NEW ORLEANS—A coalition of immigrants’ rights groups including Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the ACLU, the ACLU of Louisiana, Immigration Services & Legal Advocacy, and the National Immigration Project today released a new report documenting widespread abuse and inhumane treatment at nine immigration detention facilities across Louisiana. Given the scope and severity of these findings, the participating organizations call for an immediate and independent investigation into the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office responsible for these abuses - the New Orleans ICE Field Office.
The report cites qualitative and quantitative data collected during 59 onsite jail visits from 2022 to 2024, including information gathered during interviews with over 6,200 detained individuals and facility tours. The findings reveal that immigration detention facilities under the jurisdiction of the New Orleans ICE Field Office (NOLA ICE) routinely fail to comply with ICE’s own minimal standards of care, in addition to violating federal and international human rights law.
The abuses documented range from the use of restrictive five-point shackles and prolonged solitary confinement to cockroach-infested food and lack of access to feminine hygiene products. Detained individuals also reported physical assault, sexual abuse, and denial of prescribed medications for epilepsy and diabetes.
“These individuals have fled persecution and violence only to be thrown in ‘civil’ detention and left to fend for themselves in an abusive, profit-driven, and manipulative system,” said Sarah Decker, staff attorney at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and one of the report’s primary authors. “We’ve heard horrific stories over the last two years, stories that have been corroborated by extensive documentation. Our findings further support what detained people and their advocates have long demanded: the NOLA ICE jails must be shut down.”
Louisiana is one of the largest hubs of immigrant detention in the country, second only to Texas. The U.S. government detains over 6,000 people in Louisiana, a number that has skyrocketed in recent years due to Trump-era policies and the rise of private prison companies, which are responsible for 98% of immigrants detained in Louisiana. The state also has the only ICE jail in the U.S. directly connected to an airport. As a result, individuals from across the country are transported to and held in the NOLA ICE jails.
“For years, we have been on the ground in Louisiana's detention facilities, many of which are in isolated rural areas, conducting Know Your Rights presentations and providing legal assistance to as many individuals as we can," said Andrew Perry, ACLU of Louisiana immigrant rights staff attorney. “The conditions in these facilities are inhumane, as this report shows in heartbreaking detail. The federal government has turned immigration detention into a profit machine at the expense of both asylum seekers and longtime residents of the United States. These facilities must be shut down."
"This report documents a long and haunting record of abuse and mistreatment at NOLA ICE jails, from substandard medical care, to physical assault, to the use of solitary confinement -- a practice proven to lead to serious and lasting psychological damage," said Matt Vogel, Supervising Attorney at the National Immigration Project. "We urge officials to consider this record for what it is: proof that NOLA ICE jails must be shut down immediately to prevent any further abuse and suffering."
"Our clients describe a system built on neglect and designed to create profit for large corporations, where basic human rights are systematically ignored,” said Al Page, Executive Director of ISLA. “Throughout the stories our clients and the formerly detained individuals in the report share, the government continuously fails to meet the minimum standards required to keep these centers open. The government must be held accountable, and these facilities must be shut down."
“The conditions at Winn Detention Center are a profound injustice,” said Sara Ajuli Louis-Ayo, Steering Committee Member of the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition. “People escape their homes, stripped of dignity and fleeing persecution, only to encounter more suffering in their search for safety. We must move beyond political considerations and recognize these individuals through the lens of our common humanity. It is imperative that we end this inhumane treatment."
This report is the latest development in NOLA ICE’s long and well-documented history of abuse. For years, government watchdog organizations and civil society have reported on the lack of compliance with basic standards of care for people detained in the NOLA ICE jails. In 2021, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties took the unprecedented step of opening an investigation into the entire network of NOLA ICE jails, the first-ever field-office wide investigation. Despite the litany of evidence, the government’s oversight system has failed to prevent persistent systemic abuse and inhumane conditions.
Learn more about the ACLU of Louisiana’s Immigrant Rights Project here: www.laaclu.org/irp
Learn more about the NOLA ICE coalition initiative here: www.EndtheGainonPain.org.
