an ominous Sunday evening just outside of Alligator Alcatraz, over 200 people — most of them reverends, rabbis, pastors and people of assorted faiths — chanted in unison, “Shut it down” and “This is a preserve, not a prison” as cars and trucks zoomed behind them on Tamiami Trail.

Other ICE detention centers like Alligator Alcatraz have been under consideration for other locations, including in North Florida, Indiana and Nebraska.

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

A month into his detention at Alligator Alcatraz, Daniel Ortiz Piñeda faced a stark choice: continue his legal fight for asylum or give it up to hopefully put an end to his extended stay at the makeshift immigration detention camp in the Everglades.

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

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