The Trump administration purposefully chose a notorious Louisiana prison to hold immigration detainees as a way to encourage people in the US illegally to self-deport, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday.
A complex inside the Louisiana state penitentiary, an immense rural prison better known as Angola, will be used to detain those whom Noem described as the “worst of the worst” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainees. Noem was speaking to reporters as she stood on the grounds of the facility near a new sign reading, “Louisiana Lockup.”
“This facility will hold the most dangerous of criminals,” Noem said, adding it had “absolutely” been chosen for its reputation.
Officials said 51 detainees were already being housed at Angola. But Louisiana governor 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.
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 says, “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.
At the prison entrance a sign reads: “You are entering the land of new beginnings.”
A Louisiana corrections officer looks out from a tower by Camp 57 at Angola prison. Photograph: Matthew Hinton/AFP/Getty Images
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.”
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 has seen violence,