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NEW ORLEANS — <\/span>The Trump administration<\/a> plans to open a 528-bed holding facility for migrant families and unaccompanied children<\/a> next to an airport hub, positioning itself to speed up deportations<\/a>.<\/p>\n The location in Alexandria, Louisiana, would remove logistical headaches caused by wrangling children<\/a> from foster homes and shelters across the country and not having anywhere to put them during final preparations for flight. Those obstacles were apparent last year when Guatemalan children were awoken at night and given almost no time to get to Harlingen, Texas, where they waited on an airport tarmac for hours.<\/p>\n A federal judge prevented their deportation, but the chaotic episode illustrated<\/a> the challenges authorities face because they don’t have anywhere to put families and children near the airport. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is calling the Alexandria facility a \u201cstaging area,\u201d not a detention center, and says people would only be there a few days at most.<\/p>\n However, several immigration advocates expressed concern that children could be held at the new facility for weeks or months, which happened at other federal immigration holding sites<\/a>. These advocates are also concerned about oversight, and say the facility represents a departure from how the government manages those children.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an expansion of the deportation system in ways we haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d said Leecia Welch, chief legal counsel at the nonprofit Children\u2019s Rights. \u201cThere\u2019s just so much that could go wrong with this facility.\u201d<\/p>\n Unaccompanied children who are in the U.S. without parents or close relatives are not taken to facilities overseen by<\/a> ICE. Instead, the law says they must be swiftly placed in the care of state-licensed shelters and foster care programs.<\/p>\n Those are run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services. However, that agency isn’t involved in the Alexandria facility\u2019s operation, according to a spokesperson at the airfield where it’s being built.<\/p>\n Instead, the facility would be run by a nonprofit arm of LaSalle Corrections, a private prison contractor, according to Ralph Hennessy, executive director of the England Airpark Authority. He said it could be operational as early as August.<\/p>\n ICE officials signed a contract late last month to build the facility at the former military base near Alexandria International Airport, roughly 175 miles (280 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans, Hennessy said.<\/p>\n It would operate as a 72-hour holding center for migrants awaiting deportation, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. <\/p>\n Compass Connections, a Texas-based nonprofit that runs shelters for unaccompanied immigrant children, had originally been tapped to help operate the facility and laid out plans during a public presentation in February.<\/p>\n But the company\u2019s president, Sonya Thompson, told the AP last week that it was no longer involved. She did not elaborate. <\/p>\n In public board meetings, airpark officials said the facility is a \u201chumanitarian effort\u201d for families that are \u201cself-deporting.\u201d Immigration advocates say families and unaccompanied children sometimes make that decision under pressure or because they don’t understand their options<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThese are people that are volunteering to go back home and they\u2019re going back home as a family unit,\u201d Hennessy told the AP. <\/p>\n The facility would sit next to the nation’s largest hub for deportations. More than 4,400 immigration enforcement flights came into and out of the Alexandria International Airport in 2025, according to data<\/a> from the ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First. ICE planning documents say families and children at the facility \u201care in the legal custody of ICE and can only be released at the direction of ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n The agency has instructed contractors that families at the facility cannot be referred to as prisoners, detainees or inmates, records show. The agency ordered contractors to not use bars or cages when transporting families and unaccompanied children. The facility will not be required to engage in headcounts and should allow families to \u201cwear their own clothes,\u201d the agency added.<\/p>\n Louisiana-based LaSalle Corrections runs a range of private prisons and federal immigration detention centers throughout the South, including the \u201cLouisiana Lockup\u201d<\/a> inside the state\u2019s maximum-security prison in Angola. <\/p>\n The official contractor for the new ICE holding facility will be the company’s nonprofit arm, the LaSalle Family Foundation. According to its tax records<\/a>, the nonprofit provides chaplain services and educational programming in correctional facilities.<\/p>\n However, LaSalle Corrections itself will be involved in operating the holding facility and ensuring compliance, the company\u2019s chief financial officer, Tim Kurpiewski, wrote in an email reviewed by the AP.<\/p>\n LaSalle spokesperson Scott Sutterfield declined to comment. <\/p>\n