Goal of 5,000 arrests in ICE's New Orleans sweep questioned

Trump administration officials overseeing the immigration crackdown, launched this week in New Orleans are aiming to make 5,000 arrests with a focus on violent offenders, a target that some city leaders say is not realistic.

- BY JACK BROOK AND JOHN SEEWER

BORDER Patrol commander Greg Bovino walks Wednesday in New Orleans.

(MADISON THOM Anadolu)

It’s an ambitious goal that would surpass the number of arrests during a two-month enforcement blitz this fall around Chicago, a region with a much bigger immigrant population than New Orleans.

In Los Angeles — the first major battleground in President Trump’s aggressive immigration plan — roughly 5,000 people were arrested over the summer in an area where about a third of L.A. County’s roughly 10 million residents are foreign-born.

“There is no rational basis that a sweep of New Orleans, or the surrounding parishes, would ever yield anywhere near 5,000 criminals, let alone ones that are considered ‘violent’ by any definition,” New Orleans City Council President J.P. Morrell said Thursday.

Census Bureau figures show the New Orleans metro area had a foreign-born population of almost 100,000 residents last year, and that just under 60% were not U.S. citizens.

“The amount of violent crime attributed to illegal immigrants is negligible,” Morrell said, pointing out that crime in New Orleans is at historic lows.

Violent crimes, including murders, rapes and robberies, have fallen by 12% through October compared with a year ago, from a total of 2,167 violent crimes to 1,897 this year, according to New Orleans police statistics.

Federal agents in marked and unmarked vehicles began spreading out across New Orleans and its suburbs Wednesday, making arrests in home improvement store parking lots and patrolling neighborhoods with large immigrant populations.