(NewsNation) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement will use a section of the Louisiana State Penitentiary as the latest detention center touted by the Trump administration to house “the worst of the worst,” according to Homeland Security officials.
State and federal officials announced a portion of the prison, located in Angola, Louisiana, will be dubbed “Louisiana Lockup” as ICE continues to expand the number of detention beds at its disposal for immigrants facing deportation.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and United States Attorney General Pam Bondi at a news conference Wednesday, announcing the opening of the detention space.
Landry said the camp will “hold 208 criminal illegal aliens by mid-September, 51 of whom are here today.” The facility will expand to hold 400 people in the coming months, officials said.
The detention center in Angola, which is surrounded by the Mississippi River, is known as the “Alcatraz of the South.” It is the largest maximum security prison in the United States and includes 4,200 inmates, more than half of whom are serving life sentences.
Landry said this facility is “giving ICE a facility to consolidate the most violent offenders into a single deportation and holding facility.”
Bondi also touched on Operation Viper, the joint federal and state effort “to disrupt the illegal criminal drug organizations here in Louisiana,” touting several arrests and the seizure of more than 100 firearms.
The facility is the latest to be added to ICE’s detention centers, which grew after President Donald Trump’s mega funding bill allocated more than $46 billion to add detention beds. Noem said she was in contact with five Republican governors about possibly adding detention centers in their states.
A spokesperson for Landry did not respond to multiple requests for comment from NewsNation at the time. However, The Advocate reported in August that state officials were in the early stages of an agreement with the White House regarding the use of the Angola prison.
Landry signed an executive order expediting repairs on the “Camp J” site at the prison, which has been abandoned since 2018, according to the report. Louisiana is home to nine ICE processing centers and detention facilities, including four correctional centers and a public safety complex. The ICE facility in Alexandria, which has previously held detainees including Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, is among the largest detention centers in the country.
Since the opening of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in the Florida Everglades, officials have announced the opening of another facility in the Sunshine State, as well as similar centers in Indiana, Texas and Nebraska.
The American Immigration Council reported that the $45 billion earmarked by the government for immigrant detention represents a 265% annual increase to ICE’s existing detention budget. The amount is 62% larger than the budget for the entire federal prison system.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association estimated that the daily cost of detaining each migrant in federal custody is around $165. An ICE spokesperson told NewsNation on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s funding bill gives the agency “more resources than ever to arrest, detain and remove” immigrants with a criminal history deemed “the worst of the worst” by the administration.
“Thanks to investments provided by the Big Beautiful Bill, the Angola prison located in my district will now hold some of the most violent, criminal illegal immigrants. I share President Trump’s priority of securing the border and increasing public safety,” said Louisiana Rep. Julia Letlow.