Articulated Insight – “News, Race and Culture in the Information Age”
Exploring the rise of state-run immigration detention centers and their impact on rights and conditions.
Originally published on The Marshal Project
Plans to use Indiana’s “Speedway Slammer,” Louisiana’s Angola and other state prisons to house ICE detainees raise problematic questions, attorneys say.
The Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, is nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the South.” Giles Clarke/Getty Images
A federal judge on Thursday ruled that Alligator Alcatraz cannot detain any new immigrants and gave officials 60 days to begin dismantling portions of the facility. The decision was based on the detention center’s environmental impact on the Everglades, and is a major blow to the facility. The ruling is preliminary, and officials plan to appeal. But no matter the future of Alligator Alcatraz, the Trump administration is turning it into a model for expanding detention capacity across the country. Similar large-scale facilities, opened in collaboration with state governments, are already in the works. These projects mark the first time that states have gotten this involved in large-scale immigration detention.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that an Indiana state prison plans to begin holding immigrants for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The timeline, staffing, cost and other logistics have all yet to be worked out, according to state officials. But the announcement reprised the political spectacle that came with the Florida facility, including a controversial name: the “Speedway Slammer,” referring to the famous racetrack that hosts the Indianapolis 500. DHS announced that ICE will have access to 1,000 beds, about a third of the prison’s capacity.
This week, DHS announced a partnership with Nebraska to open a detention center, dubbed “Cornhusker Clink,” in a rural state prison. It will hold as many as 280 people, according to the agency.
In Louisiana, federal officials are making plans to hold immigrants at the troubled state penitentiary at Angola, several news outlets have reported. The prison is infamous for its plantation-style farm work, with armed guards on horseback, and medical care so terrible that both the Justice Department and a federal judge have called conditions cruel and unusual punishment.
Elsewhere in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that the state plans to open a second immigration detention facility in a shuttered state prison, which Florida officials are calling “Deportation Depot.”
Immigration enforcement has traditionally been a federal function, but the feds have often partnered with local governments to carry it out, for example, by contracting with jails to rent bed space. But the new agreements mark a new chapter in the level and scale of cooperation. ICE is working with states to operate facilities under the controversial 287(g) Program, which allows local officials to work as an extension of federal immigration authorities. Historically, these agreements were used to allow state prisons and county jails to hold individuals after they’re arrested on criminal charges or have finished a criminal sentence, to give ICE a few days to pick them up. The agreements had never been used to run large-scale facilities long-term.
“It’s absolutely unprecedented,” said Eunice Cho, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project. Officials are “very much pushing the boundaries” of their legal authority under the program, she said.
After operating for less than two months, Alligator Alcatraz is already infamous. Attorneys have said they haven’t been able to meet confidentially with clients, and detainees said there are worms in the food and feces on the floor. ICE and DHS did not respond to questions. But in a news release, DHS denied the reports of poor conditions at the Everglades facility and said immigrants had access to lawyers. Allegations of inhumane treatment were an attempt to “slow down President Trump’s partnerships with States to turbocharge efforts to remove the worst of the worst,” the agency said.
The new agreements also raise troubling questions — both about conditions for immigrant detainees, and their effect on people already in state prisons.
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