Co·er·cion
noun
- the practice of persuading someone to do something by using force or threats.
Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention (LA-AID) is a volunteer organization that works with eight Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in Louisiana and one in Adams County, Mississippi. Among the services is provides is free transportation to bus stations and airports – and when necessary, housing and food – for detainees upon their release from one of the facilities.
Included in the ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS) operations manual of 2011 (and amended several times since then) is a section entitled “Releases or Removals.
Among the procedures outlined in the manual is one that says the detainee “shall be permitted to change into his or her own clothing in a private part of the processing area, within earshot but not eyeshot” where the facility staff “shall instruct the detainee to remove all facility-issued clothing and to dress in his/her personal clothing.”
The manual further stipulates that “Facilities that are not within a reasonable walking distance of, or that are more than one mile from, public transportation shall transport detainees to local bus/train/subway stations prior to the time the last bus/train leaves such stations for the day.”
LA-AID provides free transportation for many of these detainees. Other are not so fortunate.
“Detainees,” the manual goes on to say, “will be provided with a list of legal, medical, and social services that are available in the release community, and a list of shelter services available in the immediate area along with directions to each shelter. Detainees will be released with one set of non-institutionalized, weather-appropriate clothing.”
On many occasions, however, detainees are not given their personal clothing back and are released still wearing institutional clothing. Moreover, they are not always wearing “weather-appropriate” clothing. Some, like those release earlier this year were released in near-freezing temperatures in T-shirts. If they receive “appropriate” clothing, it is often provided by volunteer groups like LA-AID, not ICE or the private prison company that runs the facility.
Detainees are often dropped off at bus stations long after the stations have already closed for the night and the detainees are left to their own devices, often not even knowing what city they are in. Recently, officials at the airport in Alexandria, realizing about 50 detainees would have to otherwise sleep on the sidewalk outside the airport, allowed it to remain open all night so they could sleep inside.
Even more disgraceful, most are told that they must use taxi services or they will not be released, a clear violation of several regulations and a practice that is clearly coercion and intimidation.
Exploitation
ex·ploi·ta·tion | \ ˌek-ˌsplȯi-ˈtā-shən
noun
- the act of selfishly taking advantage of someone or a group of people in order to profit from them or otherwise benefit oneself.
Taxis, waiting like vultures, literally poach fares from LA-AID. In contrast to the free service provided by LA-AID, taxis charge $200, $300, $400 – whatever they can get out of the unsuspecting and uninformed victims of what has become a practice of mass exploitation.
The way the system works, prison officials will contact a detainee’s family with instructions to deposit the money into the detainee’s commissary account at the detention center. Nor are the taxis from the immediate community. One company in Opelousas, for example, routinely picks up detainees as they are released from Jackson Parish Correctional Center in Jonesboro, 140 miles to the north.
When LouisianaVoice inquired of Vinson Taxi Cabs in Opelousas the cost of transporting a detainee from Jonesboro to the bus station in Shreveport, we were told the cost would be $400 – per person. That would be a round trip of about 430 miles. Land and Drive Transport of Shreveport quoted us a price of $275 for the 150-mile round trip.
When the owner of Land and Drive was asked if he had a contract with the facility or with ICE, he said there was no contract. “It’s just the luck of the draw,” he said. “I guess they have my name on a list and they call me when my name comes up.”
Lawrence Higginbotham of Ruston who volunteers with LA-AID, said he was scheduled to pick up three detainees at the all-female Jackson Parish Correctional Center. “One of the women got into my car and was trying to call out to the others who were getting into a taxi,” he said. “I went over to tell the guy he was picking up my riders but he refused to give them up.”
Higginbotham pointed out another potential major problem. “At Winn Correctional Center (in Winnfield), they only let one car at a time inside the gate and the driver has to know the name of the detainee and his number before they’ll let them pick him up. At Jackson, which is all-female, there is no one to check on the drivers’ credentials and the women are all released at one time to get by the best they can. Some of these women are young and attractive. It’s a recipe for human trafficking,” he said.
Elisabeth Grant-Gibson of Natchez agreed, but added that the threat of human trafficking wasn’t limited to females. “Some of the male detainees are young and attractive, too,” she said. “They’re vulnerable, as well.”
Grant-Gibson related an incident in which one detainee took a taxi thinking he was getting a free ride from a volunteer organization only to be dumped unceremoniously in Alexandria with no money, no phone, no place to stay and unaware of where he was.
Greed
noun
- intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food.
In another case, a taxi service from Alexandria picked up three detainees from Richwood Correctional Center and delivered them to the Monroe bus station, less then 10 miles away – for $200 per passenger.
Is someone inside these facilities taking a cut from the taxi companies? It’s impossible to say, but it certainly wouldn’t be at all surprising. From all appearances, we have a situation where an opportunity has presented itself to unscrupulous individuals who have no compunctions about taking advantage of helpless people.
When helpless people are coerced into taking a taxi in lieu of the free transportation from volunteers and are charged extortion-like prices, that’s a motivation anchored in pure greed.
It might be appropriate at this point to identify the private prison companies who operate these facilities in conjunction with ICE.
Our old friend, LaSalle Corrections of Ruston runs four of the facilities. Three were named earlier: Jackson (capacity 1,252), Winn (1,576) and Richwood (1,129). The fourth is River Correctional Center in Ferriday (cap. 602).
GEO Group operates Jena/LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena (1,000), South Louisiana Detention Center in Basile (1,000), and Pine Prairie Correctional Center in Pine Prairie (1,094).
As far as can be determined, the sheriff of Allen Parish runs the Allen Parish Public Safety Complex in Oberlin (200) and CoreCivic operates Adams County Detention Center in Natchez (2,567).
Altogether, the total capacity of the nine facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi is 10,420. Nationally, ICE maintains about 34,000 beds even though in 2019, ICE’s daily detained population exceeded 52,000. When you multiply that by the fees charged by the taxi services, you’re talking about substantial rip-offs.
Taking that even further, figures released in April indicated that ICE has cumulatively held more than 138,000 DETAINEES, continuing to book an average of about 8,400 per month – even as public health experts have repeatedly called for the release of detainees.
That’s potential for greed and that greed, in turn, encourages coercion and exploitation on a grand scale.
Scam
/skam/
noun
- a dishonest scheme; a fraud.
Louisiana Voice 
I would strongly recommend the LA-AID take this matter to the U. S. Attorney with jurisdiction in the area. While ICE standards don’t seem to require free transportation, they seem clear in intent that the facilities arrange it and that the transportation hub be “local” so the costs should certainly not be those these people are paying. So, if the people are paying anybody, it should be the facility. Most egregious is the fact LA-AID is there to help these people with this and its staff are not being permitted to do so.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg here. One would think that, even if ICE doesn’t care, the U. S. Justice department certainly should. If even half of what you report is happening, somebody has to be in a position to stop it.
Curious? I saw Cong Mike Johnson at El Paso complaining of Biden’s policy at the Detention Center and then of course asking for $$$ for his PAC. Is there anyway you can track the donations from the crooks you perfectly described??I suspect it is a source of Trumpite dark money. Very interesting, I am still upset over Cong Graves saying he had a source of money to overturn cases rendered in the military justice system. ( the ADVOCATE, March 2019?) There is a religious connection with all of the 501s raking in the money from precious Christians who still believe Trumps lies.WTF! ron thompson
This is a very substantial and well done piece once again.
The degree and scope of greed, exploitation and extortion that you’ve exposed—against the most vulnerable and helpless people no less—is horrendous. Some of the people running our prisons and local law enforcement agencies are so corrupt and malicious.
And we, until now, thought that the “Coyotes” preying upon the vulnerable “Yearning To Be Free” were south of the border. It is shocking, disgusting, and disappointing to find that “We have met the enemy and they are we.”
I hope this article spurs a Main DOJ investigation and that those responsible are made to pay the price of their illegal and immoral acts.