What we covered here
• Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino, who is leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, was in New Orleans today as the Department of Homeland Security announced the start of a new enforcement blitz dubbed “Operation Catahoula Crunch.”
• In Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, a Somali refugee and city council member claimed immigration authorities are targeting all people of Somali descent, even US citizens.
• President Donald Trump again today disparaged Somalis during a Cabinet meeting, saying Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia, “and her friends” shouldn’t be allowed to serve as members of Congress as he continued to accuse Somalis of destroying the state.
Our live coverage of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has ended for the day. Read more here.
DHS top official: "Rally Congress" but don’t go after our law enforcement officers
The Department of Homeland Security’s top official urged people to contact a member of Congress if they have issues with federal immigration enforcement actions taking place, saying the attacks on federal agents carrying out the operations is fueling an increase in assaults against them, according to an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News’ Sean Hannity people are targeting officers’ spouses, children and putting sensitive information about them on the dark web.
A review of federal court records by Colorado Public Radio revealed a 25% increase in people facing charges for assault against federal officers through mid-September, as compared to the same period last year.
“These are the men and women who are actually making our community safer,” McLaughlin told Hannity.
The Trump administration has repeatedly said its federal crackdown on immigration – which has swept blue states such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and most recently, New Orleans and the Twin Cities – is targeting the “worst of the worst” or the most violent criminals. But leaders in those cities have said the operations have led to arrests of people who have no criminal history.
CNN witnesses armed agents approaching man for identification in Twin Cities
As Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey met with community members at a mall catering to Somali patrons today — listening to their concerns about the ICE operations planned in two Minnesota cities — a different scene played out just outside.
Three vehicles with tinted windows and Virginia plates pulled to a stop near a man who was panhandling outside the mall and multiple armed men in law enforcement vests marked “ERO,” or Enforcement and Removal Operations, came out, CNN witnessed.
The man was asked for his identification before being let go, he later told CNN. He said he is a 35-year-old US citizen who was born in Buffalo, New York.
The man, who declined to give his name, said he showed the agents his “papers,” and added he wouldn’t have had a problem with doing so had the agents not been so “aggressive.”
“They grabbed my hand,” he said. “You shouldn’t do that. … Other than that, I got no problem being verified.”
Video taken by CNN shows the agents inspecting the man’s papers on a snowy street before walking away.
The man said he told the agents he’d like to work for them.
The interaction comes after a source with knowledge of the plans told CNN a new immigration operation targeting undocumented Somali immigrants in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, has begun.
Minneapolis mayor to Trump: visit our city, where you won’t find a "hellhole"
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is fighting back against President Donald Trump’s claims the city is a “hellhole,” inviting the president to make a visit so he can witness how its Somali community uplifts the city and is proud to be there.
Trump had called Frey a “fool” in remarks to reporters, saying the Somali community – which his administration is targeting in Minnesota in an immigration enforcement operation currently underway – has “destroyed our country.”
In response, Frey said: “That’s neither clever nor is it right. Here’s the thing: Come out to Minneapolis. What you won’t find is a hellhole but a beautiful city.”
If officers are “indiscriminately going after people,” Frey continued, then their due process is violated, and the constitution is “being thrown in a garbage.”
The mayor said Somali residents in Minneapolis are “almost universally American citizens” who have arrived in the country legally. “They’ve been here in many cases for decades, and they have contributed greatly to the fabric of who we are,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino and federal agents walk around New Orleans’ French Quarter
Video credit: FNTV
Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official, was walking around New Orleans’ French Quarter today as an immigration crackdown was set to begin in the Big Easy.
Video from FNTV shows Bovino surrounded by federal agents in full gear, some of whom were wearing masks.
During his walk, Bovino took occasional questions from reporters and at one point spoke to and took pictures with two people who appeared supportive of him, the video shows.
In another instance, a person in a car curses at Bovino and the other agents, the video shows.
Earlier in the day Bovino was seen in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans.
Bovino is leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in cities across the country.
He has become the on-the-ground face of the president’s effort to deploy more federal agents to blue states and cities.
Video credit: FNTV
Protesters near the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport denounce ICE operations targeting Somalis
Protesters denouncing ICE operations in the Twin Cities targeting Somalis gathered near the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport facility that serves as a flying base for deportation flights.
Video credit: Associated Press
Said Mohamed, an Uber and Lyft driver, said the entire community yesterday heard President Donald Trump referring to Somalis as “garbage” who should “go back to where they came from.”
“They really feel real disgusted that he’s dividing us by Somalis, you know, Mexicans, Asians, Black, White. And that’s not what America is about,” Mohamed said.
Remember: The Minneapolis-St. Paul area is home to about 84,000 people of Somali descent, making it the largest population in the US, according to the US Census Bureau.
Minneapolis-St. Paul area is home to largest population of people of Somali descent in the US
The Minneapolis-St. Paul area is home to about 84,000 people of Somali descent, making it the largest population in the US, according to the US Census Bureau.
Almost 58% of the Somalis in Minnesota were born in the US, according to the US Census Bureau. Of the foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota, an overwhelming majority — 87% — are naturalized US citizens. Of the foreign-born population, almost half entered the US in 2010 or later, per census data.
Citizens of Somalia were first granted Temporary Protected Status in 1991 when the country was plunged into chaos after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown. In 2013, the US officially recognized the Somali government in Mogadishu for the first time in two decades, CNN reported.
Somalia has maintained Temporary Protected Status “due to insecurity and ongoing armed conflict that present serious threats to the safety of returnees,” according to the legislation.
One of the latest Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations will specifically target undocumented Somali immigrants in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, a federal official told CNN on Tuesday. The community is one of the few President Donald Trump has focused on directly for years.
Rep. Ilhan Omar says Trump is “trying to scapegoat and deflect” from failures by targeting Somalis
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said Wednesday that she’s not surprised by President Donald Trump’s rhetoric against her and other Somalis in Minnesota, insisting that he is “trying to scapegoat and deflect” from his “actual failures.”
When pressed by Tapper on the effect of Trump’s comments on the Somali community, Omar said there is fear that they could embolden people to “attack and harm” Somalis across the country.
Responding to the new immigration operation targeting undocumented Somali immigrants that is underway in Minnesota, Omar added that “we know it has really nothing to do about keeping a community safe. It’s actually terrorizing a community and creating fear.”
Trump has repeatedly singled out Somalis over the past week in the aftermath of the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, despite the alleged shooter in that case being an Afghan immigrant.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump said Omar, a Somali immigrant and “her friends” shouldn’t be allowed to serve as members of Congress. And on Tuesday, the president referred to Somalis in Minnesota as “garbage” who should “go back to where they came from.”
“We don’t want them in our country,” he said following a cabinet meeting. “Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”
Immigration enforcement activities now banned from Minneapolis-owned parking lots, other areas under new order
Federal, state and local agencies are now banned from using any Minneapolis-owned parking lots, ramps, garages or vacant lots to conduct immigration enforcement operations under a new executive order signed by Mayor Jacob Frey on Wednesday.
The order – which comes as the Trump administration rolls out plans for an operation targeting Minnesota’s Somali undocumented immigrant population – also directs city staff to design a sign template to “identify non-public areas in which they wish to lawfully restrict activities related to civil immigration enforcement.”
Property owners and leaseholders can display the signage “at their own discretion and assume any legal risk associated therewith,” the order says.
The city cited how federal immigration officers previously used parking lots to stage operations in Chicago, which prompted Mayor Brandon Johnson to sign a similar, “ICE Free Zone” executive order prohibiting federal immigration agents from any city-owned property.
African-led US organization calls Trump's remarks on Somalis in Minnesota xenophobic
African Communities Together, the largest African-led organization in the country, criticized President Donald Trump’s remarks about Minnesota’s Somali community, calling them xenophobic and “out of touch with the reality of what is happening on the ground.”
“Anyone who lives in Minnesota knows the contributions of the Somali community are deep and far-reaching. It is undeniable. Trump’s xenophobic and racist language is not only disgusting, it is also out of touch with the reality of what is happening on the ground in Minnesota and across the country. Xenophobic and hateful language is not the foundation that greatness is built off of. Welcoming, respect, and togetherness is,” said Abdirahman “Abdi” Muse, deputy executive director of chapter development at African Communities Together.
Remember: Trump has escalated his scathing remarks against Somalia and Somalis, saying today that they have destroyed Minnesota. “It’s a hell hole right now. And the Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country, and all they do is complain, complain, complain.”
During a Cabinet meeting yesterday, he said he does not want Somali immigrants in the United States, referring to them as “garbage” who should “go back to where they came from.”
As CNN has reported, a new immigration operation targeting undocumented Somali immigrants has begun in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, according to a source.
Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino spotted in New Orleans suburb
Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official, was seen at a Home Depot parking lot in Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, amid an immigration enforcement operation in the Big Easy.
Bovino was flanked by masked Border Patrol agents as he walked through the parking lot and answered questions from reporters, video from the Associated Press shows.
The commander eventually gets into an unmarked law enforcement vehicle while other agents get into another SUV, the video shows.
Bovino is leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in cities across the country.
He has become the on-the-ground face of the president’s effort to deploy more federal agents to blue states and cities.
Credit: Associated Press
Trump again attacks Rep. Ilhan Omar as ICE targets Somalis in Minnesota
President Donald Trump said Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar “and her friends” shouldn’t be allowed to serve as members of Congress as he continued to accuse Somalis of destroying the state.
“She shouldn’t be allowed to be a congresswoman, and I’m sure people are looking at that, and she should be thrown the hell out of our country,” Trump said of Omar, a Somali immigrant, during an Oval Office event today.
“All she does is complain about this country. Without this country, she would not be in very good shape. She probably wouldn’t be alive right now. So Somalia is considered by many to be the worst country on Earth. I don’t know. I haven’t been there. I won’t be there anytime soon, I hope,” Trump added.
The comments mark the latest escalation in Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric against Somalis in Minnesota, and he reiterated that he doesn’t want them in the United States. This comes as a new immigration operation targeting undocumented Somali immigrants has begun in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, a source with knowledge of the plans told CNN.
“That beautiful land, that beautiful state, it’s a hell hole right now. And the Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country, and all they do is complain, complain, complain,” the president said on Wednesday.
“She’s a disaster,” Trump said of Omar. “She should not be, and her friends shouldn’t be allowed – frankly, they shouldn’t be allowed to be congresspeople because they don’t represent the interests of our country.”
Video shows men standing on roof as federal agents conduct immigration raid in New Orleans suburb
Video credit: FNTV
Video shows two men standing on a roof Wednesday as federal agents surrounded a home in a New Orleans suburb.
Agents wearing Border Patrol vests are also seen detaining at least one person in Kenner, Louisiana. Some of the agents are masked, the video shows.
At one point, an agent tells bystanders to back away from an unmarked law enforcement vehicle.
The roof is under construction, and it is unclear what happened before the video started or whether the two men are undocumented.
Border Patrol officers were conducting immigration enforcement operations in the area when people ran onto to the roof and were chased, one of the agents told FNTV in the video.
Several people came down on their own and were taken into custody, the agent added.
The incident occurred on the first day of the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration crackdown in New Orleans, called Operation Catahoula Crunch.
CNN has reached out to Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Video credit: FNTV
New Orleans leaders concerned immigration operation targets city’s most vulnerable populations
Immigrants are a vital part of New Orleans, and much of the community believes the new federal immigration operation is not targeting the most violent people but is instead an effort to “round up one of the most vulnerable populations,” said City Councilmember Oliver Thomas.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated the region in 2005, the immigrant community helped rebuild critical infrastructure, repair homes, and restore commercial properties, Thomas said.
While city officials want the most violent people off the streets, Thomas said they are concerned about the profiling of Black and brown communities by “roaming posses,” echoing statements made earlier in the day by Mayor-elect Helena Moreno.
“This isn’t gun smoke,” Thomas told CNN. “… We have local law enforcement authorities. To me, it should be easy to coordinate with them, to talk about how do we apprehend the most violent criminals, the ones who are hurting us, whether they’re homegrown or illegal immigrants? There’s got to be a better way to do it.”
ACLU sues to block controversial Louisiana law making it a crime to "interfere" with ICE
As the Trump Administration launches the immigration enforcement effort the Department of Homeland Security has dubbed “Operation Catahoula Crunch” – previously referred to as “Operation Swamp Sweep” – across Louisiana, the ACLU filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a controversial state law making it a crime to “interfere, ignore, or thwart federal immigration enforcement efforts.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the nonprofit Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy (ISLA), argues “Act 399,” violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by “criminalizing protected speech, including Know Your Right presentations that explain immigrants’ legal protections during ICE arrests.”
Under the law, which went into effect in August, such presentations would be labeled as an “obstruction of justice” punishable by up to a year in prison with hard labor and thousands of dollars in fines, the ACLU said in a news release.
“ISLA was concerned that Act 399 could be invoked to prosecute, arrest, imprison, and fine the nonprofit and its agents if it continued to provide KYRs to the community,” the legal advocacy group said.
As a result, the organization stopped offering immigrant rights education presentations ahead of the launch of this week’s enforcement efforts.
CNN has reached out to Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, for comment.
Last week, Customs and Border Patrol thanked the attorney general for “standing with our officers and agents” after she shared a post on social media noting “it is against Louisiana law to obstruct (ICE) or (Customs and Border Patrol).”
In a statement following the lawsuit, Nora Ahmed, legal director for the ACLU of Louisiana, accused the attorney general of “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.”
Minneapolis city council member says immigration enforcement is targeting all Somalis, including US citizens
As the immigration operation targeting undocumented Somalis in Minnesota gets underway, a Somali refugee and Minneapolis city council member claims immigration enforcement authorities are targeting all people of Somali descent, even US citizens.
“They’re not just targeting so-called undocumented immigrants. They target all Somalis. Somali citizens have been stopped on the street, asked to provide documentation,” Minneapolis City Council member Jamal Osman, whose family moved to the US 26 years ago and represents the city’s largest East African community, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar Wednesday.
Minnesota is home to more than 79,000 Somalis, roughly 80% of whom reside in the Twin Cities, according to the Minnesota Compass.
“Let me just educate people. Ninety-five percent of the Somali residents in Minnesota are US citizens. Over 50% of those are born here,” Osman said. “So there’s a small number that are looking for asylum that are awaiting their asylum court date. And those folks are also in danger.”
President Donald Trump has long criticized the Somali community in Minnesota.
He referred to the community and US Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant who represents Minnesota, as “garbage” who should “go back to where they came from.”
The administrations’ most recent rhetoric has zeroed in on a nearly $300 million fraud scandal which centered on a nonprofit organization and a Covid-19 program meant to provide free meals to needy kids.
The vast majority of roughly 70 people charged in the case are members of the state’s Somali community, CNN has reported.
“We should not be painting the entire community with one brush and being singled out fellow Americans.” Osman said. “But now, President Donald Trump singling out and attacking one group of people…”
“I never thought there would be a time where I will tell my community to carry their passport around because you look like Somali,” the council member added.
Trump’s targeting of Minnesota Somalis is an attack on Black and Muslim community, CAIR official says
The Trump administration’s immigration operation targeting undocumented Somalis in Minnesota is an attack on the Black and Muslim community, according to the executive director of the state chapter of the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group.
“President Trump has a history of targeting Black people throughout his history,” said Jaylani Hussein, who held a news conference Wednesday with other leaders of the Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter. “This is no different. He’s also attacking the Muslim community, and that’s something he’s also continued to do.”
Hussein estimated that fewer than a thousand Somali immigrants are in Minnesota illegally and more than 90% of Somalis in the state are at minimum on pathways to citizenship. More than 51% of the state’s Somali population was born in the US, according to 2020 Census data.
“There are many Somalis who voted for President Trump. There are many Republican Somali Americans who are extremely disillusioned and frustrated with this attack against our community unfairly,” Hussein said, encouraging people to “stand up for truth.”
25-foot buffer zone law invoked during New Orleans-area ICE arrest was ruled unconstitutional months ago
A 2024 state law designed to bar anyone from getting within 25 feet of a law enforcement officer during an active operation was cited last week by police in suburban New Orleans to try to keep a bystander with a camera away as a police officer helped federal immigration officers arrest someone
The law, however, was ruled unconstitutional 10 months ago.
“The department is aware the law is not enforceable,” Gretna Deputy Police Chief Jason DiMarco said, adding his force “will continue to assist any Federal, state or local agency performing a lawful task in our city.”
The November 26 encounter has added to a sense of “mass chaos and confusion” as one New Orleans official put it, as local leaders and south Louisiana residents braced for the latest Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement crackdown, which began today.
The issue of the buffer zone law emerged after a police officer in Gretna – a city of about 17,000 people across the Mississippi River from New Orleans’ Garden District – invoked it late last month as he told someone to move away while videotaping him helping the federal immigration, video obtained by CNN affiliate WWL shows.
“We got a 25-foot zone. Back up,” the officer says, according to the video.
The person recording says he is allowed to record and keeps filming, WWL reported.
But while Louisiana’s majority-Republican state legislature passed the buffer zone law last year – with violators facing up to a $500 fine and two months in behind bars – it was temporarily blocked in January by US Judge John deGravelles of Louisiana’s Middle District after news media companies, including Gannett and Nexstar Media, sued Louisiana’s GOP attorney general and other state officials over it.
“The distance required is likely to impede Plaintiffs’ non-obstructive newsgathering, which, as explained in detail below, is protected by the First Amendment,” wrote deGravelles, a Barack Obama appointee, in his 61-page opinion.
State officials have appealed.
Four undocumented immigrants were arrested in the joint enforcement operation on November 26 with Gretna Police Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to CNN.
No one else was arrested in the encounter, DiMarco said, adding he would review the conduct of the officer who raised the matter of the 25-foot buffer, which DeMarco described as not standard operating procedure for his department.
Parents are afraid of being separated from their kids, Catholic priest says
A Catholic priest in Kenner, Louisiana, leading a predominantly Hispanic parish says his community is “afraid” but “have faith” as the immigration crackdown is underway in New Orleans.
“I am an immigrant so understand what they are going through,” Father Luis Duarte, an immigrant from Columbia at St. Jerome Catholic Church told CNN in a phone interview Tuesday.
During Sunday Mass, Duarte said he told parishioners they are not alone as the church plans to remain open and is there to help them.
Duarte said many parishioners are afraid, “especially those who are parents. The biggest fear they have is not to just lose the opportunity to be here, but to be separated from their children.”
Many in the Hispanic community, Duarte said, arrived to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to help rebuild the city.
Apart from providing spiritual guidance, Duarte shared he has offered to take food to his community or support them in any way he can.
Homeland Security secretary says "the worst of the worst" will be removed from New Orleans
Hours after the Department of Homeland Security officially confirmed the beginning of its long-awaited New Orleans immigration operation, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem weighed in on social media.
“The men and women of DHS law enforcement have landed in The Big Easy,” Noem posted on X. “Operation Catahoula Crunch will remove the worst of the worst from New Orleans, Louisiana, after the city’s sanctuary politicians have ignored the rule of law.”
New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris said earlier Wednesday that she believes the DHS stated goal of 5,000 arrests is unrealistic if they are truly only targeting the most dangerous suspects.
Noem’s statement was retweeted by operation commander Gregory Bovino.
“We are here arresting criminals who should not be here,” he added. “The state, local and federal law enforcement partners in Lousiana are excellent partners!!”
