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

Saying circumstances had changed, a federal judge in Miami dismissed a key claim in a lawsuit over Alligator Alcatraz detainees’ access to courts and legal services on Monday and moved the case to a different district.

"Putting people in tents in the middle of the Everglades is a great tool to make them give up their cases," said one immigration attorney

A federal judge tossed out part of a lawsuit brought by detainees at the "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center in the Florida Everglades, handing a partial victory to the Trump administration.

A Florida federal judge heard arguments about the conditions at "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center in the Everglades but gave no ruling or injunction.

An alligator made a meal out of an invasive Burmese python at Shark Valley in the Florida Everglades, near Alligator Alcatraz, an ICE detention center