New Orleans Immigration Arrests Lag Behind DHS Goals Amid Holiday Deportation Campaign

Operation Catahoula Crunch: Arrest Numbers and Goals

• 🎯 Operation Catahoula Crunch in New Orleans has a goal of 5,000 migrant arrests, but has fallen short in its first six days.
• 📉 Day one saw only 24 arrests, and day two had 14, a stark contrast to Operation Charlotte's Web which arrested 81 on its first day.

DHS Touts Arrests of Criminal Immigrants

• 🚨 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is highlighting arrests of individuals with convictions for serious crimes, including forcible rape, aggravated battery, strangulation, domestic abuse, and human smuggling.
• ⛓️ Among those arrested were also gang members.
• 🗣️ DHS Assistant Secretary Trisha McLofflin attributed the need for enforcement to sanctuary policies in New Orleans.

Community and Official Reactions

• ⛪ A Catholic church in New Orleans is offering a dispensation from mass attendance due to fears surrounding immigration enforcement operations.
• 🛡️ Governor Landry fully supports the operations and plans to deploy the National Guard to New Orleans streets as early as Christmas.

DHS Social Media Campaign and Self-Deportation

• 📱 DHS and the White House have faced backlash for using social media with holiday-themed memes and messages, such as "You're ho ho home" and "Santa's naughty list," to encourage deportations.
• ✈️ The White House posted a message encouraging self-deportation via the "deportation express."
• ⚖️ An immigration attorney described the holiday-themed jokes about deportations as "low class" and "upsetting."
• 📈 DHS continues to promote the CBP Home app to encourage self-deportation, with an estimated 1.6 million people having already used the app and its stipend for voluntary departure.