U.S. immigration officials began an operation in New Orleans to arrest immigrants in the U.S. illegally, federal officials said on Wednesday, making it the latest city to be targeted by President Donald Trump’s crackdown.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the operation would target criminal offenders who had been released from local custody due to city policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Trump, a Republican, has ordered such operations in Democratic-led cities across the U.S., including Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., in a bid to drive deportations to record levels.
The office of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the New Orleans Police Department.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, has supported federal immigration enforcement efforts, and did so again in a Wednesday interview with local radio. Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Residents and local officials in cities targeted by the immigration crackdown have pushed back, saying Border Patrol and ICE agents have swept in many people with no criminal record and have used heavy-handed tactics that endangered residents.
‘NOT ALL OF US ARE CRIMINALS’
In one family-owned restaurant in New Orleans, a woman assembled makeshift beds, so family members could sleep there to avoid potentially being profiled by federal agents while traveling between home and work.
The woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Abby, said her family came to the U.S. from Mexico two decades ago but that she and others have not been able to obtain legal status.
She said she worried that she could be arrested by immigration authorities and separated from her 10-year-old son, a U.S. citizen.
“Not all of us are criminals,” she said. “We’re hardworking people. We’re people who get up early to achieve our goals and fight for our dreams.”
The Latino population in the New Orleans metro area rapidly increased after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005. Many undocumented Latino migrants flocked to the city to help rebuild in the wake of Katrina’s destruction, the immigrant rights groups say, and now comprise upward of 20% of residents in Jefferson Parish, directly to the west of the city proper, according to Census data.
Members of immigrant rights group Union Migrante posted videos and photos showing Border Patrol agents questioning workers and making arrests at home improvement stores across the New Orleans metropolitan area.
Union Migrante volunteer Rachel Taber said Border Patrol agents told her to stay back 25 feet as she recorded them questioning roofing workers at a home in the Kenner area of New Orleans on Wednesday.
“I’m doing this for my neighbors, for justice, our democracy, for the people who helped rebuild our houses after Katrina,” said Taber, an immigrant justice organizer, adding that she was aware of at least 10 arrests on Wednesday by federal agents. “Immigrants are the fabric of the United States. The real criminals are in the White House.”
Taber said immigrant workers and school children were staying home across the city as the immigration operation began. “Business in New Orleans has been paralyzed,” she said. “People are having to choose between their jobs and their families.”
