'Camp 57': ICE Detainees Held in a Former Disciplinary Unit Inside Angola Prison (September 2025–)

What happened

On 3 September 2025 Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry held a news conference outside a newly reopened unit inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the maximum-security prison known as Angola. It was named "Camp 57" after Landry, the state's 57th governor; federal officials also call it "Louisiana Lockup." DHS described it as a "new partnership" with the state. The men-only unit is designed for more than 400 detainees and is separated from the rest of the 18,000-acre prison. ICE said 51 detainees had already arrived (CBS News).

The unit had been shut for years and was renovated in about 30 days. Law-enforcement officials told CBS News it had previously been used "for disciplinary actions against state prisoners." Prism reports that it is the former Camp J, Angola's solitary-confinement unit. Camp J was built in the 1970s and closed in 2018, and was "notorious for suicides, fighting, extreme heat, and isolation."

Noem said the prison's reputation was deliberate: "This is not just a typical ICE detention facility that you will see elsewhere in the country… This is a facility that's notorious, it's a facility, Angola Prison is legendary — but that's a message that these individuals that are going to be here, that are illegal criminals, need to understand." She said some of the first transferees had convictions for serious crimes including murder and rape. Landry added that the unit is next to a lake "full of alligators" and surrounded by a "forest full of bears" (CBS News).

Conditions and detentions

Chanthila Souvannarath was one of the first people sent to Camp 57. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and became a lawful permanent resident before his first birthday. He served a four-year prison sentence that ended in 2006, then worked, married and had six children. ICE detained him after an annual check-in in Alabama in mid-2025 (AP gives June, Prism August). He says his citizenship derives from his naturalised father (AP). He describes (Prism):

• small, dirty cells that guards locked at night;
• small portions of "disgusting" food and terrible smells;
• flooding toilets;
• no cameras, and cruel guards.

"That place is not made for ICE detainees… We're not criminals, … [but] we were being treated like criminals." After more than a month there he was deported to Laos, a country he had left at 10 months old (Prism). U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick had issued a temporary restraining order days earlier requiring ICE to keep him in the US while he pursued what she called a "substantial claim of U.S. citizenship"; ACLU Louisiana called the removal a "stunning violation of a federal court order" (AP, 28 October 2025).

Nora Ahmed, legal director of ACLU Louisiana, told Prism that many people held at Camp 57 have lived in the US for a decade or more under orders of supervision and were detained at check-ins. ACLU Louisiana is challenging what it says are wrongful revocations of those orders. With Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, it filed a habeas petition for Oscar Amaya, a man granted Convention Against Torture protection and held at Camp 57 for more than six months, arguing that detention beyond the presumptive six-month period is indefinite and punitive (ACLU of Louisiana). Ahmed told Prism: "immigration detention is civil and cannot be used as a form of criminal punishment."

An ICE spokesperson told Prism: "Any claim there are subprime conditions at Camp 57 in Angola, Louisiana is false," and said facilities are bound by mandatory National Detention Standards.

Legal analysis

Upgrade check. Torture and "other inhumane acts" under Article 7 of the Rome Statute require a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, and torture requires severe pain or suffering. On the evidence available (one detainee's account of poor conditions), neither threshold is approached. No international crime is in play, and no warCrimeClassification is given.

Elements of punitive civil detention (Fifth Amendment; ICCPR Art. 10; CAT Art. 16).

1. Civil status of detainees. Confirmed. Immigration detention is civil, whatever a detainee's past convictions.
2. Punitive purpose or setting. Strongly supported by official statements. The Secretary chose a notorious prison and said its reputation was a "message" to detainees, and the unit was formerly used for disciplinary confinement.
3. Punitive conditions in fact. Alleged, single-source. The account comes from one former detainee and is denied by ICE. Historical accounts describe Camp J before 2018, not the renovated unit.
4. Arbitrary or prolonged detention. Alleged by ACLU Louisiana in pending litigation.

Strongest defence argument. The unit holds people with final removal orders and serious criminal records, who may lawfully be detained pending removal, and it was renovated and is governed by national detention standards. Location in a prison complex is not itself unlawful. The answer is that DHS's own stated purpose, deterrence through notoriety, is a punitive purpose, which civil detention may not serve. Whether conditions actually breach the standards has not been independently inspected.

Why this grade

Severe. Civil detainees, an identifiable group of up to 400 men at a time, are being held in a former disciplinary unit chosen, in the Secretary's words, for its notoriety. At least one detainee was removed despite a federal court's temporary restraining order (AP, from court records). That fits severe, documented rights violations with concrete harm to identifiable people, rather than critical: the stated punitive purpose and one removal in breach of a court order are documented, but systematic conditions or defiance are not. The evidence on conditions is thin and contested, and the entry says so; the grade should be revisited if inspections or the ACLU litigation produce findings.