An ICE detention facility in Louisiana has attracted national attention in recent weeks after a protester detained by federal agents was sent to the privately run for-profit center in rural LaSalle Parish.
Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests, made national headlines when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs agents in early March in New York.
Khalil, a native of Syria, is being held at The GEO Group-run Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center near the rural town of Jena.
A University of Alabama student, Alireza Doroudi, 32, a native of Iran studying mechanical engineering, was picked up by ICE agents last week and transferred nearly 350 miles to the Jena facility.
With a population of about 4,155, Jena is the parish seat of LaSalle Parish. The nearest city is Alexandria, about 38 miles away, which is home to a 400-capacity ICE staging facility owned and operated by The GEO Group as a 72-hour holding facility.
Most of the state's immigration attorneys and immigrant rights groups are in New Orleans, which is about 221 miles southeast of the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena.
The center, with a capacity of 1,160, is accessed from the two-lane Pinehill Road about two miles northwest of downtown Jena. It is surrounded by hurricane fencing topped with barbed wire.
A contract was signed in July of 2007 to operate the ICE facility near Jena, according to The Geo Group's website.
The facility previously operated from 1998-2001 as a state juvenile detention facility.
ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility gave the Jena facility an overall “superior” rating in its latest annual review.
However, advocates say such inspections don’t capture the full picture. In the 2024 report, immigration-rights advocates said detainees at the Jena center have alleged sexual and physical abuse and denial of hygiene products and medication.
ACLU Louisiana Legal Director Nora Ahmed told the Wall Street Journal the conditions at Louisiana immigration facilities are designed to persuade migrants to give up their efforts to stay in the country.
“The fact that you are here without access to counsel, without access to your family, without access or the ability to call everyone that you need to back home because you don’t have the commissary funds to do that,” she said.
Neither the Central Louisiana Center, Geo Group nor ICE responded to requests for comment
The Jena center is one of nine ICE facilities in Louisiana holding as many as 7,000 immigrants, the Associated Press reported.
Texas holds the most immigrants for ICE. Louisiana holds the second-most in the United States.
The facility in Jena is the eighth largest in the United States in terms of population, at 1,176 in January 2025, according to Immigration and Detention Statistics published in February and posted on Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
The largest by population, according to the report, are Adams County Detention Center in Mississippi, 2,135; South Texas ICE Processing Center in Texas, 1,686; and Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, 1,514.
Louisiana ICE facilities in the top 20 based on population, according to the report, include:
4th — Winn Correctional Center in Winn Parish, 1,474.
8th — Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, 1,176.
12th — Jackson Parish Correctional Center in Jonesboro, 984.
19th — South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, 801.
20th — Richwood Correctional Center in Richwood, 763.