(Headline USA) Around 250 federal border agents are expected to launch a monthslong immigration crackdown on Monday in southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi dubbed “Swamp Sweep.”
The deployment, which aims to arrest 5,000 people, is centered in liberal New Orleans and is the latest federal immigration enforcement operation to target a Democratic-run city as President Donald Trump’s administration pursues its mass deportation agenda.
Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who has led aggressive operations in Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina, is expected to helm the campaign.
Bovino has become the Trump administration’s go-to operative for leading large-scale, high-profile immigration enforcement campaigns. During his operation in Chicago, federal agents rappelled from a helicopter into a residential apartment complex and fired pepper balls and tear gas at protesters.
While federal agents arrested more than 600 immigrants during a surge in Chicago in recent months, just a handful had criminal records representing a “high public safety risk,” according to federal government data.
Bovino has doubled down on the efficacy of his agency’s operations.
“We’re finding and arresting illegal aliens, making these communities safer for the Americans who live there,” he said in a post on X.
The Department of Justice has accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement and included it on a list of 18 so-called sanctuary cities. The city’s jail, which has been under longstanding oversight from a federal judge, does not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under most circumstances, and its police department views immigration enforcement as a civil matter outside its jurisdiction.
However, Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature has passed laws to compel New Orleans agencies to align with the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration stance.
One such law makes it a crime to “knowingly” do something intended to “hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart” federal immigration enforcement efforts. Anyone who violates the law could face fines and up to a year of jail time.
Additionally, lawmakers expanded the crime of malfeasance in office, which is punishable by up to 10 years in jail, for government officials who refuse to comply with requests from agencies like ICE. It also prohibits police and judges from releasing from their custody anyone who “illegally entered or unlawfully remained” in the U.S. without providing advance notice to ICE.
In the days leading up to Border Patrol’s planned operations, businesses have posted signs barring federal agents from entry and grassroots advocacy groups have offered rights-related trainings and workshops on documenting the planned crackdown.
While New Orleans is famous for its blend of cultures, only around 6.7% of its population of nearly 400,000 is foreign-born, though that rises to almost 10% in neighboring metro areas. That’s still well below the national average of 14.3%, according to U.S. census data.
The city’s Hispanic population ballooned during rebuilding efforts following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now makes up around 14% of the population, according to census data compiled by New Orleans-based Data Center.
The Pew Research Center estimates 110,000 immigrants who lack permanent legal status were living in Louisiana as of 2023, comprising approximately 2.4% of the state’s population. Most of them are from Honduras.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
