New Orleanians protest Border Patrol operation coming to LA | National Politics

Immigration sweeps by U.S. Border Patrol agents did not launch Monday as expected in south Louisiana, and officials have stayed tight-lipped about the scope and timeline of their plans.

Still, despite rain and chilly temperatures, about 100 people rallied Monday evening in downtown New Orleans to protest the impending immigration raids.

Draped in raincoats, carrying signs and huddled under umbrellas, they gathered around the Henry Clay statue in the middle of Lafayette Square as speakers from the immigrant advocacy group Union Migrante, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization and others shouted opposition against the planned federal operation.

A man standing under the statue waved a black banner emblazoned with the word “resist.”

“No to federal occupation,” the demonstrators chanted.

New Orleans has girded for weeks for an operation that, according to internal planning documents, aims to detain up to 5,000 people across a swath of territory stretching north to Baton Rouge and east to Mississippi.

The documents, reported on last month by The Associated Press, detailed how federal officials planned to launch the operation Monday in the mold of large-scale sweeps Border Patrol recently conducted in Charlotte, N.C. and Chicago. But even as anxiety among south Louisiana immigrant communities seemed to reach a peak Monday, no signs emerged that Border Patrol had begun operating in the region in earnest.

Asked last week about Border Patrol vehicles recently seen driving around the New Orleans area, a spokesperson said the sightings were “not necessarily unique” because the agency regularly operates in the region.

Asked Monday on Fox News which city Border Patrol would visit next, the commander of the Charlotte and Chicago operations declined to answer.

“Hold onto your hats,” said the commander, Gregory Bovino. “That’s what I’m going to say there.”

Both Bovino and Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who also spoke Monday about the operation on Fox and declined to discuss operational details, described Border Patrol’s recent sweeps as focusing on people with criminal histories.

The agency has faced criticism in Chicago and Charlotte for the numbers of immigrants it detained who have no criminal records. Agents have also been accused of operating too aggressively, including by deploying chemical irritants and non-lethal projectiles against protesters and journalists. Bovino has rejected those criticisms.

Though Republican state leaders have beckoned Border Patrol to Louisiana, Monday’s demonstration underscored how the operation is likely to face local pushback in majority-Democratic New Orleans.

Organizers of Monday’s demonstration criticized federal and state intervention in New Orleans’ affairs and highlighted immigrants’ contributions to the city’s culture and history.

“We know who helped rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina,” said organizer Blu DiMarco of the Queer and Trans Community Action Project, an LGBTQ+ rights group. “It wasn’t police, it was immigrants.”

Protests in other cities have erupted into clashes between Border Patrol agents and demonstrators.

A few unmarked law enforcement vehicles with license plates marked “public” lingered along the northern edge of Lafayette Square as demonstrators gathered in New Orleans. But the gathering remained peaceful as the crowd swelled during the evening.