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

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.

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

"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