Prisoners find hope after a special parole panel grants early release to nine individuals in Louisiana, but there’s a catch.
The three-member panel didn’t review disciplinary records or ask prospective parolees about remorse, but voted unanimously to grant parole to all nine of the prisoners, according to an article in Propublica.
“Today you’ve been paroled,” said panel chair Steve Prator, “to go straight into an ICE facility for deportation from the United States.”
The purpose of the “alien removal process” was to deport immigrant prisoners without legal status. But in the article, Louisiana’s Governor Jeff Landry said early release programs offend victims of crime.
Several residents at San Quentin talked about how they would respond if California were to create a similar program, offering residents a one-way plane ticket to another country with one catch: they would never be able to return to the U.S.
Resident Ramiro Ramirez said he knows dozens of people who would jump at the opportunity for deportation no matter where they ended up.
“It’s just like when a person is dead in the cemetery, because I don’t have contact with my ex-wife or my kids,” Ramirez said. “I just stay away because I don’t want any problems.”
Ramirez said he has family in Sacramento, but since his incarceration, he has not had any visits from his family.
Resident Brett Mohr said the biggest challenge is not losing contact with his family and starting his life over in a country he’s never visited. The biggest challenge is losing his opportunity to change his old habits.
After five years of incarceration, Mohr said he is done hurting other people. His focus is on his rehabilitation.
“I’m not done yet and that’s as honest as I can be,” said Mohr. “I want to be done with my old life and I want all my tools in line.”
Resident Enrique Sandoval said he would not leave, but he said he’d like to continue his rehabilitation to earn his freedom and return home to his family.
“My rehabilitation is important at this point in my life because I don’t want to hurt any more people,” Sandoval said. “I feel free in this prison because the programs I’ve been in taught me how to see life differently.”
At a hearing in August 2025, Francis Abbott, executive director of the Louisiana state parole board said “Parole granted for the purpose of deportation is fundamentally different from discretionary parole granted to individuals who have demonstrated readiness for community supervision.”
The Propublica article reported that a person’s behavior behind bars and their risk to the public are some of the factors a regular process considers. However, the new deportation panel doesn’t work under the same guidelines and responsibilities as a regular parole process.
“Under the new law, the deportation panel operates unbound by the restrictions and responsibilities placed on the regular parole process,” the article said.
Two categories of offenders are ineligible to appear before the new panel: individuals with sex offenses or persons sentenced to more than 10 years for a violent crime.
The expedited legislation raised concern with Bridget Geraghty, senior counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center, a Chicago-based legal nonprofit focused on prison reform. In the article, Geraghty argued for expansion of the initiative.
“They have the ability to release a lot of people to parole, and they are choosing to only do it for this specific group because it’s politically popular,” said Geraghty.