Close NOLA ICE
Inside Louisiana’s nine immigration detention centers, overseen by the New Orleans, Louisiana ICE field office (NOLA ICE), officials rampantly violate detained peoples’ human rights to coerce them into accepting deportation.
RFK Human Rights documents human rights abuses in Louisiana’s ICE facilities, informs the public and policymakers about these systemic violations, and goes to court to hold ICE accountable.
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
$3.4 billion
Congress appropriated $3.4 billion for ICE detention in FY 2024.
47,000
The U.S. imprisons over 47,000 people a day in immigration detention.
>7,000
Over 7,000 people are detained in Louisiana, the second-largest state for immigrant detention behind Texas.
98%
Close to 98% of people in NOLA ICE detention are in for-profit prisons run by Geo Group and La Salle Corrections.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
Five-point shackles fastened over open wounds. Torturous solitary confinement that lasts for months. Expired food tainted by black mold, infested with bugs, maggots, and rat feces. Grievances and peaceful protests met with physical violence and sexual assault from guards.
These are just some of the documented abuses in NOLA ICE’s remote detention centers, where the government cuts off people from the legal and language resources needed to defend from deportation or the misery of detention. All the while, the private prison CEOs running NOLA ICE detention line their pockets with billion-dollar taxpayer handouts, profiting on human rights abuses.
But we’re fighting back. We take ICE and private prisons to court to demand accountability for the abuses they inflict. Through reports and complaints we publicly expose their cruel and degrading treatment of detained people. And through community advocacy, we empower people to take action to end NOLA ICE detention for good.
OUR WORK
Reports
Our human rights report, Inside the Black Hole, compiles information from two years of visits to nine immigration jails in Louisiana, including 6,384 interviews and seven jail tours conducted by NOLA ICE officials. The first-hand testimonies presents damning evidence of intentional abuse, exposing the NOLA ICE’s ongoing impunity.
Litigation
In J.K.A. v. United States of America, RFK Human Rights and partners are seeking accountability for torture and other cruel and degrading treatment the government inflicted on people it held in NOLA ICE detention and during and after their deportation flights to Cameroon.
Advocacy & Education
Our team’s advocacy guide explains how communities can organize to build local movements to end detention. And our media campaigns—letters to the editor, op-eds, and interviews—complement our legal and reporting work to propel the movement to end immigration detention in Louisiana and beyond.
Take Action Now: End ICE Detention in Louisiana
Immigrant rights are human rights and we need your help to show the federal government that we will not back down in our support for the human rights of all people. As our report shows, ICE detention facilities in Louisiana are centers of shocking abuse run on billion-dollar taxpayer handouts to private prison CEOs.
Send a letter to your Congressperson today and urge them to oppose any efforts to fund and support immigration detention in Louisiana. Together we can send a strong message to all those in power: we stand for human rights and we will not back down.
The Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (CLIPC)
ABOUT CLIPC
CLIPC is a private prison operated by GEO Group with a years-long record of human rights violations. In 2020, CLIPC guards attacked detained people with pepper spray during presentations on COVID-19 safety. In 2017, CLIPC was among the top five immigration jails nationally in numbers of sexual assault complaints. And in 2016, three people detained at CLIPC died due to medical neglect, corroborated in a government investigation.
THE INSIDE STORY
Daniel Cortes De La Valle, a 32-year-old man once detained at CLIPC, is one of many examples of abuse inflicted by NOLA ICE. Mr. Cortes De La Valle, was repeatedly for his life-threatening seizure condition. When he filed grievances, officials retaliated against him with threats, insults, and torturous medical abuse, including drilling into his bone without anesthetic. Ultimately, the abuse he experienced at CLIPC coerced him into accepting deportation.
OUR INTERVENTION
In March 2023 and December 2024, we filed complaints exposing abuse of Mr. Cortes de la Valle. In March 2025, following the arrest and detention at CLIPIC of student protest leader and lawful permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil, we elevated calls around the country to shut down CLIPC.
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“Whenever I close my eyes, I relive . . . the drilling into my bone. It has become a trauma for me.”
– Daniel Cortes De La Valle on the medical neglect and abusive conditions he experienced in CLIPC
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Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center
ABOUT PINE PRAIRIE
The Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center is a for-profit detention center run by the GEO Group. In 2021, RFK Human Rights and Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy (ISLA)’s investigation uncovered Pine Prairie’s use of prolonged and racially-driven solitary confinement, a form of torture under international human rights law. The report also found that Pine Prairie failed to provide people with basic necessities, including clean water, medical services, and access to legal counsel.
THE INSIDE STORY
Angel Argueta Anariba, a 46-year-old Honduran immigrant who has lived in the United States since 1998, was detained by ICE for over seven years. During his time at Pine Prairie, he spoke out against mistreatment and inhumane conditions, participating in multiple hunger strikes. ICE and the GEO Group swiftly retaliated against him with solitary confinement, constant insults, and assault by officers, leaving him with a severe shoulder injury that has caused long-term pain and disability.
OUR INTERVENTION
In June 2021, following our investigation into horrific conditions and abuse at Pine Prairie, we filed a formal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
In April 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the National Immigration Project (NIPNLG), and The Bronx Defenders sued ICE and the GEO Group under the Federal Tort Claims Act on behalf of Angel Argueta Anariba, who experienced retaliation, verbal abuse, and assault while detained at Pine Prairie.
The Winn Correctional Center
ABOUT WINN
The Winn Correctional Center has long been notorious for shocking and abusive practices.
In 2016, an investigative report detailed how officials regularly abused people through beatings, pepper spray, widespread tolerance of sexual abuse, and dangerously inadequate mental health services and protocols.
Following the outbreak of COVID-19, a Marshallese man held there died of the disease, as did two facility employees. Others have suffered severe injuries at the hands of officials, including three men whose necks and wrists were injured after guards kneeled on them to force them to fingerprint their own deportation paperwork.
THE INSIDE STORY
Manuel Amaya Portillo, an asylum seeker with disabilities affecting his ability to walk, was ignored by Winn staff when he requested a wheelchair multiple times. Without a wheelchair, Manuel could not access the shower, toilet, or sink without assistance from other detained people, who held him up. When government-contracted inspectors came to Winn in November 2019, staff sedated Manuel against his will and locked him in a small medical room to hide him from view.
OUR INTERVENTION
Manuel’s story is one of many detailed in the Winn Anthology of Abuse, a 2023 report co-authored by Detention Watch Network, Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Immigration Project (NIPNLG), and RFK Human Rights. The report, which compiles information gathered from several factfinding and legal outreach trips, advocated for Winn’s immediate closure as the only solution to stop ongoing abuse.
Less than one year after the report was released, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) opened a new investigation into the systemic abuse and inhumane conditions at Winn.
“Our trips to Winn and other Louisiana detention centers are full of dozens of examples of medical abuse, retaliatory solitary confinement, and denial of access to legal counsel. The only solution in my opinion is to shut down immigration detention for good.”
– Sarah Gillman, director of strategic U.S. litigation at RFK Human Rights, on her findings from legal outreach trips and interviews at the Winn Correctional Center
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“We anticipated that we would have to go through legal processes in the United States, but we didn’t expect to be placed in inhumane conditions, be tortured, or have Mariia reduced to an unconscious state in which she partially lost the ability to move.”
– Mariia and Boris, Russian democracy activists on being denied human necessities at Basile and Pine Prairie
South Louisiana Processing Center
ABOUT THE SOUTH LOUISIANA PROCESSING CENTER
Located in Basile, the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center (“Basile”) is the only female-only facility under NOLA ICE’s jurisdiction. Having received complaints of substandard conditions and an abusive atmosphere, the facility regularly denies its residents necessities like adequate food, hygiene supplies, warm bedding, communication with the outside world and medical care.
In Inside the Black Hole, RFK Human Rights documented these egregious conditions, which include rat and mosquito infestations, mold, and verbal and physical abuse from guards.
THE INSIDE STORY
Mariia and Boris, two 30-year-old physicians, first met in medical school in Russia. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Mariia and Boris, who is ethnically Ukrainian, posted videos of the human rights atrocities and anti-war messages on social media. The Russian government targeted the couple with imprisonment for their political activism and they were forced to flee. In April 2022, they sought asylum at a U.S. port of entry bordering Mexico. Immigration authorities locked the couple into five-point shackles, separated them, and took them to different NOLA ICE jails, Mariia to Basile and Boris to Pine Prairie. They would remain detained for six months.
At Basile, Mariia was served pest-infested, contaminated food and non-potable water. She said, “I saw boxes of food that had cockroaches in them. The drinking water had a strong chemical smell. We saw snakes. It was scary to try to sleep and always find something crawling on the wall or on your mattress, spiders and different kinds of bugs.”
OUR INTERVENTION
In October 2024, RFK Human Rights and the ACLU of Louisiana filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Ermine Nersisian, a 51-year-old disabled woman who is currently detained at Basile. An asylum seeker from Russia, Ermine suffers from severe, debilitating osteoarthritis and meniscal injury as well as severe anxiety and depression, both of which are being exacerbated by her ongoing detention. Despite repeated requests to accommodate Ermine’s disability, ICE officials have left her locked in prolonged detention with inadequate medical care – violating federal anti-discrimination laws and resulting in Ermine’s rapidly deteriorating physical and mental health.