CORRECTION: We inadvertently refer to ACLU Louisiana Executive Director Alanah Odoms as Alanah Combs. We apologize for the error! SYNOPSIS: Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in America. It is also home to the country's second-largest population of immigration detainees. Last week, a group of workers from the Service Employees International Union from across the U.S. took a caravan of buses to demonstrate outside two of the state's ICE detention centers. The union's membership includes more than 400,000 immigrants, and they wanted to show solidarity with people who have been swept up in the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign. In this week's episode, we travel to Basile, La., and New Orleans to hear from union members and partners in organizations including the ACLU about their efforts to stand up to ICE — particularly across the South. They stood in the sun at the height of summer heat on the asphalt outside the detention center where Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was held earlier this year, in the hopes that their voices would carry over the barbed wire fences to reach the people caged inside.

SHOW NOTES: "Immigration Quick Facts" TRAC

"GEO Group Announces Reactivation of South Louisiana ICE Processing Center"

"Inside the Black Hole: Systemic Human Rights Abuses Against Immigrants Detained and Disappeared in Louisiana"

"Rumeysa Ozturk Describes Detainment" Tufts Daily

"States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2024"

CONTACT: Jesse Mayshark [email protected] (865) 214-7764