New Orleans braces for Border Patrol sweeps as anxiety grips immigrant communities
Along Williams Boulevard in Kenner, signs in Spanish beckon passersby into law firms specializing in immigration, restaurants hawking carnitas and groceries selling traditional Central American ingredients.
Julio Machado, a Venezuelan-born local restaurateur, opened a new eatery last December on the Jefferson Parish thoroughfare because he saw promise in a strip that has emerged as a commercial hub for southeast Louisiana’s blossoming Hispanic community. Jefferson has the most Hispanic residents per-capita of any Louisiana Parish; Kenner, the most of any Louisiana city.
Right away, a cascade of problems enveloped the new venture.
Workers were hard to find, business was anemic. The shop was almost always empty, save for a few customers during the lunch rush.
Lukewarm job applicants and occasional customers relayed versions of the same explanation: Workers were avoiding establishments that traditionally relied on Latin American labor, terrified of the crackdown from President Donald Trump’s administration on undocumented immigrants. Would-be customers were saving cash, bracing for potential costs of hiring immigration lawyers or reuniting with deported loved ones.
After 10 months, Coma Arepas — Spanish for “eat arepas,” a traditional corn-based Venezuelan street snack — was seeing “pretty much no business at all,” Machado said. The little blue-and-yellow shop closed in October.
Fear and anxiety have gripped southeast Louisiana’s immigrant communities for months, snarling Machado’s business, while the Trump administration takes a hard-line approach to deporting immigrants across the nation.
U.S. Border Patrol agents detain a truck driver during an immigration enforcement operation at a truck stop Monday, Nov. 3, 2025, in Hampshire, Ill. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley) ORG XMIT: ILEH111
Now, those fears are ratcheting up to new levels after news that the federal Department of Homeland Security would dispatch U.S. Border Patrol agents to a swath of the New Orleans region for a sweeping immigration enforcement operation — the latest phase in the administration’s campaign to more swiftly arrest people accused of living in the country illegally.
The administration had recently sent border agents to Charlotte, North Carolina and Chicago. Like New Orleans, those cities reliably vote for Democrats.
Charlotte and Chicago have larger per-capita immigrant populations than the Crescent City, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Yet in New Orleans, the administration is expected to unleash the full force of its crackdown on a multicultural city whose identity and history are inextricably linked with cycles of immigration. Among those who have made New Orleans home: Haitians who intertwined cuisine and language with the city’s traditions around the turn of the 19th century, Vietnamese refugees who settled in New Orleans East after the Vietnam War and Central American workers who have helped rebuild after major hurricanes.
“After Katrina, it was immigrants who came to help,” said the Rev. Tony Rigoli, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on North Rampart Street. “They built lives. They were honest.”
Federal authorities have repeatedly declined to provide information about their planned operations in New Orleans. A DHS spokesperson did not respond Friday to an inquiry on the status of the plans, and a Border Patrol spokesperson declined to comment.
Father Tony Rigoli stands for a portrait in front of a stained glass window depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe in the auditorium of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Rampart street in New Orleans, Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (Staff photo by Enan Chediak, The Times-Picayune)
Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino has defended the agency’s tactics, saying in a recent interview that agents are on a mission to counteract an “invasion” of “criminal illegal aliens."
Already, though, signs of fear and preparation are spreading through Hispanic businesses, religious hubs, schools and neighborhoods. Pews once occupied by largely-Hispanic church congregations are sitting empty. Schools with Hispanic student rosters have already reported attendance dips.
One Guatemalan-born man who is an American citizen and lives in Mid-City said he has been asked to supervise children of multiple families who fear the parents will be deported.
On Friday morning, the stretch of Williams Boulevard where Machado tried to launch his new business was eerily quiet. The hallways of one Latin American grocery store were empty, save for two men stocking up on canned food. Nearby, families arrived for appointments at an immigration law firm.
Just over a month after he shut the doors on Coma Arepas, Machado faces another struggle that he attributes to the pending Border Patrol operation.
Dozens of applicants for a dishwashing job at another business of his, a bistro in New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood, suddenly stopped calling him back.
“The lack of labor, it’s killing me,” Machado said.
Churches see fewer congregants
Built in 1826 as a funeral site for yellow fever victims, the Our Lady of Guadalupe church earned its current name after the patroness of Mexico in what its leaders viewed as a gesture of welcome to Mexican immigrants.
Like others in New Orleans, the congregation drew Central American workers and their families who came to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Many enrolled children in schools, bought homes and began paying taxes.
Signs of the congregation’s enduring multiculturalism were on display after Mass one recent Sunday as vendors sold pan dulce and aguas frescas on the church patio near an outdoor grotto.
Mayor-elect Helena Moreno is greeted as she arrives at Our Lady of Guadalupe in New Orleans, Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025 for mass. (Staff photo by John McCusker, The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com)
Congregants chattered in English and Spanish as they craned their necks to catch a glimpse of New Orleans’ new mayor-elect, Helena Moreno, who was born in Mexico and worships at Our Lady of Guadalupe.
News of the pending Border Patrol operation — and heightened immigration enforcement in recent months — is seeming to mute that aspect of the congregation’s identity. Moreno on Thursday noted how the church’s Spanish-speaking service “keeps getting smaller and smaller.”
“People are really, really scared,” she said.
Rigoli, the pastor, confirmed Moreno’s account. His church has invited lawyers to a series of trainings to inform congregants of their rights if confronted by federal immigration agents — including by advising them that they can remain inside their homes if an agent fails to produce a warrant signed by a judge.
“They’re afraid to leave their homes, to go shopping,” Rigoli said. “That is not a way to live in our country, the land of the free.”
Other church leaders declined to discuss the pending Border Patrol operation. Several said they feared speaking publicly would risk making their congregations targets of immigration sweeps.
Advocates, immigrants prepare
Moreno’s transition committee launched a website Friday advising documented and undocumented residents alike of their rights when confronted by immigration agents. The site notes that for agents to lawfully enter homes without residents’ consent, they must display a warrant signed by a judge, rather than an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, as many immigration warrants are.
The transition will also launch a “reporting mechanism” in the coming days for residents “to catalog any incidents of unlawful or abusive behavior” by immigration agents.
Meanwhile, advocates like Brent Moreno are preparing in other ways. He has been handing out 3D-printed whistles on the West Bank that people can use to alert others of potential immigration raids, a strategy employed in Chicago and other cities.
“As a first generation American and son of an immigrant Columbian family, I am just doing my part to help any way I can,” he said.
Brent Moreno holds a handful of the whistles that he 3D-printed to use to alert people of potential immigration raids in Gretna, La., Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025. Since Friday, he has already given out over a hundred. “As a first generation American and son of an immigrant Columbian family, I am just doing my part to help any way I can,” Moreno said. (Staff photo by Enan Chediak, The Times-Picayune)
The legal advice dispensed by the mayor-elect's transition mirrors discussions taking place in churches, community centers and homes since the news broke this week that Border Patrol is set to arrive soon in New Orleans.
The agents are expected to start operations in New Orleans before fanning out across a region stretching north to Baton Rouge and east to Mississippi.
Agents in the FBI’s New Orleans field office are also expected to participate in the Border Patrol operation, according to multiple people familiar with the agency’s planning. What precise role FBI agents will have in the operation is not clear, though agents have participated in immigration sweeps and performed arrests in recent months.
Officials at other local law enforcement agencies, including some with formal DHS partnerships allowing them to perform immigration enforcement duties, say they have not been briefed on the plans.
"We haven't been brought into the operation,” said Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley, whose agency collaborates with ICE under a partnership called the 287(g) program. “We haven't been given any information about it. They're operating very independently. Of course, we're here to support their mission if they need any kind of assistance."
In the absence of concrete details, residents have been on edge.
A U.S. Marshals operation Thursday in Metairie, in which agents used megaphones to usher a domestic violence suspect from an apartment building with many Hispanic residents, spurred a flurry of social media posts advising residents of their rights when interacting with immigration agents.
No one was arrested in the operation, a spokesperson for the Marshal’s Service said.
School leaders in Jefferson Parish and New Orleans reported widespread absences this week.
And people of varied immigration status described taking steps to prepare for the potential of a heightened deportation risk.
Maria, an undocumented woman who has lived in New Orleans' suburbs for 20 years, and asked to be identified only by her first name because she fears retaliation, said she has been stockpiling food “like during the pandemic” so she can avoid leaving her house.
"It's like they're blind to us being human beings," the woman said.
She has been helping friends navigate the power-of-attorney process. She wants to ensure their children are cared for in case they are deported.
Staff writer Lara Nicholson contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment