Wyden Demands Answers on 528-Bed Louisiana ICE Child Center Over $1.6 Billion Contractor Ties
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jun 4
Wyden Demands Answers on 528-Bed Louisiana ICE Child Center Over $1.6 Billion Contractor Ties
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 4
Summary
Ron Wyden sent letters to HHS, ACF and contractors seeking transparency on a proposed 528-bed ICE family and child detention site in Alexandria, Louisiana, saying a facility for children cannot be built in secrecy.
Documents obtained through public records requests show the center would hold families and unaccompanied minors for about 72 hours before deportation flights from the same airport, with fenced modular housing and converted military barracks.
Wyden questioned Compass Connections' role in the project, noting the nonprofit received more than $1.6 billion in federal funding over three years to care for migrant children while now helping operate what records repeatedly call a detention facility.
The senator also cited PFAS contamination at the former military base and the lack of a signed land contract, while DHS has declined comment and ACF said it would respond directly to Congress.
Alexandria already serves as a hub in Trump's deportation push, and the proposed family site would expand operations at an airport where a separate men's detention center has already drawn abuse and due-process concerns.
A child welfare non-profit will run a deportation hub. Can humanitarian care and rapid deportation coexist under one roof?
How can officials justify housing children on land with toxic contamination millions of times above federal safety limits?
86% in Private Hands: The Alexandria ICE Detention Center Controversy and Systemic Failures in U.S. Immigration Detention
Overview
Senator Ron Wyden is demanding transparency and accountability for a proposed 528-bed ICE child and family detention center in Alexandria, Louisiana. Although the facility is called the 'Alexandria Family Repatriation Center' in some documents, records clearly show it is intended to provide detention services, a point that migrant rights groups argue is misleading. This controversy highlights a larger trend: as of January 2025, 86 percent of ICE detainees were held in privately managed facilities, and all of the top twenty detention centers were run by private companies, raising concerns about oversight and profit motives in the immigration detention system.