Out of sight, out of mind

They also tend to occur away from roads and people, so they’re easily overlooked — out of sight, out of mind.

“It’s a tough case, because people are really — are they defending MS-13? Are they defending, you know, someone who’s out of sight, out of mind in El Salvador?”

"It's a bit like 'out of sight, out of mind' in terms of understanding their danger, compared to more famous ones like Vesuvius," she says on deck, as we watch two engineers winching a robot the size of a car off the ship's side.

López has also seen local activists struggle to assemble protests outside the detention centers, something that usually attracts attention—because of their remoteness, Louisiana’s detention facilities create an “out of sight, out of mind situation,” López said.

Still, she counters, “I didn’t want it to be all about chasing love and romance. I don’t want to use the word ‘love addict,’ but I saw that I was really looking for security and the minute someone was out of sight, it was ‘out of sight, out of mind!’