This story was originally published by Verite News
After months of stepped-up immigration enforcement operations across the country, which have recently resulted in two fatal shootings at the hands of immigration agents deployed to Minneapolis, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter on Tuesday called for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be abolished “as we know it.”
“We have to reimagine ICE,” Carter, a New Orleans Democrat, said in a press briefing following a special congressional forum, held in the New Orleans City Council chamber. “ICE cannot be an agent of disregard, of ignoring the rule of law, we have to have immigration enforcement and we have to have a very clear, defined way to assist people becoming citizens.”
Tuesday’s forum brought together Democratic members of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security — including Carter, ranking member Rep. Benny Thompson (D–Miss.), Rep. Tim Kennedy (D–N.Y.) and Rep. Seth Magaziner (D–R.I.) — with leaders in New Orleans, including Mayor Mayor Helena Moreno and City Council President JP Morrell, along with community advocates, about the impacts of operation “Catahoula Crunch,” the immigration surge in the New Orleans area, which began in early December and continued for about a month.
“This is a cruel divisive agenda lacking humanity,” Moreno said about the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts in Louisiana and elsewhere. “What actually makes America great is our diversity, is our cultural differences.”
The forum follows the Saturday killing of Alex Pretti at the hands of immigration agents in Minneapolis, a city that has seen the addition of more than 3,000 agents in recent weeks as part of operation “Metro Surge.” Pretti, an ICU nurse who was shot during a confrontation with Border Patrol agents, is the second person killed by agents deployed to Minneapolis in recent weeks following the killing of Renee Good, who was shot by an ICE agent in her car on Jan. 7. Trump administration officials have insisted in both cases that agents were acting in self-defense against aggressors whose actions threatened their lives, but videos taken at both scenes appear to contradict those claims.
The operation in Minneapolis, as well as similar ones in Chicago and Los Angeles over the past several months, led to mass protests and clashes between residents and immigration enforcement, where immigration agents were frequently accused of using reckless tactics and excessive force against both immigration targets and protesters. That includes not only the recent killings but the use of dangerous driving maneuvers — sometimes leading to crashes — in pursuit of suspects and the allegedly indiscriminate use of “less-lethal” munitions — such as rubber bullets and pepper balls — in response to demonstrations.
‘Overnight, our food distribution requests went from 30 to 400 families’
The Catahoula Crunch effort in New Orleans, on the other hand, ended in far fewer immigration arrests than originally projected — fewer than 600 people by the operation’s end, against a reported goal of 5,000 — and without any killings or large-scale confrontations between protesters and agents. Still, the operation impacted hundreds of immigrant families in the region, Tania Wolf — an advocacy manager at the National Immigration Project and a steering member of the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition — said during the forum on Monday. .
During the Catahoula Crunch operation, the coalition, made up of advocates and organizations that support immigrants in detention, shifted their focus from behind bars to inside the homes of people too afraid to go to work or to take their children to school or even shop at their local grocery store, Wolf said.
“Overnight, our food distribution requests went from 30 to 400 families,” Wolf testified. “By Christmas Eve, a time typically reserved for joy, some families were in dire need of food supplies, rent, [and] support for electricity and phone bills."
Homero Lopez, legal director of Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy —– which provides pro bono legal representation to immigrants detained in Louisiana —– shared the story of his client Lener, a 22-year-old who entered the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor, who had been granted a temporary reprieve from deportation and gained Special Immigrant Justice Status (SIJS) and deferred action.
Lener, Lopez said, was detained one day before the official start of Catahoula Crunch when he arrived at work, by federal agents who said his work authorization and deferred action were not enough proof of his legal status in the country. Lener is now detained at an ICE facility in Jena and has been stripped of his deferred action and denied a bond hearing.
“Lener is only one of hundreds of contributing members from our community who have been detained under these types of operations. And one of tens of thousands around the country who have been detained under these operations,” Lopez told the congressional delegation.
A representative from ICE instructed Verite News to direct questions to Border Patrol, as Catahoula Crunch was its operation. A representative for Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request from Verite News.
Greater restraint in red state
After the Associated Press reported in November that agents were preparing to be deployed to New Orleans, many Hispanic-owned and frequented businesses in New Orleans and in nearby Kenner — which has the largest share of the region’s Hispanic community — decided to close until they felt it was safe for their employees and patrons. During the operation, construction workers reportedly chose not to report to job sites to avoid risking arrests.
But the number of arrests — 560 in five weeks, according to news reports — seemed small compared to the more than 1,500 people, some of them reportedly U.S. citizens — during the first month of operation “Midway Blitz” in Chicago.
Chicago was also the site of some of the most aggressive counter-protest tactics, including agents firing tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets without warning. In Minnesota, where the Department of Homeland Security has claimed more than 3,000 arrests, political leaders have called the intensified immigration enforcement operation an “occupation.”
In contrast, the seemingly short-lived Catahoula Crunch saw no clashes between protesters and federal immigration agents, no deployments of chemical weapons.
Catahoula Crunch also saw more cooperation between immigration authorities and local and state officials. Unlike Gov. J.B. Pritzker in Illinois and Gov. Tim Walz in Minnesota, both of whom sued the Trump administration over immigration deployments in their states, Louisiana’s conservative Gov. Jeff Landry welcomed the surge in New Orleans. Local leaders in Louisiana were often similarly welcoming. Several area law enforcement agencies, including the Kenner Police Department and Gretna Police Department, have inked formal partnerships with ICE, called 287g agreements, agreeing to assist with federal immigration enforcement efforts. In December, Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley called the operation a “godsend” for the community.
In more liberal New Orleans, some leaders were critical of federal immigration agents, with City Council members asking Border Patrol for greater transparency in arrests and enforcement tactics. Others were more measured. New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick vowed that local cops would not directly participate in immigration enforcement but said she would be a “partner” to immigration agencies during the operation.
Freelance photojournalist Ryan Murphy, who has covered federal immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles, Charlotte, North Carolina and Minneapolis, said in an interview that the New Orleans region is the only place where he saw agents get any sort of positive response from the public.
In one instance, Bovino and other agents entered a gas station, where customers offered hugs, cheers and words of encouragement to the group, Murphy said.
Murphy said the Catahoula Crunch may have been less heated simply because of the sprawling nature of the operation. Despite a call from Gov. Jeff Landry for agents to clean up “crime-ridden” New Orleans, agents appeared to focus primarily on suburban areas. Focusing on a more sprawling suburban space meant that protesters were less likely to be exactly where federal agents were swarming, Murphy suggested. This greatly differed from how the operation played out in Minneapolis in early January, when Murphy was reporting there.
“In Minneapolis, [agents and protesters] would go back to the same area day in and day out,” Murphy said. “And so you pretty much knew that if you went to this street in South Minneapolis or went to this area, kind of in proximity to where Renee Good was shot, you probably had a good chance of running into them.”
Lopez, of Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy, said there’s another likely reason that the operation differed from those in more Democratic states, like California, Minnesota and Illinois.
“I think the big difference is the state being a red state and being governed by a Republican governor,” Lopez said, adding that Louisiana has an “outsized” level of influence in Washington D.C., particularly when it has to do with immigration policy.
Lopez said he thinks the Department of Homeland Security took a more subdued approach in Louisiana, to ensure that the administration’s partners in the deeply Republican state would not garner bad press. He referred to a video of a Marrero woman running from a masked federal agent and onto her property. Lopez said it’s notable that the agent who chased her did not cross the threshold of the property gate.
“That, to me, tells me they themselves are exercising some kind of restraint and discretion. And to me, that means it’s coming from above,” Lopez said.. “I think there’s this aspect of, when you’re in these red states, you’re also trying to help out your buddies and not give them bad media.”
