(Jan 15): Federal immigration officers targeted a construction site in rural Louisiana where Meta Platforms Inc is building its largest data centre, leading to the arrest of two individuals, according to local law enforcement.
US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement arrested two individuals who were driving dump trucks headed to Meta’s construction site in Richland Parish, Louisiana, the local sherrif’s office said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
A witness, who asked to remain anonymous speaking about the enforcement activities, said unmarked vehicles arrived at the perimeter of the construction site in Holly Ridge, a town within Richland Parish, earlier Wednesday.
ICE responded due to a request from local law enforcement about undocumented workers, a person familiar with the situation said. The person declined to be named to freely discuss a sensitive situation.
The Richland Parish Sherrif’s Office confirmed to Bloomberg News that the ICE agents were checking the identification of workers’ en route to the construction site. The two arrested individuals were from Guatemala and Honduras, said the sherrif’s office, which assisted with traffic stops involving the dump trucks.
The ICE agents didn’t enter the Meta site “at any time,” the sherrif’s office said.
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Meta declined to comment. The Department of Homeland Security, ICE and Meta’s three general contractors — Turner Construction Company, DPR Construction and Mortenson — didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Over the last year, the Trump administration has launched a mass deportation effort, aiming to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history. The campaign has targeted construction sites and manufacturing plants, including a high-profile raid of a Hyundai Motor Co electirc-vehicle battery plant in Georgia in September.
The operation has involved surges of federal agents to cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, New Orleans and most recently Minneapolis, where a federal agent shot and killed a US citizen during a confrontation earlier this month.
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The sweeps have sparked concerns for those working to build data centres to power a fast-moving artificial intelligence race. US-based tech companies, including Meta, have pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure in coming years. That’s led to a flurry of new construction projects, from the bayous of Louisiana to the Texas plains.
Louisiana governor Jeff Landry has been a vocal supporter of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. In September, Landry joined Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to announce a partnership to expand ICE detention space in the state. In December, DHS launched an enforcement operation dubbed “Catahoula Crunch” targeting undocumented immigrants in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana, an effort it said led to hundreds of arrests.
A spokesperson for Landry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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