Amid New Orleans immigration crackdown, legal advocates sue over prosecution threat

NEW ORLEANS (CN)— As the Trump administration launched immigration enforcement to New Orleans to ramp up detentions on Wednesday, an immigrant legal advocacy group claims state attorney general Liz Murrill’s threat of felony prosecution, fines and hard labor for anyone who hinders ICE arrests is unconstitutionally vague.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit in Louisiana federal court on behalf of Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy, or ISLA.

“This case is about the State of Louisiana’s unlawful attempts to use the threat of vague and overbroad felony charges to silence the residents of New Orleans, Louisiana, from speaking out about the rights of immigrants during the federal operation dubbed ‘Catahoula Crunch’ or ‘Operation Swamp Sweep,’” ISLA says in the lawsuit.

The organization challenges Louisiana Act 399, a law it says Murrill, a named defendant, has been using to threaten felony prosecution to anyone who stands up against federal and state law enforcement officers who are engaged in immigration-related arrests.

ISLA claims that Act 399 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by criminalizing protected speech, including Know Your Rights training presentations the organization conducts that explain immigrants’ legal protections during ICE arrests.

Brought into effect Aug. 1, 2025, Act 399 amended Louisiana’s Obstruction of Justice statute with the threat of felony prosecution for people who “knowingly commit any act intended to hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart federal immigration enforcement efforts.”

ISLA says it was stopped from providing critical community education programs on Nov. 18, 2025, after local news stories broke saying the federal government planned to ramp up operations.

“These broad threats against free speech are one of the first telltale signs of tyranny,” said Homero López, legal director for ISLA. “And we will not stand idly by while our government officials try to bully us into silence.”

ISLA says that demand for its Know Your Rights trainings increased in anticipation of the coming raids. The organization says it feared that if it continued to provide the training it could face arrest, imprisonment and fines under Act 399.

“As the Supreme Court already recognized, the ability to challenge government action without facing arrest is what separates a free nation from a police state,” said Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. “Louisiana is choosing the police state. We’re going to court to protect every Louisianan’s First Amendment right to speak truth to power.”

ISLA seeks a declaration that Act 399 is unconstitutional and barring its enforcement against ISLA for providing critical legal rights education to immigrant communities and their allies.

ISLA provides free legal representation to immigrants detained in Louisiana’s ten immigrant detention centers and is the only nonprofit in the state dedicated to providing free legal representation before the immigration courts to those in ICE custody, it says in the suit.

Louisiana’s immigration detention centers hold the second highest number of immigrant detainees in the country.

“For ISLA, it is critical to empower immigrant communities and their allies to standup against unlawful activity that may form part of Operation Swamp Sweep,” the organization writes.

It claims that Murrill’s threats demonstrate that Act 399 is intended to have a chilling effect on speech. Named defendants include Murrill, Anne Kirkpatrick, Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, Robert Hodges, Superintendent of Louisiana State Police, and Jason Williams, District Attorney for Orleans Parish.

“Nothing in the statutory language provides any notice to the public as to what conduct is proscribed and what conduct risks being charged with a felony,” it says in the suit.

On Nov. 24, 2025, Murrill issued statements online and on social media warning that anyone who might “interfere” with federal immigration operations could face federal prosecution.

“The Attorney General is wielding the law as broadly as she can in a desperate attempt to silence anyone who stands against the government’s cruel and inhumane immigration crackdown in this beloved City,” Nora Ahmed, legal director for the ACLU of Louisiana, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Teaching people that they don’t have to open their door if ICE doesn’t have a signed judicial warrant is protected speech, not a crime. We need a whole lot more teaching, not less, in order to curb the inevitable constitutional violations we have seen take place in other cities that are likely to result from this operation as well,” Ahmed said.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Wednesday that it is targeting immigrants that have been released after being arrested for a crime, and specifically called out New Orleans’ “sanctuary policies.”

“Sanctuary policies endanger American communities by releasing illegal criminal aliens and forcing DHS law enforcement to risk their lives to remove criminal illegal aliens that should have never been put back on the streets,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims. Catahoula Crunch targets include violent criminals who were released after arrest for home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto, and rape. Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, we are restoring law and order for the American people.”

The state attorney general’s spokesperson Lester Duhé passed along a statement from Murrill Wednesday afternoon: “I have not received service of process of this complaint apparently filed today. Our law is constitutional and we look forward to defending it in court.”

But on Thursday morning, just before a hearing before U.S. District Judge Nanette Brown of the Eastern District of Louisiana, Murrill clarified in a filing that her office has no intention of using Act 399 to target speech. During the hearing, attorneys for defendants Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick and DA Jason Williams agreed.

“The ACLU of Louisiana is heartened by the guidance from the senior law enforcement officer of the state, that Act 399 does not — and will not — apply to speech. It moots the need for the court to decide the temporary restraining order as ISLA is now able to conduct the very speech it believed was targeted by Act 399. The AG’s office has now made clear what we all wanted to know: that the public is safe to protest and speak freely under the First Amendment without fear of Act 399,” the ACLU said in a statement Thursday.

Friday morning, the lawsuit was dismissed.

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