The United States military on Thursday announced it is deploying about 200 Marines to Florida to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

The purpose of the deployment is “to augment U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s interior immigration enforcement mission with critical administrative and logistical capabilities at locations as directed by ICE,” U.S. Northern Command said in a statement.

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NORTHCOM described the move as the “first wave” of its support to ICE.

The announcement follows Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s mobilization of roughly 700 military personnel to assist ICE in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.

Based in North Carolina, the 200 Marines were deployed to “assist with immigration processing at locations across the state of Florida,” Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin told CBS News.

Florida has recently become the home of a new immigration detention facility, called “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The site is located in the Everglades, an ideal spot that makes it challenging for detained illegal immigrants to escape from the swamp teeming with alligators. President Donald Trump noted this special advantage while attending the grand opening earlier this week.

“It’s known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is very appropriate, because I look outside and it’s not a place I want to go,” Trump said during a visit to the site in Ochopee, Florida, on Tuesday. “We’re surrounded by miles of treacherous swamp land, and the only way out is really deportation.”

The latest deployment of U.S. military personnel comes after the Department of Defense sent 700 Marines and 4,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles in order to quell the city’s anti-ICE riots that broke out last month. Both violent and peaceful protesters, both violent and peaceful, were defying the Trump administration’s immigration and deportation agenda.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) sued over President Donald Trump‘s deployment, claiming the president had no authority to send the National Guard without his permission. A federal appeals court dealt a blow to Newsom’s case, ruling that Trump likely acted within his legal authority. The lawsuit remains pending.

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Since returning to the White House, Trump has used the military to boost his administration’s immigration operations. Thousands of service members have been deployed to assist U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s enforcement of the southern border, where they can temporarily detain illegal immigrants before transferring them to immigration officials.

According to a Wednesday briefing from the Pentagon, about 8,500 military personnel continue to serve at the southern border.