Nineteen people held at an immigration detention centre inside Louisiana's notorious Angola state penitentiary have entered their fifth day of a hunger strike, advocacy groups reported on Sunday. The detainees, housed in a facility the Trump administration calls 'the Louisiana Lockup', are demanding access to medical and mental health care, including prescription medications, as well as basic necessities such as toilet paper, hygiene products and clean drinking water.
The Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition and the National Immigration Project said the strikers also seek visitation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to raise concerns about conditions. According to the groups, detainees with chronic health conditions are not receiving prescribed medications, and there is no access to a law library or religious programming, which are required under federal detention standards.
The strike follows Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry's declaration of a state emergency in July over a lack of capacity to house offenders at the prison. Advocates warn that the reopening of Camp J for immigration detentions has subjected detainees to unsafe and degrading conditions. 'The real emergency is what's happening inside: people are being denied life-saving medication, and some may die as a result,' the coalition said.
Louisiana now holds the second largest population of immigrant detainees in the country, after Texas, and a small airport in Alexandria has become the leading departure point for deportation flights under Donald Trump's second presidency. Camp J, shut down in 2018 due to its brutal conditions, has been rebranded as Camp 57, a reference to Landry, the state's 57th governor.
The Department of Homeland Security defended the facility, with assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin stating that during hunger strikes, Ice continues to provide three meals a day and an adequate supply of drinking water. Homeland Security has previously published a list of over 50 Ice detainees at Angola with prior criminal convictions for serious charges.
