Federal inspectors found that officers at one of the country's largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities used prohibited measures of force.

A chokehold was performed on one detainee and another was stabbed in the thumb with a pen. The violations are part of a string of use-of-force, health, and sanitation lapses flagged in a Homeland Security watchdog report released this week.

The findings center on the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana, a private prison run by LaSalle Corrections that holds more than 1,500 male ICE detainees, making it one of the largest sites in the federal immigration detention network.

Auditors from the DHS Office of Inspector General arrived unannounced March 4-6, 2025, and reviewed five use-of-force incidents. In three, the report said, facility staff used prohibited techniques or otherwise "did not fully comply" with federal detention standards.

In one, an officer used a chokehold to "gain control" of a detainee during a physical altercation, a tactic ICE policy explicitly bars.

In another, an officer punctured a detainee's right thumb with a pen after the man refused to move his hand from a housing-unit door so it could be secured.

A third saw staff bind a noncompliant detainee in mechanical restraints and a suicide smock, then fail to record the required on-camera medical review.

The officer who used the pen was disciplined, but inspectors said the facility could not produce records showing remedial use-of-force training was conducted or tracked.

That gap, the report warned, "could lead to staff repeating inappropriate use-of-force tactics that could potentially result in property damage, injury, and death."

According to reporting on the audit, DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari also wrote that LaSalle staff refused to turn over copies of the use-of-force videos even after his team escalated the request to ICE's New Orleans field office.

Inspectors documented three leaks in the kitchen, holes, and hanging insulation in the intake building, perishable food stored at improper temperatures, and medical staff who failed to keep detainee problem and treatment lists current.

The report made nine recommendations, all of which ICE accepted; roughly half of the cited violations remained unresolved at the time of release.

ICE pushed back on the report, calling the findings "minor infractions" that included recordkeeping errors, missing exercise equipment, leaking vents, and a shared legal-research computer.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency maintains "higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens" and that ICE is adding staff training to address the gaps.

The release came as DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin defended conditions in a network now holding more than 60,000 people under President Donald Trump's expanded deportation push.

ICE classifies 70% of Winn's detainees as having no threat level, meaning no violent criminal history.

The OIG, recently boosted by a $20 million budget infusion, plans to expand from four unannounced inspections a year to six in the near term, with a longer-term target of 40 to 60.