Gov. Ron DeSantis says he’s spoken with President Donald Trump ahead of his scheduled visit Tuesday to the immigration detention center the state has built in the Everglades.

The presidential visit will take place on the same day the detention center, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz,” is set to open with a capacity to hold 3,000 immigrants in temporary structures, DeSantis said.

“What will happen is you bring people in there,” DeSantis said during a press conference in The Villages, where he signed the new state budget. “They ain’t going anywhere once they’re there, unless you want them to go somewhere, because good luck getting to civilization.”

The president is “very excited” about authorizing the National Guard to act as immigration judges, an idea the DeSantis administration has been publicly pushing for since March, DeSantis said. But the governor also criticized other states’ lack of action in helping Trump realize his campaign promise of mass deportations.

A federal judge could issue an order to stop the opening of the Everglades detention center following a request for emergency intervention from environmental groups suing state, local, and federal entities over concern about damage to the delicate ecosystem of more than 96% wetlands.

Ongoing protests against the immigration detention center are scheduled to take place Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

“We would not have agreed to do it at that site if I thought that somehow it was going to negatively impact all the great work we’ve done on improving and restoring the Everglades,” DeSantis said.

The detention center is at the Miami-Dade Collier Training and Transition Airport, where environmental concerns led to the cancellation of a planned massive jetport during the late 1960s. According to the airport’s website, roughly 900 acres of the 24,960-acre property has been developed.

DeSantis said waste from the site would be self-contained and transported out.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

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