The lobby of a building within the England Airpark Authority filled up on Thursday with residents from Alexandria and New Orleans who came to demand from the airport’s board of directors that “we don’t want ICE.” One by one, they signed up to speak at the meeting. From the door, a few meters away, visible, was the structure in which the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeks to launch in the coming months what it described as “a transit facility” to deport minors and families who have already accepted their voluntary departure. Neighbors fear it will operate as another detention center.
“If these migrants have already decided on voluntary deportation, they don’t need to be locked up. Why do they want to lock them up if they say they want to go home? Put them on a plane,” demands Diana Mobley, 64, in an interview with EL PAÍS. She arrived accompanied by her daughter Erin Tracy, 34. Both have tried to protest in the spaces of the England Airpark Authority against ICE’s presence in their community, and over the January deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti after agents shot them while they were opposing raids in Minnesota.
Shortly after, the room where the airport board would meet was full. In the chairs, the community; on a dais, seven commissioners and then, the board, including Ralph Hennessy, the executive director.
When the secretary, Steven Mansour, gave the first right to speak, complaints to the commissioners began to be heard. They condemned the center that ICE is about to open, but also that the board of commissioners included on the agenda a change to an ordinance that could limit their right to protest within the airport and only allow it if they have a permit.
“This is a democracy”
Diana Mobley has tried to protest at the airport several times with members of her community. They haven’t always been able to. After the deaths of Good and Pretti, they were removed from the facility and had to continue the demonstration in another area of Alexandria. Her daughter Erin Tracy says that on another occasion they decided to go elsewhere out of fear, “because of course we don’t want anyone to be arrested.”
The mother believes that if the commissioners approve the ordinance, protesting will be even more difficult, but she assures that they will not stop: “We have the right to say that we don’t want that detention center or for any human being to be harmed.”
These protests they speak of are what, they say, have generated the debate about the ordinance amendment at the board of commissioners’ meeting at the England Airpark Authority. But like them, those who spoke said they would continue to protest.
“We have the right to ask questions, to organize, and to demand accountability. If this board believes it is making the best decision, then it must allow scrutiny,” one person demanded when speaking at the meeting. “Reconsider your decision to move forward with that detention center,” they added. When touching on that topic, they were interrupted by the commissioners’ secretary who asked them to refer only to the ordinance.
“It is important for those present in this room to remember that this is a democracy and that any authority is a public servant and is subject to accountability,” said an activist from Louisiana. “It is annoying that they are trying to limit the right to expression and public protest.”
“If you find this annoying and irritating (…) I guarantee there will be many more,” another activist stated into the microphone and suggested they help reverse the decision to open a center for minors and families. “Better turn it into something that can help the women and children of Alexandria. That center won’t help anyone.”
Mobley’s voice breaks as she tells this newspaper about members of her community who have lost contact with relatives after they were detained by ICE. Also when she recalls all the migrants she has seen disembarking handcuffed from planes arriving at Alexandria International Airport, the country’s largest center for the transfer of immigrants to be deported.
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When asked by EL PAÍS how he feels listening to the community and if their concerns make him doubt allowing ICE to open this center, the airport’s executive director, Ralph Hennessy, replies: “I have no doubts, I don’t.” “There is a policy of our federal government and these companies are working within the guidelines set under contracts with the federal government. What we are doing is granting them a building to operate,” he adds.
According to the AP agency, one of the first media outlets to report on the opening of this center, the management of the facility would be handled by the LaSalle Family Foundation, a subsidiary of LaSalle Corrections, one of the main companies managing private prisons and ICE detention centers in several US cities. The information was confirmed to AP by the company’s CFO, Tim Kurpiewski.
So far in 2026, two migrants have died in ICE detention centers managed by this company in Louisiana.
By April 2026, more than 60,000 people were detained in ICE-managed facilities, and Louisiana ranked as the second state with the highest number of detainees in agency centers —only after Texas—, according to calculations by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a non-partisan organization dedicated to research and data analysis.
The building
The center they expect to open in Alexandria, Hennessy explained, does not yet hold migrants. It will operate within a barracks that is being renovated on an old military base and will be supported by habitable trailers that will be installed to house more people. This Wednesday, workers were seen making renovations and painting the exterior. Around, there are furniture and armchairs piled up outdoors. Inside one of the rooms in this three-story building, old and new air conditioners are seen on the floor.
Hennessy explained that the renovation work has been delayed: “It will begin operating within 60 days.”
In a letter delivered by one of the activists to the commissioners, about 10 organizations —including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Immigration Project— denounce that the structure contains asbestos and is located in a place where dangerous chemical concentrations persist for years in the environment.
Hennessy assured that the airport authority received the building after it had been cleaned by the military. He asserts that no one has shown him evidence of the presence of chemicals that could affect migrant children and families: “Our documentation does not say that. If other people have information, facts, let them present them to us. So far, there is nothing to support that accusation.”
Outside the building, Diana Mobley prepares to leave for the afternoon. She hopes that her city’s authorities have heard the community’s demands: “If they open that center, they will leave a stain on this community, they will leave a stain on that board. And then they will tell us we can’t protest.”
