Marriott allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold immigrants in a hotel that it owns in Louisiana, contradicting a 2019 policy not to use its properties as detention facilities. The Marriott-owned Sheraton Four Points in Alexandria, Louisiana, has held people slated for deportation since 2023, The Guardian reported. Marriott did not deny the newspaper’s findings: “Acceptance of business does not indicate support or endorsement of any group or individual,” the company wrote. It also wrote that its hotels “are not designed or intended to serve as detention centers” and that the Alexandria hotel is “operated by a third party.” The company struck a different tone six years ago, when a company spokesperson said that “Marriott has made the decision to decline any requests to use our hotels as detention facilities.” The hotel spotlighted in the Guardian report is close to a major ICE deportation hub. Separate reports have found that ICE deported an Ecuadorian man and his 15-year-old son after the pair were “locked up” for four days in the Sheraton without phone or internet access. An ICE spokesperson called the Guardian report “false” in a statement to the Daily Beast and said that “ICE does not maintain contracts with hotels.”
Read it at The Guardian
