Louisiana officials are in talks with the Trump administration about housing immigrant detainees at the State Penitentiary at Angola, part of a push to meet the demands of the U.S. president's widening immigration crackdown by outsourcing operations to conservative states.
An unused wing at the maximum security prison, the nation's largest state-run penitentiary, has emerged as a possible site for the immigration lockup, according to people familiar with the talks. The move could save Louisiana costs of building a new facility like one unveiled in Florida last month, but critics contend it would place people without criminal records near others convicted of grave crimes.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the former South Dakota governor who is close with GOP Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, in July told reporters that she was "having ongoing conversations with five other governors" about opening facilities in their states modeled after the immigration lockup in Florida called "Alligator Alcatraz."
One possible destination for the site on the prison grounds, according to people familiar with the plans, could be a long-abandoned wing called Camp J. Landry declared an emergency at Angola last week in a bid to hasten repairs to that facility.
Camp J “just doesn’t seem to be an environment that’s suitable for a human being to be in,” said David Cloud, a former staffer for the criminal justice advocacy group Vera, who led a team in 2016 that partnered with the state to find ways to reduce solitary confinement. “Putting ICE detainees there would just be another, you know, stain in history.”
Louisiana already has deep political and operational ties to the country's immigration enforcement system as Trump pursues a dramatic expansion of those operations. The state's cluster of ICE-contracted private jails already makes it second only to Texas for the number of people it holds in immigration detention.
In May, Landry issued an executive order urging local and state law enforcement agencies to collaborate with ICE under 287(g). The Louisiana National Guard, State Police, Alcohol and Tobacco Control, State Fire Marshal and Department of Wildlife and Fisheries each entered agreements under the program, along with several local police agencies, according to a federal database.
In his May executive order, Landry said the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections has "already begun to partner with DHS … to enforce President Trump's immigration policies."
On July 24, federal records show the state's prison agency formalized its agreements with ICE under a pair of 287(g) deals. One is a so-called "warrant service officer" agreement, under which agents in the participating agencies are trained and certified to execute immigration warrants. The other is a "jail enforcement" agreement allowing deputized DOC employees to interrogate people about their immigration status and coordinate with ICE.
That is some hunger games level logic. "No one is forced to participate in the Hunger Games. It's just luck of the draw. May the odds be ever in your favor."