Louisiana
Immigrant students and scholars are being detained at remote facilities in Louisiana over objections
As U.S. authorities crack down on immigrants at universities in a fervor against pro-Palestinian protests, they quickly have shuttled some of those detained to remote facilities in Louisiana.
Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student facing possible deportation for his role in protests at that campus, are calling his imprisonment in Louisiana a “Kafkaesque” attempt to chill free speech.
Louisiana is emerging as a linchpin for immigrant detention in President Donald Trump’s second term, at facilities far from New Orleans and beyond the immediate reach of most rights groups and attorneys.
Epicenter for detention
Immigrant detention in Louisiana surged during Trump’s first term at facilities adapted from state prisons and local jails.
At the time a state criminal justice overhaul had reduced the prison population, threatening the economies of small towns that rely on the lockups.
Officials in rural parishes signed contracts for immigrant detention that guaranteed millions in payments to local governments. Immigrants and their advocates complained of prolonged detention, mistreatment and isolation, including solitary confinement that sometimes resulted in death.
Louisiana is the No. 2 state today for immigrant detention by ICE, after Texas. About 7,000 immigrants are held there in civil detention, according to government data compiled by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
Taken from the Northeast to the South
The transfer of Khalil from the New York area to Louisiana complicates his legal fight to be released.
An attorney for the Department of Justice, August Flentje, wants the dispute litigated in Louisiana “for jurisdictional certainty.” A judge in Newark, New Jersey, heard jurisdictional arguments Friday and plans to issue a written ruling.
Immigration authorities are also holding 30-year-old Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk at a detention center in Basile, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) west of New Orleans.
The Tufts University doctoral student was detained by immigration officials as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on Tuesday and transferred to Louisiana before a federal judge ordered her kept in Massachusetts.
Attorneys for another detained scholar, Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, said Friday that he was likely to be sent to an ICE center in Jena, Louisiana, a town of about 5,000 that is also far from major cities.
Doroudi, 32, initially was held at the Pickens County Jail in Carrollton, Alabama, after his arrest by immigration agents at his apartment in the middle of the night.
Doroudi was picked up because a visa was revoked in 2023, and his attorneys say he never participated in campus protests. The Department of Homeland Security said Doroudi poses a “significant national security threat” but did not elaborate.
Relatively few immigrants settle in Louisiana. Foreign-born residents there make up less than 5% of the population, compared with the national average of about 13%.
Immigration detention is at a five-year high
Trump’s inauguration-day executive orders and promises of mass deportations of “millions and millions” of people hinge on securing more money for immigrant detention beds.
The number of immigrants in ICE detention this month hit 47,892 — the highest since October 2019 — as the administration experiments with the use of offshore facilities at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba.
Authorities also are using federal prisons to detain some people, returning to a strategy that drew allegations of mistreatment during Trum’s first term. The administration also recently resumed family detention of immigrants at a South Texas facility after a Biden-era pause.
Louisiana
Goon Squad victim arrested by Louisiana Police, held without bond on multiple charges
TALLULAH, La. (WLBT) – One of the two Goon Squad victims who later won a civil suit against Rankin County and the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department was arrested by the Louisiana State Police Wednesday night.
According to officials, Eddie Terrell Parker is currently being held in the Madison Parish Jail without bond on at least two pages of charges.
These charges include multiple narcotics violations, possession with intent to distribute, felon in possession of a firearm, and carrying a concealed weapon.
No other information has been released at this time.
This is a developing story. More updates will come as further information is released.
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Louisiana
Louisiana lands another $10 billion AI data center
Demand for more Midwest data centers skyrockets
What are data centers and why are they needed?
Louisiana has finalized details on another $10 billion data center, this one from Hut 8 in West Feliciana Parish.,
Hut 8, which develops and operates an integrated portfolio of power, digital infrastructure and compute assets, said more than 1,000 construction workers will be on site of its River Bend artificial intelligence (AI) data center campus at its peak.
Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company whose flagship chatbot is Claude, has signed a long-term deal to use the facility, Hut 8 and the state announced Dec. 17.
“It’s a transformational and generational project for our parish and region,” West Feliciana Parish President Kenny Havard said in an interview with USA Today Network. “The possibilities really are endless.”
The official announcement and details come after months of preparation from the parish government and its partnership with the state for the data center on which construction has been underway for months.
It’s the second $10 billion plus data center announced in Louisiana during the past two years. Meta’s massive data center project is under way in northeastern Louisiana’s Richland Parish. Meta originally announced a $10 billion investment but has since increased that scope to at least $25 billion.
“Hut 8’s investment in River Bend builds on our track record of attracting global-scale projects in the industries of the future,” Gov. Jeff Landry said in a statement. “As the campus grows, it will further cement Louisiana’s position as a national leader in energy and innovation, creating thousands of jobs and reaffirming our ability to compete and win on the global stage.”
Construction is scheduled to be complete in the second quarter of 2027.
“River Bend demonstrates that Louisiana’s economic strategy is taking our state from plans to progress,” Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois said in a statement. “This project will generate high-wage jobs and create pathways for Louisianans to build long-term careers in the industries of the future. It’s a clear example of how aligning policy, partnership and people translates into lasting opportunity.”
Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.
Louisiana
Louisiana man arrested for allegedly planning attack in New Orleans – UPI.com
Dec. 16 (UPI) — A suspect identified as Micah James Legnon has been arrested by agents from the FBI’s New Iberia office for allegedly planning an attack on federal agents.
Legnon, 29, was a member of the Turtle Island Liberation Front and had communicated with four members who were charged with allegedly planning a series of New Year’s Eve terrorist attacks in the Greater Los Angeles area on Monday, WDSU reported.
He is a resident of New Iberia and was arrested on Friday while driving to New Orleans after FBI agents saw him loading a military-style rifle and body armor into his vehicle and telling others in a Signal chat group that he was traveling to New Orleans.
New Iberia is located about 120 miles west of New Orleans, and Legnon allegedly shared a video that showed multiple firearms, gas canisters and body armor before leaving on Friday.
In that post, Legnon said he was “On my way to NOLA now, be there in about two hours,” but the FBI arrested him while driving east on U.S. Highway 90, according to WWL-TV.
In a Dec. 4 post, Legnon shared a Facebook post showing Customs and Border Protection agents arresting someone and said he wanted to “recreate Waco, Texas,” on the federal officers while referencing the 1993 federal siege on the Branch Davidians compound there.
He is a former Marine who was trained in combat and a self-professed satanist who used the alias “Black Witch” in group chats with four suspects accused of targeting locations throughout California.
Federal prosecutors filed a federal complaint against Legnon and asked the magistrate judge to seal it and related records due to an ongoing investigation.
They asked that it be unsealed on Tuesday, which is a day after the four suspects accused of planning the California terror attacks were charged with related crimes.
The FBI said Legnon had been communicating with the four suspects in California before the arrests were made and charges filed in the respective cases.
The Turtle Island Liberation Front is a far-left, anti-government, anti-capitalist and pro-Palestinian group, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
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