But data and news reports about the first month’s arrivals show the majority of Alligator Alcatraz’s detainees do not have U.S. criminal convictions.  President Donald Trump, federal officials and Florida Republicans touted the remote Everglades immigration detention centers — dubbed Alligator Alcatraz — as a place to detain people deemed the "worst of the worst.

Editor's note: The little-used airstrip in the Everglades that the state is using to build a detention center for immigrants, dubbed " Alligator Alcatraz ," is part of a storied history involving Palm Beach County at one point.

“Alligator Alcatraz,” the public moniker for an abandoned airport in the Florida Everglades that has been turned into an immigration detention center, has captured national attention since its opening on July 3.

Hundreds of detainees held at Alligator Alcatraz, the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades, do not have criminal records or charges pending against them in the U.S. -- despite President Donald Trump claiming the facility would hold “ the most vicious people on the planet .”

This facility’s purpose fits the classic model, and its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.

Some people detained at the facility have violent criminal histories. But data and news reports about the first month’s arrivals show the majority of Alligator Alcatraz’s detainees do not have U.S. criminal convictions.

Without permanent structures, electricity or running water, logistical headaches have emerged at “Alligator Alcatraz.”

In the depths of the Florida Everglades, a place teeming with mosquitoes, swamps, and predatory reptiles, the U.S. government has endorsed what many human rights activists now call the Alligator Alcatraz—a sprawling 39-square-mile detention facility for immigrants surrounded not only by steel fences,