Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil is being held in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana more than a thousand miles away from where the 30-year-old was arrested in New York in early March. Here’s what to know about the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where he’s being detained while he fights to stay in the U.S.

The ICE facilities where Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri are held have a history of reported abuse and inhumane conditions, experts say.

The government wants the detainee’s case heard in Louisiana, where an appellate judge may be friendlier. At a hearing in Newark, one of his lawyers called the situation “Kafkaesque.”

As U.S. authorities crack down on immigrants at universities in a fervor against pro-Palestinian protests, they quickly have shuttled some of those detained to remote facilities in Louisiana.

Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student facing deportation for pro-Palestinian activism, will be in New Jersey court today. Follow Newsweek's live blog.