Florida’s controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” is up and running, with the intended capacity to hold up to 5,000 illegal immigrants. Florida governor Ron DeSantis touted the quick creation of the detention facility, which can currently house 3,000 illegal immigrants and was built in a matter of days. The dormitories are currently surrounded by chain-link fences topped with barbed wire. Critics have compared it to a prison camp, while detainees allege inhumane treatment.

DeSantis touted the facility’s capabilities at a press conference. “The security is amazing, natural and otherwise. It can be an effective way to increase the number of removals and deportations. You are able to bring people in, they get processed; and if they have an order of removal, they can be queued and the federal government can put them on a plane and they are gone,” he said. Spain-born Father Federico Capdepón, a retired priest of the Miami Archdiocese, criticized the facility. “To persecute migrants is not Christian and we have to follow what Popes Francis and Leo have said: We need to keep as a priority for the church the situation that thousands and thousands of migrants are going through; we need to speak up and follow what the Gospel says about migrants in our country,” he said.

Sharayah Colter, chief communications officer at The Danbury Institute, a nonpartisan association of Evangelical churches based in Dallas, Texas, however, stated Christians “should support earnest efforts to secure the nation and to uphold law and order.” She noted that vulnerable women and children are lured into crossing the border illegally, where they are often raped or trafficked. She also stated that requiring people to obey the laws of the land is biblical. “It is wrong to convey to people that it is OK to break the law since Scripture calls people to obey the laws of the land so far as they do not cause a person to break God’s law. When a nation passes laws, the righteous thing to do is to uphold and enforce those laws. To act otherwise is both wrong and cruel.”

Krista Bontrager, known online as “Theology Mom,” and co-founder of the Center for Biblical Unity echoed Colter’s words. “One of the difficulties with our current reality is that our government has engaged in unjust behavior for so long by not consistently and impartially enforcing its border laws that it has created a climate where people think it’s normal to break the law or that they are even entitled to do it,” she wrote in a blog post. “The government has also caused considerable confusion by changing the standards and even incentivizing illegal border crossings through social programs. Straightening this out is going to be difficult and there will be a real human cost.” DeSantis plans to establish similar facilities throughout Florida, with the hope it will inspire other states to do likewise.