Federal officers are expected to begin arriving in New Orleans this weekend ahead of a major immigration operation the Trump administration has dubbed Operation “Swamp Sweep.” The Associated Press reported the crackdown will launch Monday and be led by Border Patrol, with Commander Greg Bovino increasingly becoming the public face of these high-profile deployments in major cities.
The operation will reportedly involve up to 250 federal agents, similar in size to the recent surge into Charlotte, North Carolina, where officials say enforcement is still underway. Unlike other large cities that have pushed back – including Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte – Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, is closely aligned with President Donald Trump and has made aggressive immigration enforcement a top priority.
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Louisiana’s cooperation with federal enforcement
In June, Landry signed legislation pledging full state cooperation with federal immigration authorities, including detentions and deportations. And in September, the state opened the so-called “Louisiana Lockup” – a dedicated wing inside a state prison where the federal government now houses detainees it classifies as dangerous.
Landry said this week that the New Orleans deployment will focus on removing dangerous criminals from the streets.
Tension and fear in New Orleans
New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, a Democrat who was born in Mexico, said there is a lot of fear in the city right now and she’s worried about “due process being violated.”
Rachel Taber, an organizer with the immigrant advocacy group Union Migrante, criticized the operation as hypocritical.
“The same people pushing for this attack on immigrants benefit from immigrant labor and the exploitation of immigrants,” she said. “Who do they think is going to clean the hotels from Mardi Gras or clean up after their fancy Mardi Gras parade?”
Judge rules on Trump’s National Guard deployment in DC illegal
Separately, a federal judge in Washington ruled Thursday that the Trump administration’s use of the National Guard for law enforcement in D.C. is unlawful.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, ruled that the president cannot deploy the D.C. National Guard for law enforcement operations because Congress granted that authority to the mayor under the city’s 1973 home-rule law.
Cobb also said the administration does not have the authority to deploy National Guard units from other states into D.C. as part of the crime crackdown launched in August.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson disagreed, telling The Wall Street Journal that the president is “well within his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C. to protect federal assets and assist law enforcement with specific tasks.”
The judge delayed the implementation of her ruling until Dec. 11 to give the administration time to appeal.
