A Guardian investigation into the Alexandria, Louisiana, facility reveals a pattern of alleged due process violations, previously unreported accounts of neglect and abuse, documented health emergencies and long stays
He arrived in Alexandria exhausted and sick.
It was early April, and Amilcar Lisser-Posadas – shackled at his hands and feet – had been transferred from a nearby immigration detention center to this remote US immigration facility in Louisiana. He feared it would be his last stop before deportation.
He remembered the stench of the place. The packed jail rooms where hundreds of men were warehoused together with little access to showers, which sometimes spouted brown, rusty water – when they worked.
The 29-year-old, a father of two young daughters who are US citizens, had come to the US from Honduras and had previously been protected under the Obama-era program known as Daca (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), which halted deportation for many undocumented people who arrived in the US as children. He had entered as a nine-year-old but his Daca protection had lapsed.
