Washington — US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has faced scrutiny for relocating immigrant students and scholars arrested in connection with pro-Palestine protests to detention facilities located far from their communities, with some being moved thousands of miles to remote areas in the southern United States.
Reports reveal that Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University, was detained by ICE agents at his New York residence on March 8. The following evening, Khalil was transferred to a detention center in rural Louisiana, more than three hours away from the nearest major city.
Similarly, Georgetown University professor Badar Khan Suri, initially detained near Washington, DC, was first moved to Louisiana before being transported to a detention facility in Texas. Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested in Boston and then sent to a private detention facility in southern Louisiana within 24 hours of her arrest.
These transfers underscore ICE’s broad authority in determining where detained individuals are held, often placing them far from legal support, family, and community networks. Immigration lawyers have criticized this practice, arguing that it disproportionately impacts individuals by making it more difficult for them to access legal representation and maintain connections with their families.
Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi house the majority of the country’s largest immigration detention centers, with at least 14 of the top 20 facilities located in these states. Civil rights groups have long criticized these centers, calling them “black holes” due to their notoriously poor conditions, as reported by NPR.
In response, ICE has defended its transfer decisions, citing logistical reasons and a lack of available detention space near the locations where the arrests took place. The agency maintains that its detention practices are intended to ensure individuals’ presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the United States and are not punitive in nature.
Government attorneys explained in court filings that the transfers of Khalil, Khan Suri, and Ozturk were due to overcrowding at detention facilities closer to their places of arrest.
The majority of immigration detention facilities are located along the southern US border, with Louisiana ranking second in the nation for the number of detainees held.
Adriel D. Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, noted that while transfers within the immigration system are common, the scale and distance of these moves — particularly sending individuals from the Northeast to the South — marks a shift under the current administration. Orozco likened this to a “change under Trump 2.0,” referencing the former president’s stance on immigration enforcement.
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