Top Democrat urges end to secrecy over proposed ICE child detention center

The ranking member on the US Senate’s influential finance committee has demanded transparency over a proposed “first-of-its-kind” ICE family and child detention center in Alexandria, Louisiana, citing reporting by The Guardian that first revealed the Trump administration’s plans in March.Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, has written to the project’s contractors and to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expressing concerns over conflicts of interest, environmental contamination and “the absence of a public process” in the center’s planning.“A federal facility designed to hold children and families in federal custody cannot be stood up in secrecy,” the letter states.The move comes as documents obtained by The Guardian, including layout designs, draft contracts and email communications, provide further details of the proposed facility’s operations, as the Department of Homeland Security continues to refuse to comment on the project.A spokesperson for England Airpark, the local authority responsible for leasing the land, confirmed that no contract had yet been signed.According to the documents, released under a public records request, the planned facility, partly based in an old military barracks, will have space for 528 beds and is expected to hold families and unaccompanied minors for around 72 hours before they are deported from a regional airport at the same site.Ron Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate intelligence committee, in January. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesThe Alexandria airport is a central node in the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda and already houses a separate detention center for men, which is run by the private corrections company Geo Group. An investigation by The Guardian in 2025 revealed an array of due process violations, medical issues, abuse and crowded conditions.The planned family facility is set to be run by a Texas-based child welfare non-profit named Compass Connections alongside the charitable arm of a private prison group, LaSalle Corrections. Wyden has written directly to Compass Connections expressing concerns that the non-profit’s existing work with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is mandated to promote the health and wellbeing of refugees and unaccompanied immigrant children and not to conduct immigration enforcement activities, is evidence of a conflict of interest. The ORR is an agency within the HHS.The letter states that Compass Connections “has long been one of the nation’s largest providers of care to children in the Unaccompanied Children Program” receiving more than $1.6bn in federal funding for such services in the last three years.“Compass Connections’s simultaneous role at the Alexandria facility raises questions about how the organization is reconciling its anti-trafficking and child-welfare missions with operational involvement in a federal deportation pipeline,” it adds, requesting answers to 14 detailed questions related to the non-profit’s proposed work in Alexandria, its governance structure and operations at other sites.Compass Connections did not respond to multiple requests for comment.The non-profit’s president, Sonya Thompson, told a public meeting in February that the Alexandria site would provide “wrap-around services” to immigrants before they are deported and would house only those who have chosen to voluntarily “self-deport”. Officials described the project as a “humanitarian effort”, distancing themselves from images of a detention center.The claims were dismissed by immigrant rights groups, and newly released records highlight that the proposed center, named in some documents as the “Alexandria Family Repatriation Center”, is referred to as delivering “detention services” in numerous emails and contract documents.In a statement to The Guardian, Wyden said: “At every opportunity, Trump and his allies have abandoned their legal obligations to protect children from abuse, neglect, and human trafficking, and I have grave concerns that this facility will accelerate those efforts.“A detention regime that punishes unaccompanied children for being in the United States and terrorizes their families from coming forward to sponsor them is not a humanitarian effort.”The documents also highlight that the site has been under consideration for potential use since at least May 2025, when an environmental assessment was prepared for Compass Connections.Writing to the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the arm within the federal government overseeing ORR, Wyden expressed further concerns about the proposed site. “I do not believe that the design, implementation, and operation of this Alexandria facility will properly serve the best interests of children in ORR’s care,” the letter states.It cites further reporting by The Guardian, which revealed that the planned facility, on a former military base, is situated in one of the most Pfas-contaminated locations in the US, which raises “serious questions about the environmental and health suitability of such a site for children. ACF has the authority and the responsibility to refuse to place children in conditions that contravene the agency’s own child-welfare standards.”Wyden added in a statement that the agency is “required by law to look after unaccompanied minors and ensure they are protected by anti-trafficking laws and provide for their basic welfare. That requirement is being cast aside by Trump and Republicans’ crusade to demonize and rid the country of immigrants.”A spokesperson for ACF said the agency “carefully reviews all congressional requests and responds directly to the requestor, as appropriate”.Documents released under public records show a number of architectural layout plans, which show the facility is planned to include a sprawl of temporary modular housing structures next to the converted barracks. The proposed site would be enclosed behind a large fence.