Over the past few months, Louisiana has popped up as a recurring character in the drama of the Trump Administration’s crackdown on undocumented people in the U.S. It seems like every story about another Palestinian student protestor, or young mother, or surprised family man being dragged off by ICE includes one detail: No matter where the detainees were arrested (or kidnapped depending on your point of view), they end up in Louisiana, and their lawyers seem pretty keen on getting them back north.

This is because Louisiana, already home to “Cancer Alley” (about 85 miles of chemical and other industrial plants along the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans), has for a while now been part of another unlovely sobriquet: “Detention Center Alley,” a corridor through Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi where the largest ICE detention centers are concentrated (14 of the 20 ICE facilities currently operating in the United States).

An ugly color for an ugly concept.

“Detention Center Alley” holds nearly 60% of the over 46,000 people being held by ICE, of whom roughly half have no criminal record, not even a traffic violation. It’s worth noting that all 20 facilities are privately owned, for-profit prisons run by companies like the GEO Group, who manage two of Louisiana’s eight detention centers. The GEO Group — the largest prison operator in the United States — is headquartered in Florida (USA! USA!) and claims to be a “global leader in evidence-based rehabilitation,” despite accusations of abuse, exploitation, and neglect.

Look at this happy horseshit.

From exposing prisoners to toxic chemicals, to violating labor laws, to unsafe conditions, abuse, and substandard care, the GEO Group has a long, not-so-proud history of allegations and lawsuits. And this doesn’t even get into the standard bullshit practices like charging detainees hundreds of dollars a week to speak with their families on the phone, keeping prisoners in overcrowded facilities with too few beds and other resources, delaying medical care, and more.

The immigrant scholars were sent to detention in Louisiana allegedly due to “lack of beds” in nearby facilities. In Louisiana, however, at least one of them slept on the floor.

Sadly, none of this is unique to the Trump Administration (many of these facilities were similarly used during the Biden and even Obama Administrations), but, not surprisingly, the number of detainees has spiked under Trump — first in 2019 and now again in 2025 — often outstripping resources. You’ll be shocked to learn that the GEO Group was the first PAC to max out its donations to the Trump campaign in 2024, contributing more than $1 million to the effort and now reaping their particularly odious reward, projecting profits of more than $400 million this year. Indeed, the GEO Group’s approach dovetails nicely with that of Acting ICE Director and walking dystopia Todd Lyons, who prefers a more streamlined, efficient approach to handling these packages people, saying earlier this year, “We need to get better at treating this like a business . . . like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”

Before I have a rage stroke, let me get back to my original intention, which was to find out why Louisiana is a preferred destination for these sorts of human rights abuse. After all, while Texas houses the most undocumented detainees, Texas at least has a significant immigrant population (18%), unlike Louisiana (5%). Yet there are now towns in Louisiana where the population is significantly bolstered by these unwilling newcomers. So why is the federal government sending detainees hundreds of miles away to Louisiana?

Sadly, as far as I can tell, the answer is about what you’d think: Because we let them. Worse, we invite them. Activists describe Louisiana’s detention centers as “black holes,” which will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Louisiana’s already dismal reputation for prison conditions. Louisiana has the largest prison population in the United States, so piling in ICE detainees is nothing new. That’s part of it. The government and these private contractors know they can get away with overcrowded facilities, deplorable conditions, and insufficient oversight here because they already do. Louisiana became even friendlier to this system when Republican Governor Jeff Landry took office, completing the state’s Republican trifecta and signaling his willingness to cooperate with ICE through law enforcement (Project Geaux) and detention centers. After all, there’s profit to be had!

There’s also a psychological component: Take people away from their support structures (family, community, faith organizations, etc.) and stick them in a swampy hellhole, and they become a lot more likely to agree to deportation — anything — to get out. Hence the story of one woman who, despite living in the U.S. for 10 years, married to a U.S. citizen and mother of two American-born children, accepted deportation after only three months in ICE detention in Louisiana.

Finally, of course, there’s the legal reason: Louisiana is chock-full of judges sympathetic to the cause, so ICE lawyers have “home court advantage,” particularly in the case of a federal appeal, which would then be heard by the notoriously conservative Fifth Circuit and thus more likely to be struck down. While this largely applies to more attention-garnering cases (such as those noted below), such “forum shopping” is yet another reason Louisiana is the hottest deportation destination in the United States.

I’m sensing a pattern here.

This header could, sadly, go on for much longer, but it’s getting late, and I’m getting depressed. So what can we do about all this? Well, for myself, I’m going to look to the featured image and try to find local protests to support, especially as media attention on the “free speech” cases dies down, but thousands of “regular” detainees continue to suffer in the heat and indifference of Louisiana.

And of course this is not just Louisiana’s sin; it belongs to all of us in America (continuing to beat that “it’s not just the South damnit!” drum). Chances are there’s something you can do even if you’re not fortunate/unfortunate enough to live here in the Bayou State. If nothing else, consider sending money to detainees’ commissary or other accounts if possible; they’d probably really love a phone call with their family.

Have a good (trouble) Thursday, Avocados! Stay safe and compassionate out there!