Florida officials received a hefty lump sum of cash from the federal government Tuesday to cover the cost of the Everglades immigration detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

As reported first by WPLG , the Department of Homeland Security revealed two days after the fact that Florida had been awarded the full $608.4 million stockpile of funds within the Detention Support Grant Program, a new program housed under the Federal Emergency Management Agency designed to compensate states for detaining undocumented immigrants.

Florida was the only applicant for the grant program, FEMA told the Florida Phoenix last month. That money will foot the construction, housing, feeding, and equipment costs spent on the Everglades center — on which the state has already spent at least $245 mil

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