The Trump administration is poised to expand immigration detention operations at a controversial site inside a rural Louisiana airport, the Guardian has learned.

The administration is seeking to establish a “first of its kind” short-term facility that would hold migrant families and unaccompanied children next to a runway that has become a central node for the White House’s mass deportation agenda.

The proposed center, housed inside the Alexandria international airport complex, will confine family groups and children for between three and five days inside a converted military barracks before they are deported, according to the project’s lead contractors, who presented their plan to a sparsely attended airpark commission meeting in February.

Local airport officials confirmed to the Guardian that a series of lease agreements with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its contractors are close to being signed. It is expected the site could be operational within 60 to 90 days.

According to a public presentation, the center will house only individuals who have sought to voluntarily “self-deport” – a claim questioned by a host of migrant and civil liberty groups who argue the compound will be a detention center in all but name.

Airpark officials said the facility will be operated by the non-profit arm of a private corrections company, the LaSalle family foundation, and a Texas-based childcare non-profit, Compass Connections, which has previously housed unaccompanied minors.

The proposed site is situated just across the tarmac from a short-term adult detention center run by the private prison company Geo Group, which was the subject of a recent Guardian investigation revealing an array of alleged due process violations, medical issues, abuse and crowded conditions.

Speaking at a public hearing on 26 February, the local airpark’s deputy director, David Broussard, described the new family and child facility as a “humanitarian effort” that would have a “different feel and vibe from what goes on across the ramp with Geo Group” as he encouraged a local board of commissioners to approve a five-year lease for the project. The lease also includes the use of an office block and 10 acres of additional land.

The authority would be paid more than $535,000 in annual rent with funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the Trump administration championed and which has designated more than $170bn for immigration enforcement activities. The commissioners voted the proposal through almost unanimously.

Compass Connections president Sonya Thompson described the site as the “first of its kind”. She also said it would provide “wrap-around services” in a bid to “make sure that as these individuals are spending their last couple of days in the United States, that it is something that they can take back with them.”

An environmental impact assessment found issues with asbestos and other unspecified concerns, which would be addressed, according to public comments.

Speaking to the Guardian, the airpark’s executive director Ralph Hennessy described the project as a “done deal” and said he was not concerned about any potential reputational issues.

“I have no concerns over what’s going to be happening,” Hennessy said. “I’m not losing sleep.”

Hennessy described the Guardian’s previous reporting on detention operations at the Alexandria airport as “full of crap”. He also dismissed concerns relayed in the reporting over poor medical care and a spate of emergencies including suicide attempts.

Some migrants detained in Alexandria “don’t want to go home”, Hennessy said. “They’d rather stay here in the United States being fat, dumb and happy and living off … our federal government.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the new project.

As the Trump administration’s hardline immigration agenda sees an unprecedented surge in detention numbers, with more than 68,000 people currently detained, the number of voluntary departures has also increased. In 2025, 28% of removal cases in detention ended in voluntary departure, according to analysis by CBS News. Advocates contend that extended detentions and coercive measures have pushed many migrants into agreeing to forgo legal challenges and leave voluntarily.

“We’ve heard story after story of immigrant families who have been really coerced into signing voluntary departure forms,” National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention coordinator Kristin Kumpf said. “Many have not been given options, had access to legal counsel or even seen paperwork in their own language.

“There are a variety of reasons why people sign these forms, but we have to understand there are many situations where it is not as voluntary as it might be perceived.”

Compass Connections did not respond to multiple interview requests or written questions.

A representative for the LaSalle Family Foundation did not respond to interview requests and written questions. Government non-profit filings show the foundation is run by the same father and son directors as LaSalle corrections, a family operated private corrections group, which has prisons and detention centers in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.

In October, a federal jury found the company liable for $42.75m in damages over the 2015 death of an inmate, Erie Moore Sr, who was beaten by guards at a jail in Richwood, Louisiana. It was reportedly the largest judgment against a private correctional group in US history.

The company claimed in court that Moore had been noncompliant, according to local press reports.

The Alexandria airport has become a major hub for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation and transfer flights, with family groups and unaccompanied minors sometimes held for days in nearby hotels before they are placed on jets. The Guardian has previously examined how a mother and her two US citizen children were held secretly in that manner and allegedly blocked from accessing their lawyers before being deported to Honduras.

The south-east advocacy manager for the National Immigration Project, Tania Wolf, expressed worries that the new center would perpetuate the same due process concerns.

“It’s two buildings that they’re trying to renovate, to disappear more families and children under the auspices of a voluntary program,” Wolfe said. “They are just trying to put a coat of paint over something that is really foul. This is simply detaining children and families.”