Louisiana has become an unlikely epicenter for immigrant detention under President Donald Trump.
Detainees walk with their hands clasped behind their backs along a line painted on a walkway inside the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, La., Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019. Detainees are required to walk from site to site with their hands clasped behind their backs. Since 2018, eight Louisiana jails have started detaining asylum seekers, making Louisiana an unlikely epicenter for immigrant detention under President Donald Trump.
“I knew they would detain us, but I never thought it would be for this long,” said Howard Antonio Benavides Jr., an 18-year-old from Venezuela who has been at Winn for three months. The AP was not allowed to speak to any detainee besides Benavides, who agreed to an interview through his lawyer. As a large group of migrants held in one tier started shouting “come here,” in Spanish, jail officials prevented observers from approaching the immigrants and directed them outside. The men continued to shout from the windows.
A few classrooms have been turned into virtual courtrooms with video teleconferencing equipment where migrants can appear before immigration judges based in New Mexico. Nurses and medical staff provide check-ups at a clinic on site. ICE says it complies with its own rules on segregating inmates, which say detainees can be confined alone for “presenting a clear threat to the security of the facility,” and insisted in a statement that it is “committed to ensuring that those in our custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments and under appropriate conditions of confinement.”
A federal judge recently ruled that ICE was unlawfully refusing to release asylum seekers in Louisiana under its authority to grant parole. Lawyers say very few people are granted parole from Winn or other facilities in the state. Without it, detainees must request bond from an immigration judge, which can take months.
Pedro Cordoves Diaz, a 26-year-old from Cuba, was released from Winn in late September, the same day the AP visited the facility. He was released on $10,000 bond, paid by relatives in New Jersey.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.
As ICE detention has grown in the state, so has the role of LaSalle Corrections, a privately held company based in Ruston, Louisiana.
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