more evidence of the boiling water we frogs find ourselves in; 

In recent weeks, students Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Alireza Doroudi were abducted by ICE and are being held in ICE detention centers in rural Louisiana. Khalil’s powerful statement connects multiple realities that demonstrate how state repression is activated to support the rise of authoritarianism. 

That Khalil and others are being sent to detention centers in remote towns across Louisiana is not an accident. Rising authoritarianism requires a police state, and the expansion of prisons, police, and detention centers is extremely profitable. As the current U.S. government disappears people to a brutal prison camp in El Salvador, they are also moving people to rural Louisiana in attempts to disappear people within the United States borders. 

The South’s history of slavery, incarceration, white supremacist social control, and people’s consistent resistance are all part of a blueprint that can help us understand what is happening, why, who benefits, and how to fight back. 

Why Louisiana Matters: isolation, legal strategy, & profit

To understand why these detention center locations matter, we have to understand the U.S. prison system rooted in racial control, economic exploitation, and geographic erasure.

Khalil and Doroudi are both being detained at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana. Öztürk is being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana. Both detention centers are located in remote, rural, predominantly-white towns with less than a few thousand people. These locations present significant challenges for these detainees, as the centers are far from major cities, as well as far from many legal advocates and human rights organizations. ............more........