Landry, a former police officer and sheriff’s deputy who served as Louisiana attorney general until 2024, has blasted early release programs as an insult to crime victims, insisting that anyone who is convicted in Louisiana should serve the entirety of their sentence. He pushed Republican lawmakers to eliminate parole entirely for those arrested after Aug. 1, 2024, and to impose strict eligibility requirements for those already in prison.

But this year the same Legislature tossed all of that aside for one category of prisoner: immigrants without legal status. With mass deportations a key policy priority for President Donald Trump, Republican-led state and local governments have taken aggressive steps to deliver. In May, Landry signed an order seeking to “crack down on criminal illegal aliens” by granting the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and other state agencies the authority to conduct certain Immigration and Customs Enforcement duties. In June, Louisiana lawmakers created an expedited “alien removal process” through the special parole panel that passed with little notice during the last legislative session.