BATON ROUGE — After federal judges appointed by President Barack Obama said immigration officials were violating the constitutional rights of inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Rep. Julia Letlow wants colleagues to move their case to a district where President Donald Trump has named five of its seven judges.

Letlow on Monday announced she had filed a resolution called the "Judicial Efficiency and Reform Act," which would move West Feliciana Parish from the Baton Rouge-based Middle District to Louisiana's Western District.

West Feliciana barely abuts the Western District near the Old River Control Structure. The driving time from Angola to any federal courthouse in the Western District is double what it is from Angola to the federal court in downtown Baton Rouge.

Letlow said the Middle District has 25 percent more new filings per judge than the Western District. The Middle District has three judges and the Western District has seven, not including senior judges. Her office said she did not look at the cost of adding a federal judgeship in Baton Rouge.

"Congresswoman believes this is the best proposal with the clearest path to addressing the issue," her office said Monday.

In a statement, Letlow's office said Baton Rouge judges had released "notable violent offenders in recent months — including a convicted rapist — as attorneys for illegal immigrants fight deportation efforts at every turn."

In their rulings, the judges said federal immigration agents had previously allowed the convicts to remain in the United States after completing their sentences and, violating protocol, recently picked them up.

In one ruling, U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles noted ICE's decision to let the men stay despite their criminal records.

"ICE itself determined that each should be released into regular, free civilian life," deGravelles wrote. "ICE found that each of these men was not a flight risk, each was nonviolent and likely to remain nonviolent.

"The government may detain a noncitizen only for as long as is 'reasonably necessary' to effectuate deportation. ... But the government may not, consistent with the Due Process Clause, detain a noncitizen indefinitely," he wrote.

Letlow called the cases "outrageous," and moving the cases away from Baton Rouge was necessary to "make Louisiana communities safer.”

At least three of the inmates handled by deGravelles had no Louisiana connection other than being sent to Angola by ICE for detention. Court records were not clear regarding the fourth, whom ICE allowed to stay to avoid torture in Ethiopia.

Letlow's resolution was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee.

At various times, the Angola facility housing immigrants has been referred to as Camp 47, Camp 57 and "Louisiana Lockup." Trump is the 47th U.S. president and Jeff Landry is Louisiana's 57th governor.