USA: CLOSE CHILD DETENTION CENTER

Dear Director Hennessy,

I am deeply concerned about your agreement with the LaSalle Family Foundation to allow an ICE detention facility to operate on land at the England Airpark for an ICE detention facility. Distressingly, I learned that this facility is being used to jail migrant children and families. Detaining children and families for immigration purposes is a human rights violation.

It is alarming to learn that the groundwater beneath England Airpark has a per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) concentration 575,000 times higher than the federal drinking water limit, making this site one of the most contaminated in the entirety of the United States of America. In children, PFAS exposure is linked to reduced cognitive, motor, and language development, increased behavioral issues in childhood, as well as an increased risk for inflammatory bowel disease.

Further to my anguish is knowing that LaSalle Corrections, the parent company of the LaSalle Family Foundation, has a long history of abuse at their facilities throughout Louisiana. In October 2025, a jury awarded $42.75 million to the family of a man killed at a LaSalle correctional facility when guards slammed his head into a concrete floor. In January of 2024, in another facility run by LaSalle, officers indiscriminately pepper-sprayed an entire dorm of 200 people and cut off power and water to the entire unit as retaliation for a hunger strike. These are just two in a litany of violence that happen at these facilities.

I urge you to put a stop to the collaboration of England Airpark with ICE, cancel the contract with LaSalle Family Foundation, and close the detention facility operating in the airpark.

Yours sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]