The Pentagon on Wednesday announced that 70 Florida National Guard troops are patrolling "Alligator Alcatraz," the remote detention center in the Everglades for illegal immigrants, The Hill reports.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told reporters that the active-duty members are "conducting base camp security" there.
The activation of the Guard comes on the heels of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, calling for troops to be sent to the facility.
President Donald Trump, who toured the detention center this week, said it was "surrounded by miles of treacherous swampland, and the only way out is really deportation."
Officials say the center could hold up to 5,000 people and would cost an estimated $450 million annually.
Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., called it an "internment camp."
"They target migrants, rip families apart, and subject people to conditions that amount to physical and psychological torture in facilities that can only be described as hell on Earth," Frost said in a statement. "Now they want to erect tents in the blazing Everglades sun and call it immigration enforcement. They don't care if people live or die; they only care about cruelty and spectacle."
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