By: Joshua Rosenberg. February 11, 2026.
Residents are in the initial stages of organizing against a proposed Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Port Allen, La.— one of 23 such centers that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is building, or attempting to build, across the country, as the federal government seeks to warehouse those individuals it’s detained.
The location the feds are considering for the Port Allen site would reportedly be the Conns building: 2070 Commercial Dr. in Port Allen, 70767, a former distribution facility. The Courier Newsroom was the first to report on the development.
The Louisiana Voice also reported on the development.
“We don’t need any more detention centers, period — much less a warehouse detention center in Port Allen,” a spokesperson for Southeast Dignity Not Detention (SEDND) Coalition, a group of activists, organizers, immigrants, children of immigrants, and others, told The Rosenberg Brief. “Louisiana already leads the world in incarceration, and these massive facilities only deepen a system rooted in abuse and neglect.”
Louisiana incarcerates 1,067 per 100,000 people, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, making it the leading carceral state of any independent democratic state on earth.
When asked for comment, DHS didn’t outright deny the plan.
“We have no new detention centers to announce at this time in Louisiana,” a DHS spokesperson said. The spokesperson went on to claim the agency is keeping “Americans safe.” Many Americans would disagree with that assessment, not least of whom are U.S. citizens who have been detained, harassed, and/or racially profiled by ICE.
The question posed by The Rosenberg Brief to DHS was simple:
“Is ICE considering the address 2070 Commercial Avenue, Port Allen, LA as one of its mega detention centers?” At the time this reporter posed the question, he believed the facility at Port Allen would be designated as a “mega center.” This reporter also got the address somewhat wrong: it’s “drive,” not “avenue.”
NBC News previously reported that there were 20 potential locations DHS has targeted for the detention centers. DHS may be seeking to house as many as 8,000 detainees at some locations, according to NBC. A facility reportedly planned for Hammond, La., would house 9,000. For context, the largest federal prison holds a few more than 4,000 inmates. The facility at Port Allen would reportedly house as many as 500 detainees.
The detention center in Port Allen lies within the district of Rep. Cleo Fields, D-La. His office provided a comment after this story was published.
“This week, I was notified of a report about a potential ICE detention center being built in Port Allen, Louisiana,” Fields said. “While I have not received any official details from the Department of Homeland Security on the matter, I strongly oppose any such facility being established within District 6 and have been in contact with DHS for more information.”
The offices of Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and John Kennedy, R-La. did not respond to a request for comment.
A report by the American Immigration Council, published last month, details the unprecedented, explosive growth in detention expansion during Trump’s second term.
“Surges of federal law enforcement officers taken from agencies as varied as the FBI and the IRS have fanned out across the nation to carry out ‘at-large’ arrests in American communities, which increased by 600 percent in Trump’s first nine months in office,” the report said.
“The result of these changes in arrest practice has been a 2,450 percent increase in the number of people with no criminal record held in ICE detention on any given day,” the report later said.
Opposition to the detention centers has crossed party lines. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., for example, opposed the construction of a detention facility in Mississippi.
Detention and imprisonment shouldn’t be Louisiana’s reflexive response in the current climate, the spokesperson for SEDND said.
“No human being should be locked up for migrating,” the SEDND spokesperson said. “Surely our state can imagine an economy that doesn’t depend on prisons and detention centers.”
Update: This story has been updated to include Rep. Fields’ comment and to include additional details.
Leave a Reply