Palestinian Activist Detained at Louisiana ICE Facility With History of Deaths and Abuse

Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine activist arrested in New York City over the weekend, is being detained at one of the most dangerous immigration jails in the country.  

News outlet Zeteo reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Khalil, a permanent resident with a green card, in retaliation for his involvement in the Gaza solidarity encampment formed by students at Columbia University this spring. Khalil was briefly held at a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, before ICE transferred him to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana, more than 1,000 miles from his home in New York City. On Monday evening, a federal judge barred ICE from deporting Khalil until a court can rule on a petition challenging his detention. 

The facility, also known as the LaSalle Detention Center, is operated by GEO Group, a for-profit prison company. According to a 2024 ACLU report, GEO Group operated the facility as a juvenile correctional center in the 1990s, until the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit accusing the company of beating, tear-gassing, and pepper-spraying children detained at the correctional center. GEO Group reopened the facility in 2008 to jail immigrants on behalf of ICE, and new allegations of abuse soon followed.

ICE and GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment before publication.

In 2016, three immigrants died at the facility within a span of six months. After a fourth person died the next year, an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties found that improper medical care contributed to at least two of the deaths at the jail. One of the immigrants who died, Roger Rayson, had been diagnosed with cancer prior to his detention, but ICE terminated his chemotherapy, saying he could start it again after they deported him to Jamaica. Rayson died 11 weeks later, without ever receiving treatment for his cancer, according to records obtained by the Project on Government Oversight.

In 2017, BuzzFeed News reported that the lock-up was one of five immigration jails in the country with the highest number of sexual assault complaints; ICE records indicate that immigrants at the facility have reported at least 35 additional incidents of sexual assault since BuzzFeed News’s report. A 2024 audit by a contractor for ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility found that GEO Group had violated five different federal standards under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

In 2019, a report by ICE’s Office of the Inspector General found that the detention center had kept expired and unlabeled food in the facility’s cafeterias. In 2021, another inspection by ICE officials found that GEO Group had served peanut butter for “almost every meal” to a woman who had told staff that she had a peanut allergy.

Mother Jones reported that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, officers attacked female detainees with pepper spray during a presentation on COVID-19 precautions. Facility staff used pepper spray to suppress protests by immigrants at the facility at least a dozen more times between March and June 2020.

In 2023, a nurse found 42-year-old Ernesto Rocha-Condra sitting in a chair, opening and closing his eyes, according to an ICE report on his death. 

He was only responsive to painful stimuli and his breaths were shallow. He was taken to the medical clinic and then the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. ICE reported that the preliminary cause of death was cardiac arrest. 

He was locked up in jail for over a year even though an ICE panel had recommended his release over seven months before his death. 

Rocha-Condra’s family told the ACLU that facility staff tormented Rocha-Condra while he was incarcerated. The report says that during one phone call, his brother heard guards attacking Rocha-Condra. While at the jail, he allegedly filed 29 grievances, including allegations of physical abuse and medical neglect. The report says officers put him in solitary confinement after he helped others advocate for themselves.

“He was guaranteed he was coming home,” his brother, Frank Rocha-Cuadra, told CNN shortly after his death. “Our message is, we want to know what happened to our Ernesto and we will not stop until we find out.”

In public statements before and after Khalil’s arrest, the Trump administration has outlined plans to use immigration law to retaliate against people who protest in support of Palestinians. 

In a post on President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, Trump celebrated Khalil’s detention and warned that there would be more to come. 

“We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country—never to return again,” he posted. “We expect every one of America’s Colleges [sic] and Universities [sic] to comply.”

The Trump administration, which has appointed several officials with ties to white supremacists and antisemites, has exploited antisemitism to justify crackdowns on pro-Palestine protesters at college campuses. 

Last week, Axios reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched a “Catch and Revoke” program to cancel visas of people whom the State Department deems “pro-Hamas.” An unnamed State Department official told Axios the department plans to use “artificial intelligence” to target people who participated in protests opposing Israel’s attacks on Gaza. It’s unclear exactly what this means, but many artificial intelligence tools used for facial recognition or social media analysis have been found to rely on biased data that may lead to an increased risk of false positives for people of color.

A Jan. 30 fact sheet released by the White House warned of more arrests and deportations to come: “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice. We will find you, and we will deport you.”