federal judge

NEW ORLEANS — About 250 federal border agents are expected to launch a months-long immigration crackdown Monday in southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi.

The operation dubbed “Swamp Sweep,” which aims to arrest 5,000 people, is centered in liberal New Orleans and is the latest federal immigration enforcement operation to target a Democratic-run city as President Trump’s administration pursues its mass deportation agenda.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who has led aggressive operations in Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, N.C., is expected to lead the campaign.

Many in the greater New Orleans area, particularly in Latino communities, have been on edge since the planned operations were reported this month. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he welcomes the federal agents.

Here’s what to know:

Border Patrol tactics criticized

Bovino has become the Trump administration’s go-to operative for leading large-scale, high-profile immigration enforcement campaigns. During his operation in Chicago, federal agents rappelled from a helicopter into an apartment complex and fired pepper balls and tear gas at protesters.

Federal agents arrested more than 3,200 immigrants during a surge in the Chicago area in recent months, but have not provided many details. Court documents on roughly 600 recent arrests showed that only a few of those arrested had criminal records representing a “high public safety risk,” according to federal government data.

The Border Patrol, which does not typically operate in dense urban areas or in situations with protesters, has been accused of heavy-handed tactics, prompting several lawsuits. A federal judge in Chicago this month accused Bovino of lying and rebuked him for deploying chemical irritants against protesters.

Bovino has doubled down on the efficacy of his agency’s operations.

“We’re finding and arresting illegal aliens, making these communities safer for the Americans who live there,” he said in a post on X.

Louisiana’s strict enforcement laws

The Department of Justice has accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement and included it on a list of 18 so-called sanctuary cities. The city’s jail, which has been under long-standing oversight from a federal judge, does not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under most circumstances, and its Police Department views immigration enforcement as a civil matter outside its jurisdiction.

Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature, however, has passed laws to compel New Orleans agencies to align with the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration stance.

One such law makes it a crime to “knowingly” do something intended to “hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart” federal immigration enforcement efforts. Anyone who violates the law could face fines and up to a year of jail time.

Additionally, lawmakers expanded the crime of malfeasance in office, which is punishable by up to 10 years in jail, for government officials who refuse to comply with requests from agencies like ICE. It also prohibits police and judges from releasing from their custody anyone who “illegally entered” the U.S. “or unlawfully remained” here without providing advance notice to ICE.

New Orleans braces

In and around New Orleans, some immigration lawyers say they have been inundated with calls from people trying to prepare for the upcoming operation. One attorney, Miguel Elias, says his firm is conducting many consultations virtually or by telephone because people are too afraid to come in person.

He likens the steps many in the immigrant community are taking to what people do to prepare for a hurricane — hunker down or evacuate. Families are stocking up on groceries and making arrangements for friends to take their children to school to limit how frequently they leave the house, he said.

In the days leading up to Border Patrol’s planned operations, businesses have posted signs barring federal agents from entry and grassroots advocacy groups have offered rights-related training and workshops on documenting the planned crackdown.

New Orleans is famous for its blend of cultures, but only around 6.7% of its population of nearly 400,000 is foreign-born, rising to almost 10% in neighboring metro areas. That’s still well below the national average of 14.3%, according to U.S. census data.

The Latino population ballooned during rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now makes up around 14% of the city , according to figures compiled by the New Orleans-based Data Center.

The Pew Research Center estimates 110,000 immigrants who lack permanent legal status were living in Louisiana as of 2023, constituting approximately 2.4% of the state’s population. Most of them are from Honduras.

Amanda Toups, who owns the New Orleans Cajun restaurant Toups Meatery and runs a nonprofit to help feed neighbors in need, said she expects the federal operations will hurt the city’s tourism-dependent economy, which supports the rest of Louisiana.

“If you’re scaring off even 5% of tourism, that’s devastating,” she said. “You’re brown and walking around in town somewhere and you could get tackled by ICE and you’re an American citizen? Does that make you want to travel to New Orleans?”

Brook, Santana and Cline write for the Associated Press and reported from New Orleans, Washington and Baton Rouge, La., respectively.

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration Thursday to find the money to fully fund SNAP benefits for November.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. gave President Trump’s administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though it’s unlikely the 42 million Americans — about 1 in 8, most of them in poverty — will see the money on the debit cards they use for groceries nearly that quickly.

The order was in response to a challenge from cities and nonprofits complaining that the administration was only offering to cover 65% of the maximum benefit, a decision that would have left some recipients getting nothing for this month.

“The defendants failed to consider the practical consequences associated with this decision to only partially fund SNAP,” McConnell said in a ruling from the bench after a brief hearing. “They knew that there would be a long delay in paying partial SNAP payments and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

McConnell was one of two judges who ruled last week that the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely because of the federal shutdown.

The Trump administration chose partial payments this week

Last month, the administration said that it would halt SNAP payments for November if the government shutdown wasn’t resolved.

A coalition of cities and nonprofits sued in federal court in Rhode Island and Democratic state officials from across the country did so in Massachusetts.

The judges in both cases ordered the government to use one emergency reserve fund containing more than $4.6 billion to pay for SNAP for November but gave it leeway to tap other money to make the full payments, which cost between $8.5 billion and $9 billion each month.

On Monday, the administration said it would not use additional money, saying it was up to Congress to appropriate the funds for the program and that the other money was needed to shore up other child hunger programs.

The partial funding brought on complications

McConnell harshly criticized the Trump administration for making that choice.

“Without SNAP funding for the month of November, 16 million children are immediately at risk of going hungry,” he said. “This should never happen in America. In fact, it’s likely that SNAP recipients are hungry as we sit here.”

Tyler Becker, the attorney for the government, unsuccessfully argued that the Trump administration had followed the court’s order in issuing the partial payments. “This all comes down to Congress not having appropriated funds because of the government shutdown,” he said.

Kristin Bateman, a lawyer for the coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations, told the judge the administration had other reasons for not fully funding the benefits.

“What defendants are really trying to do is to leverage people’s hunger to gain partisan political advantage in the shutdown fight,” Bateman told the court.

McConnell said last week’s order required that those payments be made “expeditiously” and “efficiently” — and by Wednesday — or a full payment would be required. “Nothing was done consistent with the court’s order to clear the way to expeditiously resolve it,” McConnell said.

There were other twists and turns this week

The administration said in a court filing on Monday that it could take weeks or even months for some states to make calculations and system changes to load the debit cards used in the SNAP program. At the time, it said it would fund 50% of the maximum benefits.

The next day, Trump appeared to threaten not to pay the benefits at all unless Democrats in Congress agreed to reopen the government. His press secretary later said that the partial benefits were being paid for November — and that it is future payments that are at risk if the shutdown continues.

And Wednesday night, it recalculated, telling states that there was enough money to pay for 65% of the maximum benefits.

Under a decades-old formula in federal regulations, everyone who received less than the maximum benefit would get a larger percentage reduction. Some families would have received nothing and some single people and two-person households could have gotten as little as $16.

Carmel Scaife, a former day care owner in Milwaukee who hasn’t been able to work since receiving multiple severe injuries in a car accident seven years ago, said she normally receives $130 a month from SNAP. She said that despite bargain hunting, that is not nearly enough for a month’s worth of groceries.

Scaife, 56, said that any cuts to her benefit will mean she will need to further tap her Social Security income for groceries. “That’ll take away from the bills that I pay,” she said. “But that’s the only way I can survive.”

The next legal step is unclear

This type of order is usually not subject to an appeal, but the Trump administration has challenged other rulings like it before.

An organization whose lawyers filed the challenge signaled it would continue the battle if needed.

“We shouldn’t have to force the President to care for his citizens,” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement, “but we will do whatever is necessary to protect people and communities.”

It often takes SNAP benefits a week or more to be loaded onto debit cards once states initiate the process.

Mulvihill and Casey write for the Associated Press. AP writers Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, La.; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn.; and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.