TAMPA, Fla. — A group of Florida democrats from both the state and federal level were able to take a tour of the detention center in the everglades, known as Alligator Alcatraz on Saturday.

This comes as they were turned away from a surprise visit earlier this month.

“It looked like a makeshift prison,” said State Rep. Michele Rayner, D-District 62.

Rayner is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis for denying lawmakers access to the immigration detention facility. Saturday she stepped inside.

“This was what we expected it to be, a sanitized tour, and that is not complying with the law,” Rayner said.

Rayner said her tour was cut short by officials at the detention center. While she was inside, she said her tour group asked detainees about the conditions.

“Maybe about three of them said, we, ‘muy mal, muy mal,’ very bad, very bad. We were blocked from speaking with them. So, I would like to go when we could find out the truth,” she said.

Alligator Alcatraz is a state facility that’s run by the Department of Homeland Security. The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, was in Tampa on Saturday. She said Alligator Alcatraz is held to the same standards that all federal facilities are held to.

“Any issues that were there were addressed. It’s a fantastic resource for us to be able to utilize a detention facility repatriate people back home to their home countries,” Noem said.

Noem said Alligator Alcatraz is serving as a national model for detention centers around the country. She said five other states have expressed an interest in building similar facilities.

“Announcements will be coming soon. As you all know, we need to double our capacity and detention beds because we need to facilitate getting people out of this country as fast as possible,” Noem said.

Even though Alligator Alcatraz is run by DHS, it’s up to the state on how and when lawmakers can visit.

Before the facility was built, Noem said a hurricane contingency plan was put in place.