ANGOLA, La. (AP) — Federal authorities purposefully chose a notorious Louisiana prison to hold immigration detainees as a way to encourage people in the U.S. illegally to self-deport, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday.
A complex inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary, an immense rural prison better known as Angola, will be used for some of the “worst of the worst” ICE detainees, Noem told reporters as she stood on the grounds of the facility near a new sign reading, “Louisiana Lockup.”
Officials said 51 detainees were already being housed at Angola. But Gov. Jeff Landry said he expects the building to be filled to capacity, expecting over 400 people to come in ensuing months as President Donald Trump continues his large-scale attempt to remove millions of people suspected of entering the country illegally.
“Louisiana Lockup”
At the prison entrance a sign reads: “You are entering the land of new beginnings.”
The dirt road to the new ICE facility meanders past lofty oak trees, green fields and other buildings – including a white church and a structure with a sign that said, “Angola Shake Down Team”.
The facility is surrounded by a fence with five rows of stacked barbed wire. Overlooking the outdoor area is a tower, where a guard paced back and forth.
Across the way is a lake dotted with cypress trees, where a few alligators could be seen swimming. In addition to the “large alligators” officials promised “forests full of bears” nearby.
The Associated Press joined officials for a brief tour of the facility, viewing some of the cells where detainees would be held. The cells, built of three cinder block walls and steel bars on the front, were single occupancy — one bed, toilet and sink in each.
Outside were confined enclosures of chain-link fencing, tall enough for multiple people to stand in.
“If you don’t think that they belong in somewhere like this,” Landry said of the detainees during Wednesday’s news conference, “you’ve got a problem.”
An active maximum-security prison
The building holding ICE detainees is not new, but rather refurbished after sitting vacant for years. The rest of Angola, which is made up of many buildings, has remained active. Many of Angola’s 6,300 inmates still work the fields, picking long rows of vegetables by hand as armed guards patrol on horseback.
In addition, the prison is home to more than 50 death row inmates. The most recent execution was in March, using nitrogen gas to deprive the inmate of oxygen, causing death. The state’s electric chair, nicknamed “Gruesome Gertie”, is still on display in the prison’s museum.
The notoriety of the 18,000-acre (7,300-hectare) prison stretches back well over a century. Described in the 1960s and 1970s as “the bloodiest prison in America,” it saw violence, mass riots, escapes, brutality, inhumane conditions and executions.
“This facility will hold the most dangerous of criminals,” Noem said, adding it had “absolutely” been chosen for its reputation.
The Trump administration has crafted its immigration messaging to reinforce a tough-on-crime image and create a sense of fear among people in the U.S. illegally, most pointedly with the detention center dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz ” that it built in the Florida Everglades.
The Everglades facility may soon be completely empty as a judge upheld her decision ordering operations there to wind down indefinitely.
Racing to to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations, the federal government and state allies have announced a series of new immigration detention facilities, including the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana and the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska.
The approximate 400 people the Angola immigration facility will be able to hold is just a tiny percentage of the more than 100,000 people that ICE seeks to detain under a $45 billion expansion for immigration detention centers that Trump signed into law in July.
A notorious history
The prison traces its history back to a series of wealthy slave traders and cotton planters who built an operation known as Angola Plantation. An 1850s news report said it had 700 slaves, who historians say were forced to work from dawn to dark in Louisiana’s brutal summer heat.
The plantation became the state prison after the Civil War, with a former Confederate officer awarded a lease that gave him control over the property and its convicts.
“The majority of black inmates were subleased to land owners to replace slaves while others continued levee, railroad, and road construction,” the museum’s website says. White inmates at the time worked as clerks or craftsmen.
Inmate leasing ended in the late 1800s amid a public outcry, and the state took direct control of the prison in 1901.
Difficult conditions, though, remained a part of Angola’s history, with cycles of scandal and reform going on for decades, with reports of brutality, crowded conditions and tuberculosis outbreaks.
Officials say reforms have led to improvements, but lawsuits are still regularly filed alleging violence and cruel treatment.
