New ICE facility in Louisiana to house families and minors

A new 528-bed immigration detention facility, named the Alexandria Family Staging Center, is expected to begin operations in Alexandria, Louisiana, within the next one to two weeks. Located at England Airpark in renovated former Air Force barracks, the facility is intended to house undocumented families with children, single adult females, and unaccompanied minors awaiting removal.

While the facility is the second of its kind to house children since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, it is the first designed to hold unaccompanied minors, who are typically managed by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The center will be managed by the LaSalle Family Foundation, a nonprofit arm of the private prison company LaSalle Corrections, with daily operations handled by Anovaeon. Operators stated the facility will primarily house individuals who are voluntarily self-deporting or leaving the country, with an average stay of less than 48 hours.