The DeSantis administration is making arrangements to hold immigrant detainees at a North Florida prison as a federal judge weighs whether to temporarily shut down Alligator Alcatraz, the makeshift immigration detention camp in the Everglades.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida, as a federal judge decides the fate of the state’s holding centre for immigrants at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz”.