LOUISIANA ORGANIZATION FOR REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS (LORI)
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COMMUNITY & POLICY BRIEFING
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A child detention facility in Central Louisiana is now reported 95 percent complete. A stricter green-card test took effect last week. A community of Salvadoran families spent September waiting on a decision that still hasn’t come. Earlier this month, our team met with members of Congress in Washington. A community forum filled a room in Pineville after the board canceled its own hearing. A national human rights report released this week names New Orleans among four cities where federal agents used excessive force. And in Gonzales, the flags of a dozen nations went up in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.
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This is the season when Louisiana decides who it is. In Alexandria, contractors are converting old military barracks into a place to hold immigrant children. In Washington, the rules governing green cards, asylum, and citizenship are being rewritten faster than most families can follow. And still, this week, we watched a sitting commissioner said, on the record, that he had no idea his own board was legally responsible for the building going up. This same week, Amnesty
International released a report documenting human rights violations by federal immigration agents in four American cities — one of them New Orleans
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One Louisiana. One Table.
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For one night each year, the families we serve, the volunteers who never miss a distribution, our partners, and our neighbors sit down at the same tables and share a meal. A mother who first came to us for groceries may be seated beside a business owner who sponsored her family’s pantry visits, and by dessert they are simply two neighbors talking about their children. This year’s theme says plainly what the evening is for: Honor. Dignity. Humanity.
That kind of evening means more this fall. Families across Louisiana are carrying heavy questions: whether a work permit will be renewed, whether a relative will come home, whether it is safe to ask for help. When hundreds of people gather in one room to share a meal with them, those families can see that Louisiana is still making room for them.
Every seat at the banquet keeps essential work going. Your ticket funds legal navigation for families facing a system that changes by the week. It stocks a food pantry that has now supported more than 10,000 people and a diaper bank that has provided more than 5,000 diapers to parents of young children. It also sustains our youth programs and the direct assistance that lets us respond the same day a family calls in crisis.
Reserve your seat now — early-bird pricing ends Sunday, September 27. Elegant evening attire is requested: formal gowns, tuxedos, and sophisticated suits are welcome, and so is elegant cultural attire.
Businesses and institutions: sponsor the evening. Five levels put your organization at the
center of Louisiana’s most diverse gathering of the year and every level funds services for families in need. If you can’t attend, a gift of any size keeps the pantry, the diaper bank, and our emergency assistance running all year.
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We Carried Louisiana to the Capitol Steps
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This week, LORI stood shoulder to shoulder with directly impacted people, organizers, and advocates from across the country for the Communities Not Cages National Day of Advocacy, organized by Detention Watch Network. Together, we met with more than 70 members of Congress and delivered one message: stop building, stop caging, and redirect the money toward the communities it was taken from.
The delegation called on Congress to stop detention expansion, shut down existing detention centers, claw back ICE funding for community needs, and sign onto the MELT ICE Act and the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, legislation that would strip ICE of its detention authority, repeal mandatory no-bond detention, and end the use of private detention facilities nationwide. Representative Pramila Jayapal and Representative Delia Ramirez welcomed the delegation and reaffirmed their support.
We carried Alexandria’s fight into that room, because it is Louisiana’s fight and it is the nation’s.
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SAVE THE DATE · October 1st
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A Louisiana Made New – Classes Resume October 1
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Last week National Citizenship Day was celebrated — a day to recognize the importance of citizenship and the opportunities it creates for individuals, families, and communities. Citizenship is a pathway to a more prosperous, more inclusive America.
Our free ESL and Citizenship classes have been on summer break, and both programs resume October 1. ESL builds everyday English skills and includes weekly Computer Literacy Days, while Citizenship classes help students prepare for the naturalization interview and process.
We’re welcoming new students to enroll alongside those returning. If you’re eligible to naturalize and haven’t started, this is a great time to begin.
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“I applied for U.S. citizenship because I needed a better future for my kids.” – Marie S.
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Poetry Reading: Celebrating Louisiana’s Immigrants and Refugees
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Some truths only land in verse. Louisiana poets, immigrant storytellers, and student poets will share the stage in a morning of readings, music, and food, co-presented with the Poetry Society of Louisiana.
Come to read, to listen, or simply to sit in a room where every voice counts.
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The Food Pantry, Second Friday of Each Month
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EVERY MONTH · BATON ROUGE & Environs
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As federal food and health assistance narrows for immigrant families, this pantry has become a lifeline. We don’t ask questions and we don’t set barriers, because we believe food is a right. If you know someone who needs groceries, send them to us.
To volunteer or give: 225-279-9610, info@mylori.org, or mylori.org/mutual-aid.
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Together for Prevention, Awareness, and Hope
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October 10, 3–6 p.m. · 8220 Goodwood Boulevard, Baton Rouge · Free
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In families facing language barriers, lack of insurance, or fear of the system, cancer is too often caught late. LORI’s Women’s Wing program opens Breast Cancer Awareness Month with an afternoon of education on prevention, early detection, and the health resources available to our community.
Free food and cancer resources will be provided, and early arrivals are entered in a raffle. Bring your mother, your sister, and your neighbor.
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No Child Detained in Louisiana
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Alexandria is on the verge of making a historic mistake by allowing ICE to build a 528-bed child and family jail in the community’s backyard. Children belong with their families and in their communities, not behind bars. The England Airpark Board must cancel the contract immediately!
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Three weeks ago, this briefing described the facility as expected to open “at the end of September.” As of this week, board correspondence puts construction at 95 percent complete. What follows is what happened in between — at the gate, in a community center, and inside the boardroom itself.
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Protesters Turned Away at the Gate
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EARLY SEPTEMBER – Denied Entry
After the board abruptly canceled its promised September 8 meeting, protesters from across Louisiana went to England Air Park anyway. They were not allowed inside. “I think they’re trying to silence us,“ said local resident Lution Revo, who noted the board had told the community to save its questions for the special meeting it then canceled. Buddy Spell drove up from St. Tammany Parish with six friends, distressed, he said, about the possibility that a facility of this kind was being built for children. Local resident Molly Phillips pointed out that Louisiana already holds more immigration detention capacity than any other state, and that the Alexandria airport deports more people than any other airport in the nation. Of the plan, Phillips said simply: “That’s evil. It’s immoral, it’s wrong.” (Source: KLFY News)
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Pineville Holds the Meeting the Board Wouldn’t
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SEPTEMBER 21 Monday – Kees Park Community Center
With the official hearing canceled, CENLA Activism alongside other statewide organizations organized its own forum at the Kees Park Community Center, drawing dozens from across the state. “We’re here to share information, speak to each other, and make connections,” organizer Erin Tracy told the room, later adding that the fight “will continue until it is stopped.” Colleen Buras traveled from Baton Rouge to say what many in the room believed: “Prisons are not a place for innocent children.” Carlos Della Valle, who spent more than eight months in immigration detention — including time in Louisiana — before his release this spring, joined by video call to describe conditions he says included inadequate water, food, and rest, and to ask how a child could be expected to endure what he, as an adult, could barely survive. One commissioner, Joshua Dara, attended and told reporters he was proud to see the people he represents engaging in democracy — and that he couldn’t wait to get back to the board meeting three days later. (Sources: Verite News) (KALB)
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Building a new ICE jail for immigrant children and families in Alexandria, Louisiana, is JUST WRONG. Plans for a 528-bed ICE facility next to the airport will make it easier to lock up and deport more families. Children and families belong together, not in an ICE jail.
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The Board Meets, and a Commissioner Says “We Had No Idea”
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SEPTEMBER 24 Thursday- England Authority Board of Commissioners, Alexandria
Thursday’s meeting was supposed to include a motion compelling Executive Director Ralph Hennessy to publicly release the airpark’s full agreement with ICE. After board members raised legal concerns, that motion was revised twice and watered down: instead of compelling release, the board authorized Hennessy to pursue “any legal action he deems necessary” to release the agreement within public-records law — with no deadline attached. During public comment, Reverend D.C. Sills read from a petition of more than 13,000 signers: “Decommissioned barracks on contaminated land are no place for God’s children.”
The most striking moment came from inside the board itself. Commissioner Patrick O’Quin said members were never told the airpark itself would be both landlord and operator of the facility — a status that carries its own legal liability. “We had no idea,” O’Quin said. Board Secretary-Treasurer Steve Mansour and the board’s legal counsel pushed back, pointing to $8 million in per-occurrence liability insurance. Eric Fritz, CEO of Anovaeon, the firm building the center, denied hiding anything from the board or the public. (Source: KALB)
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Community members, faith leaders, and families in Alexandria, Louisiana, are speaking out against plans to build a new ICE child and family jail in their backyard. Families belong together, not in detention. The England Airpark Board must cancel the contract once and for all.
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A National Report Names New Orleans
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The same day the board met in Alexandria, Amnesty International released “We Had Whistles, They Had Guns”: Human Rights Violations in U.S. Immigration Enforcement Operations and the Case to Abolish ICE, drawing on more than 150 testimonies to document abuses across four U.S. cities — Chicago, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans. Louisiana has its own chapter in this report, and it reads like home.
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Beginning December 3, 2025, DHS launched what it called Operation Catahoula Crunch, deploying roughly 250 Border Patrol agents across the New Orleans metro before extending into Kenner, Metairie, Slidell, and Baton Rouge. Agents began staging within two days of a federal court dissolving the New Orleans Police Department’s 12-year consent decree, which had barred NOPD from assisting federal immigration enforcement. By the operation’s end, more than 560 people had been arrested.
What the report documents next will sound familiar to anyone who has sat across a desk from one of our families: breadwinners deported and teenagers left raising their siblings; medical care delayed because agents were stationed near clinics; migrant-owned businesses shuttered out of fear. Requests for food, diapers, wipes, and infant formula surged as families went into hiding — the same need LORI’s own pantry and diaper bank exist to meet. Newly inaugurated Mayor Helena Moreno, the city’s first Latina mayor, described a “culture of fear among our most vulnerable residents.”
The same report names the Alexandria Staging Facility as the nation’s largest deportation hub and confirms the 528-bed family and children’s facility this issue has followed all fall.
Louisiana, according to the ACLU of Louisiana, now holds nearly 13 percent of all immigrants detained nationwide.
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“ICE is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed.” — Nadia Daar, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA
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The Flags Went Up in Gonzales
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Jambalaya Park, Gonzales · September 20
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Every year, from September 15 to October 15, the country observes Hispanic Heritage Month. In Gonzales, our community didn’t just mark it — we marched it. On September 20, a parade of flags rose over Jambalaya Park: Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Colombia, El Salvador, and a dozen more nations, carried by hand and held high against the Louisiana sky while mariachi filled the plaza. Children danced. Grandmothers wrapped in their countries’ colors sang along. For an afternoon, Jambalaya Park belonged to every place our neighbors call home.
Heritage Month is still with us through October 15, and there is more still ahead to celebrate. LORI is proud to stand behind our Hispanic and Latino neighbors all season long — because this is what belonging looks like: a parade of flags, and a plaza full of people who came out simply to be exactly who they are.
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Dominican NOLA Fest Returns
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A celebration of Dominican music, dance, and community returns to the New Orleans Jazz Museum. LORI joins the Positive Vibrations Foundation, the New Orleans Jazz Museum, and the City of New Orleans’s Mayor’s Office of Cultural Economy as a main sponsor — a reminder that our immigrant cultures are not a footnote to Louisiana life but part of its heartbeat.
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Louisiana Votes This Fall
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This isn’t a small ballot. It includes a U.S. Senate seat, open primaries for Congress, school boards that shape how immigrant and refugee children are taught, district attorneys who decide how our neighbors are prosecuted, and judges who will sit on the courts where our community’s own cases are heard.
The people elected this fall will make decisions that outlast this news cycle.
Getting informed is the first step.
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Candidate Forums and the Road to November 3
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The Power Coalition for Equity and Justice is hosting Power Forums across the state
ahead of this fall’s U.S. Senate general election and open primaries for U.S. Representative and other offices. Still ahead: Baton Rouge on Sunday, October 11 (Greater East Baton Rouge School Board); Baton Rouge again on Tuesday, October 13 (District Attorney, 19th Judicial District Court judgeships); and New Orleans on Thursday, October 15 (PSC District 1, BESE, judicial races). Every forum runs 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Register at PowerCoalition.org/PowerForums.
Whichever forum you attend, come ready to vote. Register by October 5 in person or by mail, or by October 13 online. Early voting runs October 20–27 (no voting on Sundays), 8:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m. CST, and polls are open Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 6:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. CST. Check your registration at voterportal.sos.la.gov.
If you became a citizen this year, this could be your first ballot. Use it
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What changed, what it means for your family, and where to read more. This is not legal advice – Talk to a trusted legal provider about your own case.
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The New Public Charge Test Is Here
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The rule applies to green-card applications filed on or after September 18. Benefits received before that date are still judged under the 2022 standard, and USCIS now requires a new edition of Form I-485. Twenty-two states and D.C., led by New York’s attorney general, sued September 14 to block the rule; New York City and five other localities filed a separate suit. As of September 17, no court has paused it. What families most need to know: the test looks at the applicant’s own benefit use. Before pulling a U.S.-citizen child off Medicaid or food assistance out of fear, talk to a legal provider. Guidance: ILRC (ilrc.org) and Keep Your Benefits (keepyourbenefits.org).
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Medicaid and CHIP Narrow in Two Weeks
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Protected for Now, Still Waiting for an Answer
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On September 9, DHS let El Salvador’s TPS designation reach its end date without announcing a decision. Current holders keep protection and work authorization until one is made, per USCIS. Workers can show employers the National TPS Alliance’s employer letter. The National Immigration Project has a bilingual explainer and a guide to options for anyone losing TPS; NILC explains your rights when work authorization ends.
Read more:
USCIS El Salvador TPS page
Employer letter (National TPS Alliance)
What is happening with Salvadoran TPS?
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Nine Appeals Courts Reject No-Bond Detention. Louisiana’s Is Not One of Them.
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On September 10, the Fourth Circuit became the ninth federal appeals court to reject holding long-settled immigrants without bond hearings. Only the Fifth and Eighth Circuits have sided with the government — Louisiana sits in the Fifth, which upheld mandatory detention in February. A later panel required bond hearings within 90 days, but that ruling was vacated in July when the full court agreed to rehear the question. For most people detained in Louisiana, a habeas petition in federal court is the main route to release.
DetentionHelp (detentionhelp.org), a free tool from ASAP, the National Immigration Project, and Human Rights First, walks families through filing in plain language.
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Do Not Travel on Advance Parole Without a Lawyer
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Traveling abroad on advance parole can now trigger the 3- and 10-year bars to returning. See CLINIC’s analysis and NILC’s community alert (available in Spanish and Haitian Creole) at nilc.org.
Read More : Advance Parole Travel Warning: New BIA Rule 2026
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The Four-Year Cap on International Students Is Blocked
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The Asylum Process Is Getting Harder to Navigate
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Some asylum seekers are receiving notices their tourist or business visas may be revoked, which does not end an asylum case. Rescheduling an interview or biometrics appointment now requires stricter standards. Applicants who missed the annual asylum fee should be able to pay after litigation reopened the window — see ASAP (asaptogether.org).
A new rule allows some cases to be “pretermitted,” or denied without a full hearing; the National Lawyers Guide explains what that means. If you have a pending case, watch your mail and your USCIS account, and keep every notice.
Read More : Refugee, Asylee, and Travel Ban Updates: What Practitioners Need to Know
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Dream & Promise Act. A discharge petition can force a House vote if a majority of members sign it. See whether your representative has signed it at clerk.house.gov.
Read More: Motion to Discharge a Committee from the Consideration of a Resolution
MELT ICE Act and Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act. These are the two bills our delegation asked Congress to sign onto last week in Washington DC (See LORI’s engagement above). Together, they would strip ICE of much of its detention authority, repeal mandatory no-bond detention, and phase out private detention facilities nationwide.
Read more :
– To end detention and electronic monitoring, and redirect funding to community-based wrap-around services.
– H.R.6397 – Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act
– S.3702 – Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act
S. 4814 — Haiti. This bill would require DHS to designate Haiti for TPS. Read the text and cosponsors at congress.gov , and call your senators – Tell them to: Save Haiti TPS Now via the 1804phonebank.my.canva.site.
Make ICE Pay Act. Introduced September 17, this bill would pull major funding from ICE and CBP and redirect it to communities, nonprofits, small businesses, schools, and mental health care.
Read More :
H.R.10503 – To establish a Federal grant program to reimburse certain States for the costs incurred and damage caused by widespread deployment of Federal immigration officials, and for other purposes.
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The forces reaching our families rarely stop at the border.
Ethiopia. USCIS opened a field office in Addis Ababa, operating since September 9, to handle immigration matters, support refugee processing, and expand fraud detection. For East African families here with relatives in the pipeline, it is too early to say whether this means faster cases or closer scrutiny.
South Africa. On September 15, the State Department announced visa restrictions on individuals it holds responsible for uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination, or incitement of violence — another sign of visa policy being used as a tool of foreign policy.
Refugees everywhere. The United States continues its indefinite suspension of refugee admissions and its freeze on resettlement funding, leaving families who were already vetted and approved stranded. Church World Service tracks the daily state of play.
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Whatever your status, you hold rights that do not disappear under pressure: the right to remain silent, the right to speak with a lawyer, and the right to decline to open your door without a judicial warrant signed by a judge. Make a family plan now — memorize a phone number, decide who cares for the children, keep documents somewhere safe — so that a stressful moment is not the first time you think it through.
If you hold refugee status, IRAP’s plain-language guide to your rights is a strong place to start, and LORI’s team is here to help.
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Contact Us
(225) 279-9610 | info@mylori.org
Louisiana Organization for Refugees & Immigrants
1120 Government St.
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
United States
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