Photo: Alamy
The Trump administration’s next major immigration enforcement operation could begin in New Orleans as early as Dec. 1, according to Department of Homeland Security officials, as noted in a CBS News report on Tuesday.
Internal government documents obtained by the network show the administration plans to deploy about 200 Border Patrol agents to New Orleans, making the city the latest Democratic led metropolis targeted in the president’s expanded nationwide deportation campaign. The effort relies heavily on Border Patrol teams operating far from the U.S.-Mexico border.
The planned New Orleans deployment follows a weeklong roundup in the Charlotte area led by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino. As of Tuesday morning, agents had made more than 250 arrests in the operation, dubbed “Charlotte’s Web,” a DHS official told CBS News. The Charlotte effort is expected to wind down this week.
Bovino’s teams have carried out similar raids in Chicago and Los Angeles, arresting suspected illegal immigrants in parking lots, work sites and other public locations. If the New Orleans operation moves forward, it will occur in a city led by a Democratic mayor but in a state governed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a Trump ally who has supported the administration’s immigration enforcement initiatives.
The internal documents show Border Patrol requested armored vehicles and special operations teams for both the Charlotte and New Orleans deployments, CBS News noted.
President Trump previously announced plans to send National Guard troops to New Orleans in September.
“So we’re making a determination now,” he told reporters. “Do we go to Chicago? Do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad.”
“So we’re going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem,” President Trump added at the time. “We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks. It’ll take us two weeks, easier than D.C.”
Gov. Jeff Landry posted on social media at the time that Louisiana would “take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!”
