Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem transform ‘America’s bloodiest prison’ into newest and harshest ICE detention facility

The ‘worst of the worst’ migrant criminals will now be housed in the largest maximum-security prison in the U.S. as they await deportation.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi are heading to St. Francisville, Louisiana on Wednesday to tour and unveil the new holding location for illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Once dubbed the ‘bloodiest prison in the South,’ Angola prison is already holding 51 migrants, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The state penitentiary nicknamed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the ‘Louisiana Lockup’ will likely replace Florida’s illegal immigration camp known as Alligator Alcatraz.

A judge last week struck down use of the camp in Florida as migrants await deportation. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that it’s still operating and deporting illegal immigrants.

He said DHS has stopped sending new detainees to the facility, but that Alligator Alcatraz is still ‘ready, willing and able’ to accept more.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary is the largest maximum-security prison in the U.S.

It sits on 18,000 acres about an hour outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana in an area that used to serve as slave plantation land.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary will now house the ‘worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens’ as they await deportation from the U.S.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem (pictured) will visit the largest U.S. prison on Wednesday with Attorney General Pam Bondi to announce opening of the migrant detention facility

Noem and Bondi are joining Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Deputy Director of ICE Madison Sheahan to tour the prison on Wednesday afternoon. They will also hold a press conference on the opening of the new migrant detention facility.

Officials say that Angola ‘will house the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens arrested by ICE.’

Last week, Obama-appointed Miami U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams denied a DHS request to stay her order requiring the facility to be taken down within the next two months.

Alligator Alcatraz can hold up to 5,000 detainees.

It was advertised by Donald Trump as his administration’s keynote migrant detention facility as DHS conducts the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

The president visited the new facility in July alongside Noem and Gov. DeSantis.

Now, just two months after opening, the detention facility deep in Florida’s Everglades is a complete rebuke of Trump’s immigration policy.

DeSantis said last Wednesday that DHS has ‘increased the pace of the removals’ from the facility.

Opening of the new facility comes the week after a judge ordered closure of Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz migrant holding facility. Pictured: Noem, President Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis tour Alligator Alcatraz on July 1, 2025

DHS and the White House have insisted that they are complying with an ‘activist judge’s orders,’ but that the administration will continue to fight against the ruling.

‘We are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens,’ DHS spokesman Nathaniel Madden said.

He added: ‘DHS is complying with this order and moving detainees to other facilities. We will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to remove the worst of the worst from American streets.’

But opening of the new ‘Louisiana Lockdown’ suggests that the Trump administration is prepared to have to accept that their Florida facility will not be allowed to remain open.