BIG CYPRESS NATIONAL PRESERVE, Florida—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sold the public on the detention camp known as Alligator Alcatraz as an efficient and cost-effective way to deal with a major public disaster—illegal immigration—and his administration relied on speed, secrecy, and a relentless public relations campaign to paint the project as a success. But the public record that media and civil rights attorneys scraped together has repeatedly contradicted the state's claims that everything ran smoothly.

For more than a month, both the Trump and DeSantis administrations refused to explain under whose authority the camp was operating, essentially playing a shell game with legal responsibility for detainees. Meanwhile, detainee and whistleblower reports began leaking out with accounts of inhu

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