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3h ago

U.S. Opens ICE Detention Unit at Angola Prison, Branded ‘Louisiana Lockup’

Homeland Security says Angola’s notoriety is intended to drive self‑deportation.

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In this aerial photo, the Louisiana State Penitentiary lies along the bending Mississippi River, Friday, July 21, 2023, in Angola, Louisiana. The former 19th-century antebellum plantation once was owned by one of the largest slave traders in the US. It spans 18,000 acres – an area bigger than the island of Manhattan – and has its own ZIP code.
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Overview

  • The facility operates inside Angola’s former Camp J, now called Camp 57, and opened with about 51 detainees, with officials planning to scale capacity to just over 400.
  • DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan and Gov. Jeff Landry unveiled the site and said it will hold detainees labeled the “worst of the worst.”
  • State emergency orders allowed a rapid renovation of the long‑shuttered solitary‑confinement unit; officials said the revamped space is separate from Angola’s general population and includes basic amenities such as a law library.
  • The move extends a national detention buildout funded by recent congressional appropriations, with ICE seeking roughly 80,000 additional beds and new sites in Florida, Indiana and Nebraska, even as a judge ordered the Everglades camp to wind down.
  • Advocates raised civil‑rights and access‑to‑counsel concerns and pointed to ICE data showing many people in detention nationwide have no criminal convictions.