Donald Trump’s name was briefly slapped onto one of the most brutal prison camps in the U.S.—but the president appears to have chickened out and it was quickly pulled.
The disciplinary unit at Angola State Penitentiary, infamous for its history of suicides, violent abuse, and mass staff resignations, was quietly rebranded after it was initially unveiled as “Camp 47” in reference to Trump’s presidential number. A freshly painted sign even went up. Then someone, somewhere in the administration, seems to have realized what exactly they were sticking his name on—and Trump bailed.
By the time the unit officially reopened on Wednesday to detain migrants under a new ICE program, the paint had barely dried on a new name: Camp 57, a nod to Louisiana’s 57th governor, Jeff Landry.
The retreat is hard to ignore.
This isn’t some benign facility in a quiet town. The unit, once known as Camp J, was so notorious it was shuttered in 2018. It wasn’t just a rough place—it was a collapse. According to Prison Legal News, the warden warned about broken locks that popped open at random. Officers reported an explosion in weapons use. Eighty-five staff members either quit, retired, or were fired in just one year. People died—by suicide, in grim clusters.
“More akin to a dungeon,” said Mercedes Montagnes of the Promise of Justice Initiative.
Two men hanged themselves there on the same day in April 2016.
But instead of staying in the dustbin of penal history, Camp J has been revived. Not for prisoners, but for ICE detainees. The new unit is part of what DHS is calling its “Louisiana Lockup,” part of a larger network of facilities that also includes the “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, Indiana’s “Speedway Slammer,” and Nebraska’s “Cornhusker Clink.”
The repackaging is slick, sure—but it’s the same box.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem joined Landry, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and ICE’s deputy director Madison Sheahan to confirm that detainees were already inside the unit. On opening day, 51 people were in custody. The facility is expected to hold up to 416.
DHS officials say the revamped prison is for “some of the worst of the worst” criminal migrants. Noem wasn’t shy about why Angola, of all places, was chosen.
She said it was to encourage “self-deportation.”
That’s not a throwaway line. Angola—built on a former slave plantation—isn’t just a prison. It’s a symbol of America’s ugliest legacies. For years, it’s been criticized for forced labor, abuse, and punishing heat conditions. This is where you send people when you want fear to do your work for you.
Landry, for his part, leaned right into the facility’s bone-chilling reputation.
“With 18,000 acres bordered by the Mississippi River, swamps filled with alligators, and forests filled with bears, nobody really wants to leave the place,” he said during a tour.
Right. That’s the point.
Bondi called the whole thing a “historic agreement.” Maybe it is. But it’s also telling that Donald Trump—never known for turning down attention—backed away the moment his name was slapped on a place so bleak, even seasoned corrections officers wanted nothing to do with it.
The White House and DHS haven’t commented. No explanation for the sudden name change. No word on why “Camp 47” was quietly scrubbed from the record.
