Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says deportation flights from the remote Everglades immigration lockup known as Alligator Alcatraz began in the past few days. DeSantis said Friday that the flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security have transferred about 100 detainees from the immigration detention center to other countries. He expects that number to increase soon. Officials say two or three flights have happened, though they didn't say which countries those flights headed to. Critics have condemned the facility as cruel and inhumane, but DeSantis and other Republicans have defended it as part of the state's aggressive push to support President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.

Venezuela has released 10 jailed Americans in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. The resolution represents a diplomatic achievement for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad. El Salvador will send back some 300 Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration agreed to pay $6 million to house in a notorious Salvadoran prison. The arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law to quickly remove men his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang.