Pearl River The Institute for Southern Studies is an invaluable nonprofit serving the Southern states. Run by Bob Hall from North Carolina for many years, the Institute published Southern Exposure for many years which focused on work and change. Now for many years directed by Chris Kromm, a journalist, and producing the online publication Facing South, they continue to put their shoulders to the wheel. It’s hard for me to keep up with all of the good work they do, but I couldn’t miss a reprint in The Louisiana Weekly of a report by Chris on the amount of money the Immigration and Customs Enforcement outfit, known now infamously across the country as ICE, the division of the Department of Homeland Security, now run by Kristi Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, has been pouring into Louisiana. Kromm looked at both North Carolina and Louisiana. The total amount spent in Carolina was absolutely larger, but the individual contracts in Louisiana were bigger.
A lot of the money the Institute charted fueled the ICE attack on New Orleans and its suburbs looking for undocumented immigrants or anyone they could fit in a van and claim might have been a criminal element. The results have been yawningly meager. A deal was clearly made to keep ICE largely out of the French Quarter and most of the city by Louisiana’s Republican governor and special real estate envoy from Trump to Greenland. A million dollars was spent to put them up at the Hilton Hotel on the Mississippi riverfront and for offices across the street. Another more than $300,000 was spent renting dogs and boarding them with local vets, so they could add an extra layer of intimidation to go with their Iraq-style military kit.
Of the $50 million ICE spent in Louisiana in 2025 most of that was really peanuts just for show and to make the papers in New Orleans. The real money was $46 million being spent to build two more ICE deportation holding centers in the state. Believe it or not, there are now 120 detention centers in the United States. Louisiana has nine already, tied with California for 3rd most but trailing Texas with 21 and Florida with 10. These new ones under construction might push the state up to second place. ICE also operates a transfer hub out of Louisiana which often puts the state in the news when DHS and ICE grab a US citizen or asylum applicant in contravention of some federal judge’s orders to not do so. A map will show the kidnapped individual being stashed in central Louisiana, using a former reconditioned military airfield, and then trafficked to Africa or central America to try to evade the long, suddenly flabby arm of the law.
It’s not a good look for the state, even if some local businesses and construction companies have hit paydirt. If the chant in Minnesota is “ICE Out!” in Louisiana the state officials seem to be begging “ICE In.” Enough already. Shame on us. This needs to stop ASAP.