22-05-2025
Immigrant Detainees Are Being Held in Jena, La. We Went to the Town.
Emily Kask for The New York Times
Jena is a rural and remote town of roughly 4,000 in central Louisiana. It is home to one of the largest ICE detention centers in the South, the centerpiece of a collection of small-town facilities known as 'detention alley.'
Emily Kask for The New York Times
The Trump administration's immigration crackdown has brought new attention to Jena, driven by the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student who had been in the United States legally.
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
The detention facility, the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, is one of the biggest taxpayers in LaSalle Parish. It also offers decently paying jobs, residents said.
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
The center sits on Jena's outskirts, shrouded by trees. The Rev. Chauncey M. Hardy, who leads a church in Jena, said he sometimes saw a bus with blacked-out windows carrying in detainees. 'And that's it.'
Emily Kask for The New York Times
The Khalil case prompted Tiffany Deville, a motel housekeeper, to reconsider her views on immigration. 'He was doing good, going to school, he had a wife,' she said. 'Just be humane about it.'
Emily Kask for The New York Times
Residents are wary of attention. Jena made national news nearly two decades ago, when a case involving the prosecution of six Black teenagers caused a national uproar.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
