Last May, The New Orleans Advocate published a STORY that put the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees in Louisiana at 2,800.
Today, just six months later, that number has trebled to 9,000.
That dramatic increase could be tied to the sudden disappearance of thousands of detainees in Brownsville, Texas, who were rumored to have been quietly transferred to Louisiana which now ranks second only to Texas in the number of ICE detainees.
A big part of the reason for the surge is pure economics.
The Louisiana Department of Corrections pays local sheriffs and private prisons $24.39 to house its prisoners while ICE’s rate is more than double that, at $65 a day.
And the profits don’t stop with the daily rates paid by ICE. Exorbitant rates charged by private telephone companies, private- or sheriff department-run commissaries that gouge prisoners for snacks and soft drinks, and private companies that provide ankle monitors are cashing in on both DOC prisoners and ICE detainees.
In short, local facilities, whether operated by private companies like LASALLE CORRECTIONS, headquartered in Ruston (even its EMPLOYEES give it overall poor reviews), GEO, or local sheriffs—and the aforementioned affiliated suppliers—have discovered a cash cow.
One privately-run local prison no longer even takes DOC prisoners, choosing instead to go for the bigger payout.
And of course, the private companies that run prisons, operate telephone services, sell concessions and provide the ankle monitors haven’t forgotten to grease the skids via generous campaign contributions to the elected officials who continue to approve the arrangements and everyone comes away happy.
Almost everyone, that is.
Forgotten in the ringing of the cash registers for those entities has been the general welfare of the detainees.
With 1,600 detainees in Jena, 1,000 each in Richwood, Basile, and Jonesboro, 1,400 in Winnfield, 1,100 in Pine Prairie, 835 in Ferriday, 755 in Jena, and 250 in Plain Dealing, overcrowding is a real issue. And little has been done to address that problem.
At Richwood, for example, 98 detainees are housed in a single room and there are only four toilets with no privacy. Beds are stacked three high along the walls of the room with bunk beds placed down the middle of the room. Detainees are awakened at 4 a.m. for breakfast and are given only 40 minutes per day outside. One observer said the men “get so hopeless and desperate, they just start screaming.”
Hardened criminals at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola receive better treatment.
Recently, the warden at Richwood was replaced after a detainee committed SUICIDE.
Other atrocities attributed to LaSalle were cited in an ONLINE STORY by Vice.com. These included moldy food, poor training of guards, physical abuse of migrants, and lack of medical care.
A demonstration is planned tomorrow (Saturday) at Richwood for whatever good it might do. If a detainee is identified by the media, he is at risk for reprisals, according to the observer who spoke on condition of confidentiality for that very reason.
Nell Hahn, a retired Lafayette attorney with the Louisiana Advocates for Immigrant and Detention (LA-AID), spoke to a group of detainee advocates at the Ruston Presbyterian Church last Saturday.
She said billions of dollars are being wasted on imprisoning those “whose only offense is that they have no legal documentation. They have committed no crimes,” she said.
The detainees are housed in such remote places as Jonesboro, Jena, Ferriday, Winnfield, Pine Prairie, and Oberlin in part because keeping them in such remote places makes it difficult for them to obtain legal representation from attorneys like Lara Nochomovitz of Cleveland, Ohio, who, nevertheless represents clients at Richwood, Plain Dealing and Jonesboro.
The Southern Poverty Law Center purchased a house in Jena in order to serve as a place for attorneys to stay while working on cases—and for immigrants’ families to stay free of charge.
Still, immigration judges who hear Louisiana cases have unusually high rates of denials of petitions for asylum from detainees.
It’s one thing to protect our borders and no one would argue that. But to keep detainees, including children, in inhuman conditions with inadequate toiletries, bedding, food and exercise, caged like rats, is not what this country is supposed to be about.
And lest the argument crops up that the illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans, let’s be clear: They have not taken a single job. Those jobs were “taken” by the employers who run the roofing companies, construction companies and the chicken processing plants, and who give the jobs to the illegals.
As long as they give the low-paying jobs to illegals, the problem will persist.
Like the futile war on drugs, as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply.
Louisiana Voice 
It is frightening to know that our fellow human beings at so many levels have such cruelty in their hearts. It may be that trump rhetoric is responsible for unleashing this hatred, but it being there to be released is more than just troubling. We have become a nation that has lost its moral compass.
This is an outrage! I don’t think most Americans are aware of this practice of profiting from these poor people; I wasn’t. This has to change!
You didn’t mention the LaSalle Correction facility in Urania. Recently the local Sheriff was crowing in the newspaper about how much money was going to be raked in. This is disgusting and disturbing. The prison facility is only a mile from my house. I now know what it was like for the good Germans in the 1940s. I know that human misery is going on right near my house, but there is nothing I can do about it.
The clue bird has flown——-
Nell Hahn said the detainees have committed no crimes. I guess illegally crossing the border into another country is not a crime? And how does she know that a detainee has not escaped punishment for a crime in their country by escaping and illegally entering this country.
Typical of you to parse words. What Nell Hahn said was their only offense was they weren’t documented. That is not a felony, i.e., a crime. So far as I’ve been able to tell in reading my American History, the Pilgrims were undocumented. These people have not been instructed as the proper way to try and enter at a port of entry and even if they did, they have been effectively closed down so that even that method doesn’t work.
The gist of the article, if you’d bothered to read it rather than regurgitating Herr Trump’s vitriol, is the inhuman conditions these people are being subjected to. Prisoners at the Louisiana Penitentiary at Angola live in better conditions, are better fed, receive better medical treatment and education opportunities than these people.
Yes, we need to secure our borders (and with a wall that can’t be cut with power saws) but we don’t need to subject human beings to inhuman conditions. If you profess to be a Christian, you may want to refer to your Bible and read about the Sermon on the Mount, the woman at the well, and the verse (Matthew 25:40) that says “What you do to the least of my brethren, so too do you do it unto me.”
I find it rather strange to see all these good Christians who fall back on their Christianity and family values only when it is convenient to them to do so. I’m reminded of the song that says:
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
Who said I am a fan of Trump. Kind of like throwing out the race card when convenient. Undocumented alien means that person is illegally in this country. If you are so concerned and trusting maybe you should investigate how you can facilitate allowing some of these people to come stay in your home with you and your family.
Katrina, you’re parsing words again. I never said you were “a fan” of Trump; I said you were regurgitating his vitriol—and I stand by that. and if you’d bother to go back and read the post, you will see where it said border security is necessary. It never disputed that and your trying to say otherwise is simply not true. The point of the post—and I’ll repeat it for you—is you don’t put people in cages like animals. Period. That’s the point. Got it? And yes, they’re here illegally and you know why? Because the ports of entry have been closed to them, thereby making it impossible to enter legally. And you know what else? When American roofing contractors, landscape contractors, corporate farming conglomerates, and chicken processing plants continue to hire them, they’ll continue to come here. It’s supply and demand pure and simple, much like the drug problem. As long as there is a demand for drugs, the so-called war on drugs is a joke. As long as the illegals are hired here, border security will be a joke. I know a state legislator who preaches border security but her husband hired Mexican labor (illegals, most likely) to remodel two homes he purchased to flip. If you’re trying to find the problem, you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope, placing the blame at the feet of the wrong perpetrators.
How do we know you haven’t committed a crime? How about your next door neighbor, or the sheriff’s deputy down the street and his schoolteacher wife?
Do you know how many there are now (late September 2020, several months later)?
The number has actually decreased somewhat since last year, to between 6,000 and 7,000.
OH, that is very interesting!
Go Randy!! Well said.