Shops empty in a Hispanic neighborhood as immigration crackdown comes to Louisiana

KENNER, La. (AP) — The doors of Carmela Diaz’s taco joint are locked, the tables are devoid of customers and no one is working in the kitchen. It’s one of many once-thriving Hispanic businesses, from Nicaraguan eateries to Honduran restaurants, emptied out in recent weeks in neighborhoods with lots of signs in Spanish but increasingly fewer people on the streets.

In the city of Kenner, which has the highest concentration of Hispanic residents in Louisiana, a federal immigration crackdown aiming for 5,000 arrests has devastated an economy already struggling from ramped-up enforcement efforts this year, some business owners say, and had far-reaching impacts on both immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.

“Fewer and fewer people came,” said a crying Diaz, whose Taqueria La Conquistadora has been closed for several weeks now with both customers and workers afraid to leave home. “There were days we didn’t sell anything. That’s why I made the decision to close the business — because there was no business.”

On Wednesday, convoys of federal vehicles began rumbling back and forth down Kenner’s main commercial streets as the Department of Homeland Security commenced the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations that have included surges in Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina. Bystanders have posted videos of federal agents detaining people outside Kenner businesses and at construction sites.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino also made an appearance in the city, surrounded by agents in tactical gear, to tout to reporters the launch of the operation dubbed Catahoula Crunch, a name derived from the big game hound that is the Louisiana state dog.

A community on edge

The state’s Hispanic population has boomed in the last two decades, with many of them arriving in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina to help rebuild. In Kenner, just west of New Orleans between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, Hispanics make up about 30% of residents.

Diaz, who is from El Salvador, arrived in 2006 after years of doing farm work in Texas. She opened food trucks, earning enough to buy a home in Kenner, and her business has since expanded to a fleet of trucks and two brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Nearly all that is shuttered at the moment due to the crackdown, and Diaz is scraping by through making home deliveries to people fearful of being swept up by agents.

“They don’t respect anyone,” Diaz said. “They don’t ask for documents. They don’t investigate. They slap the handcuffs on them and take them away.”

DHS says operations target violent offenders

Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Thursday that federal agents have already made dozens of arrests, though the agency has not released a full list of people detained.

“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens harming them, their families, or their neighbors,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “In just 24 hours on the ground, our law enforcement officers have arrested violent criminals with rap sheets that include homicide, kidnapping, child abuse, robbery, theft, and assault.”

The office of Mayor Michael Glaser, a former police chief, declined to comment on his stance on the operation. But it said the crackdown “falls under federal jurisdiction” and the mayor expects all agencies operating in the city to conduct themselves “professionally, lawfully and with respect for our community.” It also said the city is “not participating in or advising” on the operation.

However, the city’s police are among the hundreds of local and state law enforcement agencies nationwide that have signed agreements to be part of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that authorizes them to hold detainees for potential deportation.

Fearing for vulnerable relatives

Sergio Perez, a Guatemalan immigrant and U.S. citizen who has lived in Kenner since 2010, said he has loved ones there who lack legal permission to be in the country risk and being detained or deported. He also worries that anyone who is Hispanic is at risk of abuse by federal agents, regardless of their immigration status.

While Perez considers Kenner home — a place where it’s easy to find favorite dishes like “caldo de res,” a hearty beef and vegetable stew — he’s prepared to leave the country if family members are deported.

“They don’t want us here,” Perez said. “It’s like you are in someone’s house and you don’t feel welcome. They’re just killing our spirit.”

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Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writer Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.