US Deploys 350 Troops To New Orleans As Crackdown Intensifies

The Trump administration is sending about 350 Louisiana National Guard troops to New Orleans, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, deploying military forces to another American city that has been the target of an immigration crackdown.

The troops will “will support federal law enforcement partners, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, as they enforce federal law and counter high rates of violent crime in New Orleans and other metropolitan areas in Louisiana,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, a Republican, had asked for the deployment in September. He had sought 1,000 National Guard troops to address what he characterized as ongoing public safety concerns throughout the state.

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security had announced an immigration enforcement operation in New Orleans dubbed Operation Catahoula Crunch as part of President Donald Trump’s stepped-up bid to focus on Democratic-led cities in red states. The city has for years maintained sanctuary-city policies that restrict cooperation with federal civil immigration enforcement.

Trump told reporters in early September that he was weighing whether to send the National Guard to New Orleans. He pointed to a request from the Louisiana governor, who Trump said “wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad.”

The move may nonetheless face legal challenges. Hours before the announcement on Tuesday, the Supreme Court refused to let Trump start deploying National Guard troops in Chicago, dealing a setback to his drive to use the military in liberal cities across the country.

Trump has so far ordered deployments in cities including Los Angeles, Washington, Memphis, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon. His administration had repeatedly threatened to crack down on protests and immigration in New Orleans, and Landry had said earlier he wanted the National Guard deployed to the city by Christmas.

US law generally bars the use of the active-duty armed forces — the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — from carrying out domestic law enforcement. The law doesn’t apply to state-controlled National Guard forces.

New Orleans’s Mexican-born mayor-elect Helena Moreno has voiced concerns about the Trump administration’s intentions, urging residents to understand the legal protections available to them.