NEW ORLEANS — The Trump administration plans to open a 528-bed detention center for migrant families and unaccompanied children next to an airport center, positioning itself to speed up deportations.

The location in Alexandria, Louisiana, would eliminate the logistical headaches caused by disputes between children from foster homes and shelters across the country and having nowhere to put them during final preparations for the flight. Those obstacles were evident last year when Guatemalan children were woken up in the night and barely had time to get to Harlingen, Texas, where they waited on the airport tarmac for hours.

A federal judge blocked their deportation, but the chaotic episode illustrated the challenges authorities face because they have no place to house families and children near the airport. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is calling the Alexandria facility a “staging area,” not a detention center, and says people would only be there for a few days at most.

However, several immigration advocates expressed concern that children could be held in the new facilities for weeks or months, which has happened at other federal immigration detention sites. These advocates are also concerned about oversight and say the center represents a departure from the way the government handles such children.

“It’s an expansion of the deportation system in ways we haven’t seen before,” said Leecia Welch, senior legal counsel at the nonprofit Children’s Rights. “There are a lot of things that could go wrong in this facility.”

Unaccompanied children who are in the US without parents or close relatives are not taken to ICE-supervised facilities. Instead, the law says they must be quickly placed in the care of state-licensed shelters and foster care programs.

They are run by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. However, that agency is not involved in the operation of the Alexandria facility, according to a spokesperson for the airfield where it is being built.

Instead, the facility would be managed by a nonprofit arm of LaSalle Corrections, a private prison contractor, according to Ralph Hennessy, executive director of the England Airpark Authority. He said it could be operational as early as August.

ICE officials signed a contract late last month to build the facility at the former military base near Alexandria International Airport, about 175 miles (280 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans, Hennessy said.

It would function as a 72-hour detention center for immigrants awaiting deportation, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

Compass Connections, a Texas-based nonprofit that runs shelters for unaccompanied immigrant children, had originally been chosen to help operate the facility and presented plans during a public presentation in February.

But company president Sonya Thompson told the AP last week that she was no longer involved. She did not give further details.

In public board meetings, airpark officials said the facility is a “humanitarian effort” for families who are “self-deporting.” Immigration advocates say families and unaccompanied children sometimes make that decision under pressure or because they don’t understand their options.

“These are people who volunteer to come home and they come home as a family unit,” Hennessy told the AP.

The facility would be next to the largest deportation center in the country. More than 4,400 immigration screening flights entered and left Alexandria International Airport in 2025, according to data from ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First. ICE planning documents say families and children in the facilities “are in the legal custody of ICE and can only be released at the direction of ICE.”

The agency has instructed contractors that families at the facilities cannot be referred to as prisoners, detainees or inmates, records show. The agency ordered contractors not to use bars or cages when transporting families and unaccompanied children. The facility will not be required to conduct recounts and should allow families to “wear their own clothing,” the agency added.

LaSalle Corrections, based in Louisiana, operates a variety of private prisons and federal immigration detention centers throughout the South, including the “Louisiana Lockup” within the maximum security state prison in Angola.

The official contractor for the new ICE facility will be the company’s nonprofit arm, the LaSalle Family Foundation. According to its tax records, the nonprofit provides chaplain services and educational programming in correctional facilities.

However, LaSalle Corrections will participate in the operation of the holding center and ensure compliance, the company’s chief financial officer, Tim Kurpiewski, wrote in an email reviewed by the AP.

LaSalle spokesman Scott Sutterfield declined to comment.

Since April, two detainees have been reported dead at a LaSalle-run ICE facility in the state.

Winn Correctional Facility was also found in June to have violated regulations governing environmental health and safety, food service, use of force, medical care and other issues, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.