This story is a collaboration between The Lens and Bolts, a nonprofit publication that covers prison justice and voting rights in native governments. 

OBERLIN, LOUISIANA — The final time Orolua Eluonyechie noticed his son, the boy was six. He preferred monster vehicles and Spiderman. Eluonyechie liked to dote on him. 

“That was his boss. The little six-year-old, bossing the massive 45-year-old man round,” remembers his spouse, Shadia. “He’s a hell of a father.”

However Eluonyechie’s son is eight now. He’s upset as a result of Eluonyechie retains lacking his birthday. The boy doesn’t perceive why his dad received’t simply come residence. 

Eluonyechie, a Nigerian native, has been held in immigration detention for over two years. He’s now in Allen Parish in southwest Louisiana, the place he was transferred after first being taken into ICE custody in Atlanta in April 2024. Whereas detained, he has been injured by guards and repeatedly thrown in solitary. 

Determined, final summer season, he hit the authorized equal of the emergency button: Whereas his case languished in immigration court docket, he filed a habeas petition in federal court docket, interesting to a better authority. 

When somebody information a habeas petition—also called a writ of habeas corpus—they’re arguing that the federal government is detaining them unlawfully. If a decide agrees, they could order the federal government to instantly launch the particular person.

In his petition, Eluonyechie requested a decide to intervene and power DHS to both launch or deport him. Then he waited for one thing to alter.

He’s nonetheless ready. 

Up till final yr, a habeas petition was a hardly ever used final resort for immigrants detained for greater than six months after an order of removing, which is taken into account ”extended detention.”  

However starting final yr, a sequence of compounding coverage modifications to perform Trump’s mass deportation scheme—together with necessary detention and third-country deportations—have left hundreds of individuals like Eluonyechie in Louisiana trapped in what attorneys warn are seemingly infinite detentions with little hope for freedom. Consequently, immigrants who’ve discovered themselves detained for months or years at the moment are submitting habeas petitions, swamping the dockets of federal judges in detention-heavy states like Louisiana—and making it practically unimaginable for judges to behave rapidly on these emergency pleas for launch.

“Habeas is now not a last-resort treatment: It’s the solely treatment for the overwhelming majority of immigrants,” stated Mary Yanik, director of the Tulane Immigrant Regulation Clinic. Within the 5 years spanning 2020 by way of 2024, immigrants detained in Louisiana filed 291 new circumstances. In simply the primary 5 months of 2026, Louisiana’s federal courts have been flooded with over 1,200 such petitions. 

The disaster is simply accelerating: Extra detained immigrants filed habeas petitions in Louisiana within the final two weeks of April 2026 than throughout the complete four-year interval from 2021 to 2024. As of June 1, Louisiana has over 1,000 open habeas circumstances filed by immigrants arguing they’re being unlawfully detained. Just about all have been filed after the coverage modifications ICE and DHS made final yr. 

The ensuing bottleneck within the courts has successfully closed the final path to freedom for a lot of in Louisiana ICE detention—even these unlawfully detained. 

Eluonyechie’s habeas petition sat for 9 months earlier than his lawyer lastly withdrew it. He stays detained within the Allen Parish Jail Complicated, which is overseen by Sheriff Doug Hebert III. Underneath Hebert, the jail receives tons of of hundreds of {dollars} from the federal authorities in trade for holding immigrant detainees. It’s the one one in every of Louisiana’s ten ICE detention facilities that’s run by native authorities, slightly than a personal firm. 

Eluonyechie at present has no prison convictions nor costs pending. “He’s not a prison,” stated Andy Mosher, who represented Eluonyechie within the habeas case. However he’s being handled like one. “It’s imprisonment,” Mosher stated. “It’s a black gap. No one is listening to him.” 

Eluonyechie filed a brand new habeas petition in April. It’s nonetheless pending.

‘Sitting in these cages endlessly’

A habeas petition is what led to the discharge of Mahmoud Khalil and different high-profile folks in ICE detention. However Khalil’s attorneys managed to file his habeas petition shortly earlier than he was whisked right down to Louisiana, and thus his case was heard in New Jersey’s circuit court docket—one that’s a lot friendlier to civil rights petitioners.

The vast majority of the petitions in Louisiana, about 90 %, are being filed within the Western District court docket, the place all however one of many state’s ICE detention facilities are sited.

The astounding variety of habeas petitions “undoubtedly is overwhelming this court docket,” stated Yanik.

Louisiana has the second-highest variety of immigrant detainees within the nation, after Texas. However Louisiana is a much smaller state, with far fewer federal judges, all of them nonetheless juggling a traditional docket of circumstances together with the flood of habeas petitions. And since habeas statutes give the petitions pressing standing, they’re imagined to be given precedence and moved to the entrance of the road, impacting judges’ skills to deal with different issues on their dockets.

However till overburdened judges can think about every petition, detainees should wait. 

“Individuals are simply sitting in these cages endlessly,” stated Bridget Pranzatelli, a workers legal professional with the Nationwide Immigration Undertaking. Since Trump’s second inauguration, she says, it’s turn into “very, quite common” for folks like Eluonyechie to be “languishing in immigration detention, on American soil, in civil confinement, for simply actually, extraordinarily, extraordinarily, unfathomably extended intervals of time.”

On the identical time, there at the moment are “swaths of individuals” throughout the facilities who shouldn’t be detained in any respect, she stated. “The variety of people who find themselves detained outdoors the scope of the regulation has elevated dramatically.”

This can be a massive a part of why habeas petitions have spiked. “Everybody is popping to the federal district court docket to hunt this reduction,” Pranzatelli stated.

Information recommend that lengths of detention have additionally jumped astronomically. In March 2024, there have been 412 detained immigrants who had been in custody for greater than a yr. By March 2026, the final time ICE supplied detention statistics, that quantity had greater than quintupled to 2,220 folks.

An ideal storm

The specter of indefinite detention first started to loom final summer season, when DHS modified two longstanding nationwide immigration protocols, kicking off what Pranzatelli referred to as “an ideal storm” in Louisiana.

First, in February 2025, ICE started telling its officers to re-detain and maintain onto individuals who’d been granted withholding, that means they’d been ordered deported however who couldn’t be despatched to their nation of origin attributable to concern of persecution or torture—for instance, a homosexual particular person from Uganda. Sometimes, immigration judges would order such folks launched by way of an order of supervision, which stipulates circumstances together with common check-ins with ICE. Then in June, the Supreme Court docket made a ruling that allowed ICE to ship such folks to a “third nation.” 

A month later, DHS instituted a coverage of necessary detention, declaring that any immigrant who’d entered the U.S. “illegally” was ineligible for bond—even individuals who’ve been residing within the nation for many years.

Across the identical time, as immigrants who had been free for years went to routine ICE check-ins, ICE started arresting them, bringing them in “illegally, for probably the most half,” stated Nora Ahmed, authorized director of ACLU Louisiana. And as soon as detained, they couldn’t bond out.

Most courts have rejected the DHS necessary detention coverage. A current Politico evaluation of practically 12,000 circumstances discovered that federal judges dominated in opposition to Trump’s immigration insurance policies in 90 % of circumstances, together with many of the 62 Louisiana circumstances which have concluded as of mid-June. Three federal appeals courts even have dominated in opposition to it. However the conservative Fifth Circuit Court docket of Appeals—which incorporates Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi—upheld the brand new coverage, changing into one in every of solely two federal circuit courts to take action. One other problem to the coverage’s constitutionality is now unfolding within the Fifth Circuit.

Eluonyechie’s case is considerably sophisticated, and he’d already been detained for a few yr when DHS started making its coverage modifications final summer season. Since he was first detained, he has married Shadia, a U.S. citizen, however he stays in ICE custody. His case is now sitting in entrance of the Board of Immigration Appeals, which the Trump administration has shrunk and stacked with appointees who favor his mass deportation targets. The board’s choices enabled the brand new insurance policies. 

Sitting throughout the Fifth Circuit with no entry to bond, Eluonyechie, like many others, sees no foreseeable finish to his detention. His case, Pranzatelli stated, is “consultant of a phenomenon we’re seeing, of people who find themselves simply caught in purgatory,” typically for years.

However the U.S. Supreme Court docket dominated in 2001 that an individual can’t be detained indefinitely just because no nation will agree to simply accept them. Even folks with deportation orders should be launched finally if DHS can’t discover a nation to take them. That ruling didn’t specify a tough deadline, however typically, courts have sided with habeas petitioners in the event that they haven’t been launched six months after a remaining order of removing.

That doubtless explains why it was round December 2025—about six months after the coverage modifications—when habeas petitions in Louisiana started to spike. 

 “We’re lastly on the extended detention interval for lots of these of us,” affirmed Ahmed, and “now you’ve sure judges which might be outraged” within the face of “a concerted effort to only utterly violate the regulation” by DHS. 

Allen Parish, “the place folks go to vanish”

Eluonyechie is sticking it out, persevering with to combat his deportation as a result of he needs to see his son once more. 

However he understands why different detainees hand over combating their case and ask as an alternative for fast deportation when confronted with the circumstances within the Allen Parish Public Security Complicated. It’s “been hell,” he stated. 

The detention heart, which has the longest common keep within the state, is “the place folks go to vanish,” immigration advocate Tania Wolf stated.

Run by Sheriff Hebert, the detention advanced started taking ICE detainees in 2016. On the 2018 groundbreaking so as to add a devoted ICE facility, Hebert, who has been sheriff there for 14 years, informed the viewers that, due to ICE, “I’ve an actual chance of infusing a million-plus {dollars} into my finances.” 

A replica of the settlement between ICE and Allen Parish, obtained by way of a public information request, reveals that the ability is charging $347,000 to function from August 2025 to July 2026, plus $21.95 per detainee per day (elevated to $29.75 when there are over 170 detainees). On prime of this are extra charges for transporting and feeding detainees. 

Meaning Allen Parish earnings when ICE retains the middle full. 

Since no less than 2021, the detention heart has confronted critical allegations of mistreatment and racist abuse of detainees, and requires it to shut. A December 2024 ICE inspection discovered 28 deficiencies at Allen Parish, together with trash and scum within the showers, failures to reply to formal grievances, and an absence of recreation. “The power has trended downward,” famous the report.

Neither the Allen Parish sheriff’s workplace or ICE responded to a number of requests for remark for this text.

But this yr’s inspection report by ICE, printed in March, discovered zero deficiencies. Inspectors stated that in interviews with 50 detainees, all reported satisfaction with the services, and none reported mistreatment or discrimination.

Eluonyechie was current when that inspection passed off, and says he was among the many interviewees. He was incredulous to listen to the printed outcomes. 

“It’s false,” he stated. “Every little thing they wrote on 2024, it’s nonetheless like that in 2026,” he careworn. He added that he straight informed an inspector in the course of the interview that the workers discriminate in opposition to Hispanic detainees: “They deal with the Hispanics totally different, actual horrible,” he stated. “In the event that they ask for water, they don’t give them water.”

In February, Eluonyechie was allegedly assaulted by 4 officers in an incident stemming from a dispute with an assistant warden over a blanket. Eluonyechie says the officers tackled him from behind, compelled his head to the bottom, and restrained him, breaking his left finger. When he requested for medical care, and to file a grievance, each requests have been denied. He was then positioned in solitary for per week, per Eluonyechie and a criticism Shadia emailed to the sheriff’s workplace in April. She by no means acquired a reply. Over a current video name from the detention heart, Eluonyechie held up his finger. It was clearly nonetheless crooked. 

“The place we got here from, there’s a cause why we left there. We don’t have a authorities, we don’t have accountability, we don’t have equity, we don’t have justice. You’ll be able to solely purchase these issues if you happen to’re rich,” stated Eluonyechie. “Identical to Louisiana.”

The Lens and Bolts spoke to a number of present and former Allen Parish immigrant detainees. Their accounts likewise painted an image of brutal circumstances.

They don’t belief the faucet water and rely as an alternative on a big orange cooler, which detainees must beg officers to refill, typically ready for hours, stated Rikesh Thapa of Nepal. “Once we run out of water, we bang on the home windows, however we’re not allowed to bang on the home windows as a result of they are saying that’s a violation.” 

Detainees are fed rice and beans, no fruits, no greens, they stated. Typically, when it rains, the roof leaks onto beds. They’ve been given secondhand, stained underwear to put on. Typically the air-con or warmth stops working, making folks sick. On no less than one event, scabies ripped by way of the camp, inflicting rashes so dangerous folks couldn’t sleep or sit, however “the medical care right here is zero,” Eluonyechie stated. They scratched their pores and skin till it tore, and stood within the scorching bathe, scalding their pores and skin to alleviate the itch. Nonetheless, they have been refused visits to medical workers. Detainees “have been truly combating to get deported due to this,” he recalled.

“You truly see folks’s well being deteriorating right here,” Thapa stated. ICE has not paid a 3rd social gathering for detainee medical care since October, in response to current reporting.

Thapa and others organized a protest for higher circumstances, by staying out within the recreation yard the place they may breathe simpler. Guards threatened them with smoke grenades; greater than a dozen folks have been put in solitary for days.

They’re “at all times in search of a cause to place us in solitary,” Eluonyechie informed The Lens and Bolts one afternoon. The following day, Mosher, his lawyer, referred to as to report that Eluonyechie had been put in solitary, reportedly for asking a query.

The poor circumstances are deliberate, detainees say. It breaks folks’s spirit, stated Ahmed of the ACLU. “Folks can tolerate immigration detention for about three months,” she stated, “as a result of folks simply can’t even comprehend what is occurring to them.” After that, they turn into determined, she stated. Some cease combating their circumstances.

However even that doesn’t imply freedom.

Christian Ogunghide, who got here to the U.S. nearly 20 years in the past and misses his three daughters, stated he’s “drained, as a result of I didn’t count on to be right here for thus lengthy.” He gave up combating his deportation and requested as an alternative to expedite it so he may attend his dad’s funeral in Nigeria final December. Months later, he was nonetheless detained.

Many others are additionally now not combating their circumstances however are nonetheless being saved indefinitely, immigration legal professional Jeremy Jong stated. At that time, a federal decide’s intervention turns into their solely hope. “What’s ICE’s plan right here?” Jong wonders. “Except a court docket will get concerned, ICE will maintain any individual 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. They’ll maintain them actually ceaselessly.”

Even for individuals who don’t hand over, fixed delays by ICE make circumstances drag on. ICE has failed to move Eluonyechie for court docket 4 or 5 instances, which suggests hearings must be rescheduled, Mosher stated.

“There’s no bail, no bonds, you simply keep right here,” stated Thapa, whether or not or not you’re finally discovered deportable. “It’s psychological torment. I spent 14 months in jail, and the jail time was pretty in comparison with detention time.”

‘He won’t ever be launched by ICE’

The extended detention is probably most troubling for these at “Camp 57,” one of many state’s highest-profile immigration detention facilities, opened on the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola by Governor Jeff Landry and then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Landry supplied ICE Angola’s infamous Camp J—the solitary unit that was shuttered in 2018 after repeated findings of inhumane circumstances—for immigration detention. The habeas petitions filed from Camp 57 paint an image of individuals afraid they’ve been locked up illegally and completely.

One man feared ICE would proceed making an attempt to deport him “utilizing illegal processes, and detain him endlessly,” in response to his petition. “Underneath the circumstances the Petitioner’s detention has turn into indefinite, extended and extreme and he won’t ever be launched by ICE.” 

Even when detainees efficiently win their freedom, ICE could then merely re-arrest them, warned ACLU’s Ahmed. That’s precisely what occurred to Akram Omar, the 77-year-old Louisiana grandfather who had a coronary heart assault whereas in Camp 57, and was lastly launched in Could by a federal decide after seven months in ICE detention—solely to be picked up by ICE brokers 10 days later, who tried to whisk him onto a flight the following morning. A federal decide made ICE re-release him pending a movement listening to later this month.

Immigration legal professional Joseph Giardina, who represents folks detained in Louisiana, says that primarily based on his expertise, he estimates ICE will solely realistically be capable of deport lower than ten % of such circumstances to a 3rd nation. Third-country removing earlier than Trump was exceedingly uncommon: From fiscal years 2020 to 2023, ICE eliminated simply 5 individuals who’d been granted withholding to different nations. 

“That’s why we’re having to file the habeases. They may maintain them indefinitely. I’ve solely seen a handful of individuals launched on their very own accord,” Giardina stated. In different states, habeas circumstances take a matter of weeks, whereas in Louisiana, it may well take a number of months. “They’ll’t probably sustain with all that,” he stated.

The lengthy response instances to habeas petitions imply some folks by no means see reduction.

Typically, ICE deports folks earlier than a decide guidelines on their petition. A Georgian man whom Giardina represents was despatched to Moldova when his habeas case began gaining traction, he stated.

Pejman Karshenas Najafabadi, an Iranian who’d been within the U.S. since 1991, was detained by ICE final April. In October, he was transferred to Angola, and the following month, he filed a habeas petition, alleging that ICE was holding him illegally. In March, after ten months in ICE custody, he collapsed and died. His case was closed.

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