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

In a letter sent late Tuesday to the heads of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and FEMA, the lawmakers expressed concern that the Trump administration's decision to use what lawmakers called a "novel state-run immigration detention model" could violate federal law and make the federal government less accountable for the conditions at immigrant detention centers.

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 federal judge handed down a split decision Aug. 18 in a lawsuit brought by detainees at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz.”

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.

Although a federal judge in Miami ordered their case be moved to another Florida district, the ACLU and other plaintiffs suing the controversial migrant detention facility over access to attorneys insist they'll win the litigation - and that they have already been handed "an important victory.

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.