FiscalFusion

Trump administration officials overseeing the immigration crackdown launched this week in New Orleans are aiming to make 5,000 arrests, a target that some city leaders who oppose the operation say is unrealistic and would require detaining more than just violent offenders. It’s an ambitious goal that would surpass the number of arrests during a two-month enforcement blitz this fall around Chicago, a region with a much bigger immigrant population than New Orleans, and records tracking the first weeks of the Chicago operation also showed most arrestees didn’t have a violent criminal record. In Los Angeles — the first major battleground in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration plan — roughly 5,000 people were arrested over the summer in an area where about a third of LA County’s roughly 10 million residents are foreign-born. “There is no rational basis that a sweep of New Orleans, or the surrounding parishes, would ever yield anywhere near 5,000 criminals, let alone ones that are considered ‘violent’ by any definition,” New Orleans City Council President J.P. Morrell said Thursday. Census Bureau figures show the New Orleans metro area had a foreign-born population of almost 100,000 residents last year, and that just under 60% were not U.S.

citizens. “The amount of violent crime attributed to illegal immigrants is negligible,” Morrell said, noting crime in New Orleans is at historic lows. Violent crimes, including murders, rapes and robberies, have fallen by 12% through October compared to a year ago, from 2,167 violent crimes to 1,897, according to New Orleans police statistics. Federal agents in marked and unmarked vehicles began spreading out across New Orleans and its suburbs Wednesday, making arrests in home improvement store parking lots and patrolling neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Alejandra Vasquez, who runs a social media page in New Orleans that reports the whereabouts of federal agents, said she has received a flood of messages, photos and video since the operations began, saying her heart is broken because agents are taking working people and families rather than criminals. Several hundred agents from Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are participating in the two-month operation dubbed “Catahoula Crunch.” U.S.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, of Louisiana, is among Republicans supporting the crackdown, saying Democrats’ sanctuary city policies have failed and that residents deserve better. About two dozen protesters were removed from a New Orleans City Council meeting Thursday after chants of “Shame,” with police pushing or carrying some protesters out. Planning documents obtained by the Associated Press show the operation covers southeast Louisiana and parts of Mississippi. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said agents are targeting immigrants released after arrests for violent crimes and claimed arrests already include individuals with records of homicide, kidnapping, child abuse, robbery, theft and assault, though officials have not provided arrest numbers. She told CNN that efforts would continue “whether that will be 5,000 arrests or beyond.” Immigrant rights groups fear the only way to reach that goal is to target a broader group, and New Orleans City Council member Lesli Harris said there are nowhere near 5,000 violent offenders in the region. She said instead mothers, teenagers and workers are being detained during routine check-ins or at homes and workplaces, calling immigration violations civil matters that do not warrant disruptive mass arrests.

During the “Operation Midway Blitz” crackdown in Chicago that began in September, immigration agents arrested more than 4,000 people across the city and suburbs, including parts of Indiana. While officials touted arrests of violent offenders, public records show that of about 1,900 arrested from early September to mid-October, only around 300 — roughly 15% — had criminal convictions, mostly traffic offenses, misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies, according to ICE data analyzed by the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project. New Orleans, historically shaped by French, Spanish, African and Native American cultures, has recently seen new immigration from Central and South America and Asia. Across Louisiana, there were over 145,000 foreign-born noncitizens according to the Census Bureau, and Pew Research Center estimated about 110,000 residents in the state were living in the U.S. illegally in 2023..