Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents are now working in the New Orleans area.
On Wednesday, the United States Department of Homeland Security officially launched what it's calling "Operation Catahoula Crunch," sending agents into the region to search for and to arrest undocumented immigrants.
So what can we expect from this operation?
If Operation Catahoula Crunch is anything like the other ICE and Border Patrol operations in other parts of the U. S., it will move methodically. Alex Silverman, a reporter at our sister station KNX in Los Angeles, covered the ICE and Border Patrol efforts there. He says federal agents began their operations in the heart of the city.
"They focused on area, and then it started popping up over the next several weeks after the initial focus on downtown L. A., you started seeing operations pop up in various suburbs," Silverman said, noting that ICE and Border Patrol agents began fanning out into Los Angeles's suburbs, including cities located as far away as 50 miles from downtown.
According to Silverman, the intial push may be swift, but he says agents there scaled back their raids after a few weeks. However, he says those federal agents continue to operate in both Los Angeles proper and the city's suburbs.
"Then it kind of scaled back and turned into this . . . okay, occasionally, every couple of week's we'll hear about a raid happening at such-and-such a business and such-and-such a place," Silverman said. "We hear about them from time to time. Every couple of weeks, we'll hear about something popping up somewhere, and it's been spread across a wide part of Southern California."
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