Louisiana becomes new hub for detaining immigrants under Trump govt

Immigration detention has become increasingly controversial during the Trump administration, which separated thousands of families as part of a “zero-tolerance” policy at the U.S.-Mexico border. ICE has expanded its presence in Louisiana as other states have told the agency to stay out. California and Illinois have banned private immigration jails altogether, and even in conservative Texas, the Republican-led government in Williamson County voted to end ICE detention at a 500-bed jail. There’s no such resistance in Winn Parish or other rural Louisiana communities.

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Winnfield is the largest city in the parish at 4,400 people — down from 5,700 two decades ago — and the birthplace of legendary Louisiana Gov. Huey Long. Its tiny downtown has as many empty storefronts as it does open shops. Timber trucks carrying chopped logs from surrounding forests roll down the highway. Sheriff Cranford Jordan says that aside from lumber, the area’s two biggest job engines are the schools and the prison. A decline in prison population could eventually have led to the prison closing, Jordan said.

“It would be devastating,” he said. “You’d see people moving, bankruptcy. It would be like an automobile plant closing.”

Jordan, ICE, and LaSalle Corrections, which was already running the prison, agreed in May to a five-year contract, with an option to add five more. ICE pays around $70 per day for each inmate, Jordan said, more than double what the state was paying to house convicts. That is still well below what ICE pays nationally, which is estimated at around $133 per day in 2017. Jordan said he supported ICE coming in and called the influx of immigrant detainees a “blessing” of jobs and funding. As ICE detention has grown in the state, so has the role of LaSalle Corrections, a privately held company based in Ruston, Louisiana. LaSalle operates six of the eight converted jails that have opened since last year. In August, LaSalle hired the former acting director of ICE’s enforcement and removal division in New Orleans as a development executive. LaSalle also made a $2,000 contribution to the sheriff’s campaign in March. It has faced criticism at its prisons before.

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Violation of nursing standards

LaSalle was sued after an inmate died in 2015 at its jail in Texarkana, Texas. A federal magistrate judge this year found that jail staff failed to do daily checks and violated “basic nursing standards” in their treatment of the inmate. Four former guards at the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, which also is operated by LaSalle, were sentenced to federal prison terms after a 2016 incident in which inmates were pepper-sprayed while kneeling and handcuffed. Richwood became an immigration detention facility this year. LaSalle declined to comment on complaints about mistreatment or about how immigration detention factors into its business. The facilities are spread out across Louisiana, connected by rural roads winding through forests and farmland. To advocates, the isolation is a serious problem for immigrants.

“Just the fact that you’re detaining people in such rural, isolated places makes it not only difficult for the person themselves to fight their case, but it even makes it nearly impossible for them to get attorneys to represent them,” said Homero López, executive director of the New Orleans-based Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy.

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Alex Melendez

One of the few people to visit most of the facilities across Louisiana is Alex Melendez, who with his son runs a taxi service to pick up immigrants. For rates starting at $100, he drives immigrants to the long-distance bus station or airport in Alexandria, just over an hour away from Winn, or sometimes to New Orleans or Houston, each four hours away. Calls for pickups have surged in the last year, sometimes with calls from four separate jails in one day. Melendez says he listens to the migrants’ stories about why they fled their homes or what it was like for them inside. Some Spanish speakers are confounded by grits, a Southern staple not commonly found outside the United States, and refer to them as “Arroz sin Sabor” — tasteless rice. Sometimes, they get emotional. It happened recently when Melendez drove up to another detention facility to pick up someone who had just been released. “He just kneeled down,” he said. “He praised the Lord. He thanked the Lord he was free.”

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