WASHINGTON — Environmental groups are suing to halt construction of an immigrant detention facility in the Everglades referred to by President Donald Trump as “Alligator Alcatraz,” arguing that Florida officials and the federal government have trampled over environmental regulations in their rush to build the facility.

The lawsuit, filed Monday by the Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, came as Trump traveled to Florida to promote the project. In recent days, the Trump administration and Florida’s Republican leaders have cited the area’s remote location and proximity to dangerous wildlife as key reasons for placing a detention facility there.

Among other things, the lawsuit claims that the facility is being hastily put up in protected ecological areas within the Big Cypress National Preserve, a nationally and state-protected site that Florida has spent decades and billions of dollars working to preserve.

It argues that construction was started last week without any environme

— The New York Times