Kenner, Los Angeles — Velma Cruz, a mother of two, had just arrived at her newly rented home Louisiana Her home this week when federal agents surrounded her car in the driveway. She had enough time to call her eldest son before they smashed the passenger window and arrested her.
The 38-year-old Honduran house painter was swept away Immigration campaign Which largely targeted Keener, A Spanish pocket Just outside New Orleans, some parents at risk of deportation scrambled to arrange emergency custody plans for their children in case they were arrested.
Federal agents have made more than 250 arrests this month across southeast Louisiana, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the latest in a series of enforcement operations that have also unfolded in Los Angeles. chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina. In some homes, the arrests removed parents who were caregivers and breadwinners, leaving some teens to grow up quickly and replace absent mothers and fathers at home.
Cruz’s arrest forced her son Jonathan Escalante, an 18-year-old US citizen who recently finished high school, to care for his 9-year-old sister, who suffers from a physical disability. Escalante is now trying to access his mother’s bank account, locate his sister’s and doctors’ medical records, and figure out how to pay bills in his mother’s name.
“Honestly, I’m not ready, because I have to take on all these responsibilities,” Escalante told the Associated Press. “But I’m willing to put up with them if I have to. And I’m just praying to God that I get my mom back.”
Dubbed “Catahoula Crunch,” the campaign aims to: 5000 arrests. The Department of Homeland Security has said it targets violent crime perpetrators but has released few details about who it arrests. Records reviewed by the AP found that the majority of detainees were taken into custody in the first two days of the effort They had no criminal history.
This week, Louisiana Governor Billy Nungesser, a Republican, became the first state official to break with his party over the operations. He criticized them for undermining the regional economy by causing labor shortages because even migrants with valid work permits stayed home out of fear.
“So I think there needs to be some clarity about the plan,” Nungesser said. “Are they going to take everyone, regardless of whether they have children, and leave the children behind?”
The Department of Homeland Security said Cruz locked herself in the vehicle and refused to lower the window and exit the vehicle as commanded, forcing agents to break the window to open the door. She is being held in federal custody awaiting deportation proceedings, officials said.
Immigrant rights groups say the operation applies a racialized targeting approach to Hispanic communities.
In the weeks before the crackdown began, dozens of families without legal status sought to make emergency custody arrangements with relatives, with the help of pro bono legal specialists at events organized by advocacy groups in Kenner and throughout the New Orleans area.
“Kids go to school not sure if their parents are going to come home at the end of the day,” Raisa Peter, a member of the Louisiana Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said at a City Council meeting Wednesday in Jefferson Parish, which includes Kenner.
Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he receives dozens of calls a day from families in Louisiana who are worried about being separated from their children. His organization helps Escalante navigate life without his mother, and he wants to prepare her son for the worst.
“He believes she will return home within a couple of days, but it could take weeks or months, or she could be deported,” Proanio said.
The Cruz family was supposed to move into their new home next month. She rented it so her son could finally sleep in his own room.
Kenner resident Christy Rogers watched masked agents detain Cruz, a soon-to-be neighbor she had not yet met. Rogers said her heart went out to Cruz, and she wondered why she was targeted.
“I support them trying to purge the criminals in our area, but I hope that’s all they’re detaining and deporting — the criminals,” Rogers said.
Jefferson and Orleans Parish court records did not reveal any criminal history for Cruz, and her son said she had a clean record.
In conservative Kenner, where Latinos make up about a third of the population and Donald Trump has won the last three presidential elections, Police Chief Keith Conley said last week that the federal immigration process is an “answered prayer.”
As evidence of the violence perpetrated by immigrants in his city, Conley shared about a dozen press releases issued since 2022 documenting crimes in which the suspect was identified as being in the United States illegally, including sex crimes, murders, gang activities and shootings. Residents are also at risk from unlicensed and uninsured immigrant drivers, he said.
“I think such missions undertaken by the government are welcome because they will change the overall landscape of the city and make improvements,” Conley said.
Jose Reyes, a Honduran builder and landscaper whose family says has lived in the United States for 16 years, stayed home for weeks to avoid federal agents. But the father of four had rent to pay, so last week he drove to the nearby bank.
Unmarked vehicles began following Reyes and stopped alongside his car while he was parked in front of his home in Kenner. Video reviewed by the AP showed several agents jumping in and pulling Reyes out of his car as his daughters screamed for mercy.
“We were begging them to let him go,” said his eldest daughter, 19-year-old Helen Leonor Reyes. “It’s the person who provides food, pays the bills, pays the rent. We were pleading with them because they were leaving a family in complete darkness, trying to figure out what to do, and figure out where to get the money to get by.”
Asked about the arrest, the Department of Homeland Security said Jose Reyes had committed an unspecified felony and had previously been deported from the United States. The agency did not provide details.
His daughter, who works in a local restaurant, said that her salary is not enough to cover the heads of her three younger siblings, and she says that two of them were born in the United States and are American citizens. The youngest child, 4, was cared for by her mother, who watched the agents kidnap her father from the entrance.
Reyes said she is also looking for a lawyer for her father’s case. But they need to locate him first.
“We didn’t get that information,” Reyes said. “We were given absolutely nothing.”
Reyes tried to protect her siblings from the stress surrounding their father’s detention.
Escalante has yet to tell his sister about their mother’s arrest, hoping Cruz will be released before he has to explain her absence.
“I’m technically the adult in the house now,” he said. “I have to make these difficult choices.”
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Klein reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
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Brock is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America It is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.