Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber confirmed Sept. 12 his office has been in negotiations with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to turn a sheriff-owned building, the LPSO Annex, into a 72-hour holding facility for immigrant detainees. “When ICE said: ‘Hey, would you be interested in doing that?,’ we jumped at the chance,” Garber says. Louisiana is already one of the states with the largest population of immigrant detainees, second only to Texas, and has become a hub of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. An increasing number of Louisiana state and local agencies have also entered formal partnerships with ICE. Several local law enforcement agencies are also partners under that program.