A new facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, may begin receiving undocumented families with children, local officials and immigrant rights advocates say.
The 528-bed facility will house families with children, unaccompanied minors, and single adult females as they await removal inside renovated former Air Force barracks at England Airpark, a former military base that now houses the Alexandria International Airport and an immigration detention facility, according to a draft agreement between ICE and the England Economic and Industrial Development District (EEIDD) reviewed by ABC News.
A communications manager for EEIDD told ABC News the facility could start receiving people “within the next week or two.”
The facility would be the second constructed to house children since President Donald Trump’s second term began but is the first to hold unaccompanied minors who are usually held in shelters under the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services before deportation or release.
A board of commissioners that governs the airpark approved the facility in February amid protests from local residents.
The facility will be managed by LaSalle Family Foundation, a nonprofit arm of LaSalle Corrections, a private prison company that manages several immigration detention centers across the country. Daily operations will be run by Anovaeon, which describes itself as a humanitarian response company. The operators are calling the facility the Alexandria Family Staging Center and say it will house people who are voluntarily self-deporting or voluntarily leaving the country, for an average stay of under 48 hours.
Last week, Robert Hagen, the project manager for LaSalle Family Foundation told commissioners the facility was 95% completed.
During board meetings that have at times become contentious with police having to remove opponents of the plans, operators of the facility have attempted to push back against the notion that it’s a detention center.
“This project right over here is not a detention center, it’s a staging center for families who are voluntarily departing this country, admittedly through pretty crappy circumstances on their end. I acknowledge that,” Anovaeon CEO Eric Fritz said at a commissioner board meeting last week.
Fritz said the facility will provide medical care, mental health care, “quality meals,” soccer fields and free international calling, among other resources.
A pamphlet distributed during one of the board meetings and obtained by ABC News said migrant families will be held in a “non-detained” setting at the facility. However, during last week’s board meeting, Anovaeon Senior Director of Operations Jeffrey Lynch acknowledged operators would have to alert ICE if someone attempted to leave the facility.
“I think what we would do is, we would approach the individual, say ‘Look, you’re part of this program. It’s in your best interest to follow through with the program,'” Lynch said. “If they were adamant about it, I think we would open the gate but at the same time we would be in communication with ICE, letting them know what’s happening.”
There’s an ICE office “literally steps away” from the facility, Lynch added.
“They’re literally steps away and they would be there to either intervene, convince them to come back in, or take whatever steps they would take as part of their case management practices,” Lynch said.
A draft of the Intergovernmental Service Agreement between DHS and the EEIDD obtained by the advocacy group National Immigration Project and reviewed by ABC News said one of the purposes of the agreement is to provide “ICE alien detention in a secure environment under the authority of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
A communications manager for the EEIDD said she could not share the final agreement with ABC News, noting that ICE had to sign off before it could be shared.
At a press conference on Wednesday, immigrant rights groups and attorneys denounced the facility and raised concerns that the property was contaminated with PFAS.
“There can be no hiding what this is, this is a detention center. People are not free to leave,” said Stephanie Alvarez-Jones, Southeast Regional Attorney for the National Immigration Project.
DHS, EEIDD and Anovaeon did not respond when asked to address concerns about possible contamination, or whether people would be restrained at any point during their stay or during removal.
DHS did not provide an estimate of when the facility would open.
In a statement, an ICE spokesperson called it a “staging facility for deportations”
“A staging facility is where illegal aliens await their deportation flight to their destination country or transfer to a detention facility,” the spokesperson said.
ABC News’ Ely Brown and Laura Romero contributed to this report.
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