Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center — Operating at Double Capacity
Overview
GEO Group-operated facility in Pine Prairie, Evangeline Parish — a town of 1,490 people where the ICE Processing Center holds over 600 detainees (nearly half the town’s population). The facility has been operating at 1,010 detainees — more than double its contractual capacity.
Overcrowding Crisis
As of November 2025, conditions have severely deteriorated:
- Packed intake areas with one shower, one toilet, one sink for large numbers of incoming detainees
- Detainees sleeping on bare mattresses on the floor of holding cells
- No access to law library or mail
- Severely lacking medical care
Attorney Alexandra Smolyar documented the conditions in an August 2025 email: “Overcrowding is growing more dire by the day; medical care is severely lacking; there’s no access to a law library or mail.”
Why It Matters
Pine Prairie is the quintessential example of rural Louisiana communities being transformed by detention infrastructure. The detainees outnumber the residents at a 1:2.5 ratio. The facility has a “long history of complaints alleging human rights abuses and civil rights violations” that predates the current overcrowding crisis.