Like their predecessors in Chicago and North Carolina, the federal government’s south Louisiana immigration sweeps set out to arrest violent criminals. Since the operation started, officials have touted arrests of “murderers, rapists and pedophiles.”
But by the government’s own count, fewer than 10% of people captured in the sweeps launched the first week of December around New Orleans have criminal histories of any kind.
On Thursday, eight days into the operation, the Department of Homeland Security issued the first comprehensive tally of people the sweeps have captured, saying 250 people had been arrested across Louisiana.
Some details — including the geographic spread of where arrests were made — remain unclear. But so far, the operation’s targets appear to be grouped in two main categories.
The smallest, but most visible, group includes the 23 people who DHS says have criminal records — less than a tenth of the overall number of detainees, based on the agency’s arrest figures. Those with criminal histories have convictions or arrests on charges that range from armed robbery to aggravated kidnapping, along with less severe offenses like driving under the influence and public urination.
The other group comprises far more detainees — dozens, according to immigration attorneys representing them — who are accused of no violations aside from living in the country without permanent authorization to do so, such as a green card or U.S. citizenship.
Federal officials have sought to highlight detainees with violent criminal histories in press releases, social media posts and video snippets promoted by conservative activists who have embedded with Border Patrol agents. “Operation Catahoula Crunch arrests even more criminal illegal alien rapists, thieves, gang members, human smugglers, and abusers,” one press release headline blared.
Among the most notorious with criminal records: a Vietnamese man convicted of a slew of crimes in Dallas, Texas in 1989, including aggravated robbery and kidnapping, court records show. He was released on parole after serving time in prison. DHS said the man, Binh Van To, had been convicted of homicide, but Texas court records indicate that charge was dismissed.
Far larger than the number of detainees with criminal records is the number who have been accused of no wrongdoing, had applied for permanent legal residency and held papers authorizing them to live and work in the country while that process played out. Some people with no authorization also appear to have been detained.
Business owners, immigration attorneys and family members of detainees last week recounted multiple cases of loved ones or employees being taken into custody despite holding work permits.
Homero López, an immigration attorney whose Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy organization is representing dozens of people detained in the raids, said a number of them held work permits or other protections granting them permission to live in the United States while awaiting the outcome of green card or asylum applications.
Many of those detainees had been granted deferred action — a discretionary protection where the federal government agrees not to deport victims of parental abuse, crime, workplace mistreatment or other injustices while they complete the permanent residency process.
As President Donald Trump’s administration expands its deportation agenda with shock-and-awe sweeps in Chicago, North Carolina and now Louisiana, the results of the operation officials are calling Catahoula Crunch highlight how the administration is increasingly focused on jailing and deporting people once seen as safe from immigration enforcement. Those include people who had temporary permission to live and work in the country because the federal government had granted it to them.
“Policy-wise, it just doesn’t make sense — we don’t want to be locking anyone up who doesn’t pose threats to the community,” López said. “This administration has decided to not exercise that discretion.”
A DHS spokesperson disputed the idea that the operation is falling short of its target of detaining criminals.
“DHS is targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens — including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
Permit holders among those being detained
Before Border Patrol agents arrived in New Orleans, the agency gained notoriety in Charlotte and Chicago for targeting businesses and neighborhoods known as hubs for Hispanic residents. Violent protests erupted.
Louisiana has so far seen only peaceful demonstrations against Border Patrol’s presence, but the agency’s tactics have been similar: Through targeting home improvement store parking lots and worksites, agents have netted people with work permits, as well as some with U.S. citizenship or permanent legal resident status who have been held for questioning, then released.
Louisiana employers recounted numerous cases of people with work permits being detained. One man from Guatemala, 21-year-old Baltazar Jax Macario, had a work permit and has lived in the country since 2021, according to a person familiar with his case who asked to remain anonymous because they feared retaliation. Macario was detained along Williams Boulevard in Kenner on the operation’s first day.
In a viral Facebook post this week, Kenner roofing contractor Shane Mulkey said his company lost four employees who had work permits. He suggested that people who complain about Hispanic immigrants taking American jobs should apply for those openings.
“Our loss is your gain,” Mulkey said. “I see all the posts about Hispanics taking American jobs. Here is your chance, the moment you have been waiting for.”
McLaughlin in a statement to The Times-Picayune | The Advocate last week acknowledged that people who hold work permits are targets of the administration’s deportation agenda.
“Employment authorization does not confer legal status,” McLaughlin said.
It remains unclear exactly how many people with work permits and other forms of authorization have been picked up in sweeps, which recently expanded west to Baton Rouge.
Organizers with local advocacy group Mision Migrante estimated that between 60 and 75 people have been detained since Tuesday. In the town of Walker, agents smashed a car window and physically restrained two men, according to eyewitnesses, leaving glass shards and blood on the ground in a parking lot. Their legal records were unclear, but they did not appear on DHS’ lists of people with criminal records.
Media outlets reported on two other cases last week of detained permit-holders. One, 38-year-old Kenner mother Vilma Cruz, had her car window smashed as Border Patrol agents moved to detain her, according to an interview with her son. A Kenner auto shop worker, Rosell Callejas, was swarmed by agents and taken away after arriving for a work shift, according to his boss.
Another man with a work permit and pending green card application, Darwin Padilla, in an interview described being followed home by Border Patrol agents in Kenner. After he spoke to the agents from inside his home and explained that he had documents, the agents left, according to interviews with Padilla and his wife, Leslie Padilla.
Later, agents returned to the house and posted a form on the door ordering Darwin Padilla to show up for an appointment Friday morning with documents to prove his status, Leslie Padilla said.
The family’s attorney went to the address listed on the form, she said, but the agents had given them the site of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s old Central Business District field office, which has relocated. No one was there to receive them.
Leslie Padilla said the demands for Darwin’s documents feel like an intimidation tactic.
“This is definitely a low blow,” Leslie Padilla said. “We are doing everything that we need to, we have been diligent when it comes to his case, we have filed every form they’re asked for, we have provided them with everything that we have been advised to.”
Can those with criminal histories be deported to home countries?
Of 23 people detained in the operation whom DHS said had criminal records — 22 men and one woman — the agency identified 14 with arrests or convictions for violent acts or sex crimes. The remaining nine were accused of violations such as drug possession, vehicle theft, driving under the influence, reentering the country after having been deported and a traffic offense.
One man had been arrested for public urination and disturbing the peace.
To, who DHS described as a Vietnamese national with convictions for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and aggravated assault, had been living in Westwego after his release from a Texas state prison on parole years earlier, according to public records. He was re-arrested by Border Patrol agents on the first day of the south Louisiana operation.
To told reporters after his arrest that he welcomed the idea of being deported to Vietnam, though he had little connection to the country.
“I’d be grateful to go to Vietnam, even though I don’t know nothing,” he said. “I came over here when I was so young.”
A DHS press release said To had a previous homicide conviction. A Dallas County, Texas court docket, however, says that his 1989 homicide charge was dropped around the time he was convicted of other counts. Dallas County court officials did not immediately respond to requests for detailed records of the case. To and people who know him could not be reached.
It was unclear whether U.S. officials would seek to deport To and another Vietnamese man detained in Louisiana, Hung Ngoc Tran, back to Vietnam. Vietnamese nationals are among those the administration has deported to “third” countries to which they have no connection as it seeks to accelerate deportations.
McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, did not respond to an inquiry about the inconsistencies in To’s criminal record. Asked about the agency’s plans to deport To and Tran, she defended the administration’s practice of third-country deportations without providing specifics on the men’s cases.
“If an illegal alien’s home country is not taking them, they’re not taking them for a reason: they are dangerous criminals. …That doesn’t mean they get to stay in the United States,” McLaughlin said. “That is why these third country agreements, which ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution, are so essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people.”
One man touted by DHS as a detainee of the Border Patrol-led operation was swept up by a different agency, records show.
A special agent from Homeland Security Investigations investigated Carlos Roberto Guardado-Ramirez and ICE arrested him, the records say. In an affidavit charging Guardado-Ramirez, of Honduras, with felony illegal reentry this week, an HSI agent wrote that Guardado-Ramirez had reentered the country after being deported in 2006.
He was arrested Dec. 3 — the same day Border Patrol launched its operation — by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations officers in LaPlace, according to the affidavit.
His mugshot appeared the next day in a DHS press release touting Border Patrol arrests.
Staff writers Sophie Kasakove and Quinn Coffman contributed to this report.
