Immigration Crackdown: Operation Catahoula Crunch Launches in Louisiana 🇺🇸⚖️

A federal immigration enforcement campaign began in earnest Wednesday, Dec. 3 in Louisiana, the latest area of focus for the Trump administration‘s sweeps, detentions and deportations.

Operation Catahoula Crunch

Operation Catahoula Crunch began with agents fanning out from their New Orleans base into suburban areas to apprehend day laborers outside home improvement stores and workers at restaurants and construction sites.

Official numbers on how many people were arrested were not immediately available, but the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Wednesday morning its sweeps would be “targeting criminal illegal aliens roaming free thanks to sanctuary policies that force local authorities to ignore U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest detainers.”

Immigrant advocates have been on high alert and are tracking authorities as they carry out their operation. Members of Unión Migrante have posted frequently on social media to inform its followers of suspected sweep locations, sharing video of what they see. One post warned of federal agents reportedly attempting to board a school bus in Kenner as it dropped off students. They were refused access, according to the group’s observers.

Rachel Taber, an organizer with Unión Migrante, went to a home improvement store where a group of men in the parking lot had been taken into custody. She cast doubt on Homeland Security’s declared intent to round up criminals in New Orleans.

“They were roofers working hard today. They were people standing on the corner of Home Depot for an honest day’s pay, so that’s an absolute falsity,” Taber told WVUE-TV Fox 8, “like so many of the other things that they’re trying to sell us about what this Border Patrol operation is.”

State leaders have been openly supportive of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, and several local law enforcement agencies have entered into agreements with ICE to either house detainees in their jails or lend manpower to their sting operations.

Besides Texas, Louisiana correctional facilities hold more ICE detainees than any other state. Federal, state and local prisons house between 7,000 and 8,000 immigrants based on estimates using immigration court data.

Gov. Jeff Landry also declared an emergency earlier this year to renovate a high-security section of the state penitentiary in Angola to secure “the worst criminal illegal aliens arrested by ICE.” What’s been dubbed “Louisiana Lockup” has capacity for 416 beds.

Louisiana officials have also taken steps to shield federal agents as they conduct their mission. In a joint statement, the FBI and Louisiana State Police said they would collaborate “to deter assaults on federal officers and attempts to obstruct law enforcement actions.”

Attorney General Liz Murrill has said her office would seek consequences for anyone who prevents authorities from carrying out Operation Catahoula Crunch.

“Individuals who interfere with ICE, Border Patrol, or assault law enforcement are committing a State crime and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Murrill said in a brief statement.

Murrill has also been critical of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office over its refusal to hand over immigrant detainees to ICE. The agency’s chief task is operating the city jail, and it has been under a federal consent decree that places restrictions on when the sheriff’s office can yield custody to federal authorities. Murrill disputes this and is challenging specifics in the consent decree in federal court.

The attorney general faces a separate challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, which filed a lawsuit Wednesday. It argues a new state law that prohibits interfering with immigration enforcement is so broadly written that it stifles free speech and could place severe punishment on innocuous, legal activities.

The ACLU represents Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy, the lead plaintiff in the case. The group said it has stopped hosting “Know Your Rights” events to inform immigrants on how best to handle heightened enforcement over worries that it violated the new law, according to the lawsuit.

“Our law is constitutional and we look forward to defending it in court,” Murrill said Wednesday afternoon, adding that she had yet to receive the lawsuit.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is also monitoring developments in Louisiana. One of its leaders, chief legal officer Derwyn Bunton, brings the perspective of having been the lead public defender in New Orleans for 13 years.

He called into question claims that Homeland Security is pursuing the “worst of the worst,” as indicated in its announcement for Operation Catahoula Crunch. According to federal data Syracuse University has compiled, 71.5% of the nearly 60,000 people in ICE detention as of Sept. 21 had no criminal convictions. Many with convictions had committed only minor offenses, such as traffic infractions.

“The information that’s coming out is not matching the rhetoric of the administration …” Bunton said. “Federal leaders have described the sort of criminal element in the streets in our communities, painting this picture of all of us being held hostage in our streets by criminal elements who are not documented in our communities, and the data seems to be nothing further from the truth.”