A notorious Louisiana prison was chosen for immigrant detainees to urge self

ANGOLA, La. (AP) — Federal authorities purposefully chose a notorious Louisiana prison to hold immigration detainees as a way to encourage people living illegally in the U.S. to self-deport, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday.

A complex inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary, an immense rural prison better known as Angola, will be used for some of the “worst of the worst” ICE detainees, Noem told reporters, standing behind a lectern with a sign that read, “Louisiana Lockup.”

Many of Angola’s 6,300 inmates still work fields in long rows, picking vegetables by hand, watched by armed guards on horseback.

The notoriety of the 18,000-acre (7,300-hectare) prison stretches back well over a century. Described in the 1960s and 1970s as “the bloodiest prison in