TIL - The Largest Deportation Airport in the USA is in Alexandria

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ALEXANDRIA, LA – Sam Zeidan pulled onto the grassy shoulder at the airport, hoping to see his brother among the shackled men boarding a deportation flight.

A jet roared on the sweaty tarmac. The site, known as the Alexandria Staging Facility in rural Louisiana, is the nation's only ICE jail-combo-airport and is the top hub for the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flights climbed to a five-year high in June, and Alexandria ranked first among the nation's five busiest deportation hubs, according analyst Tom Cartwright, who tracks ICE flights for the nonprofit Witness at the Border.

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The record pace has continued in July, with the Trump administration leaning heavily on the Louisiana ICE detention centers that feed Alexandria.

The Alexandria Staging Facility sits on the tarmac of a small regional airport between a golf course and gated neighborhood.

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Louisiana's nine dedicated ICE facilities have been holding more than 7,000 detainees each day, on average, in recent months. The state dramatically expanded ICE detention during the first Trump administration, growing its network from four detention centers and about 2,000 detainees.

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It has 400 detention beds, receives buses from the ICE jails in rural communities around the state and is run by one of the nation's largest private prison contractors, GEO Group Inc.

"Historically, it’s a facility that people will go to in the couple of days before their removal flight, because it’s attached to the airport and ICE Air," said Deb Fleischaker, a former ICE official who served under the Biden and first Trump administrations. "It’s designed as a short-term detention facility."

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