The state plans to spend up to $6 million to stand up Baker Correctional Institution to hold more than 1,300 people awaiting deportation.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility dubbed “Deportation Depot” at a state prison in north Florida, as a federal judge decides the fate of the state’s holding centre for immigrants at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz”.