Category: Louisiana News Feed

Fresh off an endorsement from President Donald Trump, Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana is launching a U.S. Senate bid against fellow Republican and second-term Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Letlow made her announcement Tuesday during a breakfast hosted by The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report.

“It’s an honor to share with you, after the endorsement and encouragement from the president, the president of the United States, Trump, that today I will officially be announcing my candidacy for the U.S. Senate,” she said, according to audio of the event obtained by The Associated Press.

The development further complicates Cassidy’s difficult reelection path and effectively marks the final failure of his attempts to placate the president after voting in 2021 to convict Trump on impeachment charges stemming from his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Cassidy confirmed Tuesday on X that he’d heard from Letlow personally.

“Congresswoman Letlow called me this morning to say she was running,” he wrote. “She said she respected me and that I had done a good job. I will continue to do a good job when I win re-election.”

A reliable Trump vote in the House, Letlow was elected to the House in a 2021 special election after her husband died of COVID complications shortly after winning the congressional seat. Letlow, who represents parts of north and central Louisiana, did not mention Cassidy during her 18-minute speech, instead emphasizing her support for Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy and tax bill that Trump signed last summer.

Trump’s backing of Letlow pits the White House against the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has endorsed Cassidy as part of its tradition of backing incumbents. Senate Majority Leader John Thune appeared publicly with Cassidy in Louisiana last week.

The move also underscores Trump’s alliance with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a firebrand conservative who months ago identified Letlow as an ideal challenger to Cassidy. Landry has since become Trump’s envoy to Greenland as the president pushes for a U.S. takeover of the semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.

Louisiana holds party primaries for federal offices on May 16. Only Republicans and independents can vote in the GOP primary. Several other Republicans have announced campaigns, including former congressman and current state Treasurer John Fleming and state Rep. Julie Emerson. Like Cassidy, Fleming had hoped to win Trump’s endorsement after having left Congress to serve in Trump’s first administration.

Cassidy, a physician who was once an outspoken critic of Republican health care policies before he entered politics himself, incensed Louisiana conservatives with his support for Trump’s conviction in 2021. Once Trump emerged as the party’s 2024 front-runner, Cassidy tried to return to the fold, with his official social media accounts consistently praising the president and casting him as a member of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

As Senate health committee chairman, Cassidy provided the decisive vote to advance Robert Kennedy Jr.’s controversial nomination as health secretary, despite the senator expressing concerns about Kennedy’s views on vaccines. Cassidy explained his vote saying he’d received assurances that Kennedy would not pursue certain changes to U.S. vaccine policy. Kennedy has proceeded to roll back U.S. vaccine recommendations.

Trump endorsed Letlow in a Truth Social post on Saturday. “Highly Respected America First Congresswoman, Julia Letlow, of the wonderful State of Louisiana, is a Great Star, has been from the very beginning, and only gets better!” he wrote. “Julia Letlow has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, JULIA, RUN!!!”

Cassidy, meanwhile, still has Trump featured in his social media accounts. Pinned atop his campaign X account is a snapshot of a red Trump hat, signed by the president and given to the senator in the Oval Office. Atop his official Senate account is a picture from the same day last fall, with Trump seated at his desk and Cassidy smiling over his shoulder.

“Great to be with @POTUS in the Oval Office today!” Cassidy wrote. “This is what a great working relationship looks like.”

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Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Federal immigration officers are pulling out of a Louisiana crackdown and heading to Minneapolis in an abrupt pivot from an operation that drew protests around New Orleans and aimed to make thousands of arrests, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The shift appeared to signal a wind-down of the Louisiana deployment that was dubbed “Catahoula Crunch” and began in December with the arrival of more than 200 officers. The operation had been expected to last into February and swiftly raised fears in immigrant communities.

The Trump administration has been surging thousands of federal officers to Minnesota under a sweeping new crackdown tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents. More than 2,000 officers are taking part in what the Department of Homeland Security has called the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever.

The officers in Minneapolis have been met with demonstrations and anger after an ICE officer fatally shot a woman on Wednesday.

Documents obtained by the AP indicated that federal officers stationed in Louisiana were continuing to depart for Minneapolis late this week.

“For the safety of our law enforcement, we do not disclose operational details while they are underway,” DHS said Friday in response to questions about whether the Louisiana deployment was ending in order to send officers to Minnesota.

In December, DHS deployed more than 200 federal officers to New Orleans to carry out a monthslong sweep in and around the city under Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, who was also the face of aggressive operations in Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, North Carolina. Bovino has been seen in Minneapolis this past week.

“Catahoula Crunch” began with a target of 5,000 arrests, the AP first reported. The operation had resulted in about 370 arrests as of Dec. 18, according to DHS.

Documents previously reviewed by AP showed the majority of people arrested in the Louisiana crackdown’s first days lacked criminal records and that authorities tracked online criticism and protests against the deployment.

Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry welcomed the crackdown. But New Orleans’ Democratic leaders called the 5,000-arrest target unrealistic and criticized videos that showed agents arresting or trying to detain residents, including a clip of a U.S. citizen being chased down the street by masked men near her house.

New Orleans’ Democratic leaders have been more welcoming of a National Guard deployment that President Donald Trump authorized after Landry asked for help fighting crime. The troops arrived just before the New Year’s Day anniversary of a truck attack on Bourbon Street that killed 14 people.

In the Hispanic enclave of Kenner just outside New Orleans, many immigrant-run businesses temporarily closed during the operation to protect customers whom they feared would be racially profiled by federal officers regardless of their legal status. Some restaurants recently announced they were reopening.

Carmela Diaz, a U.S. citizen born in El Salvador, has kept her Kenner taco restaurant Taqueria La Conquistadora shuttered for more than a month. She remains concerned that immigration officers could return but is considering resuming business soon.

“I’m going to wait and see this week,” she said. “I have a lot of clients who want to eat here.”

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Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report from Minneapolis.

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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.

The Trump administration is deploying 350 National Guard troops to New Orleans ahead of the New Year, launching another federal deployment in the city at the same time that an immigration crackdown led by Border Patrol is underway.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Tuesday that Guard members, as they have in other deployments in large cities, will be tasked with supporting federal law enforcement partners, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. Parnell added that the National Guard troops will be deployed through February.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, praised President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for coordinating the deployment and predicted the Guard’s presence would have a positive impact.

“It’s going to help us further crack down on the violence here in the city of New Orleans and elsewhere around Louisiana,” Landry said in an appearance on the Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show.” “And so a big shoutout to both of them.”

Critics have argued a National Guard deployment is unwarranted and could cause fear in the community, and they point out that New Orleans has actually seen a decrease in violent crime rates.

The deployment of the National Guard to the Democrat-led city comes as Border Patrol agents have been carrying out an immigration crackdown since the beginning of the month. According to the Department of Homeland Security, agents have arrested several hundred people during the first couple weeks of what is expected to be a months-long operation that has a goal of 5,000 arrests.

Back in September, Landry asked Trump to send a 1,000 federally funded troops to Louisiana cities, citing concerns about crime. Landry has praised Trump for sending troops to other cities, including Washington and Memphis, Tennessee.

The president has also taken a shine to Landry. Trump on Sunday announced he was appointing the governor to serve as his special envoy to Greenland, the strategic, vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark that Trump has said the U.S. needs to take over.

New Orleans has been on pace for much of the year to have its lowest number of murders in decades, according to preliminary data from the city’s police department. There have been 97 homicides in 2025 as of Nov. 1, including 14 revelers who were killed on New Year’s Day during a truck attack on Bourbon Street.

A U.S. Army veteran driving a pickup truck that bore the flag of the Islamic State group wrought carnage on New Orleans’ raucous New Year’s celebration as he steered around a police blockade and slammed into revelers before being shot dead by police.

There were 124 homicides last year and 193 in 2023, according to city figures. Armed robberies, aggravated assaults, carjackings, shootings and property crimes have also trended downward.

New Orleans is no stranger to having National Guard members in the city. In January, 100 Guard members were sent to the city to help with security measures following the New Year’s Day truck attack. Guard members were also present for major events in the city this year, including the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras.

___ Associated Press reporter Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that National Guard troops will soon head to New Orleans and bring another federal surge to the city that is already awaiting a separate immigration crackdown dubbed “Swamp Sweep” that is expected to begin this week.

Trump did not say how many troops would be sent to New Orleans or exactly when they would arrive. Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who asked the Trump administration in September for up to 1,000 troops to fight crime, told reporters Monday that he expected the Guard to arrive in New Orleans before Christmas.

“Gov. Landry — a great guy, a great governor — he’s asked for help in New Orleans. And we’re going to go there in a couple of weeks,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

Governor attributes need for troops to concerns about crime

Landry, a staunch Trump ally, has said he welcomes federal intervention in Democratic-run New Orleans, citing concerns about elevated violent crime rates even though local police officials say crime is down. Separately, Landry posted on social media this week that “We Welcome the Swamp Sweep in Louisiana,” referring to the Border Patrol-led operation that aims to arrest 5,000 people over the coming weeks.

Opponents argue that deployment of federal troops or agents in Louisiana is unwarranted, especially as some cities have actually seen a decrease in violent crime rates — namely New Orleans, which is on pace to have one of its safest years, statistically, since the 1970s.

In September, Landry requested federally funded National Guard troops be sent to Louisiana. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Landry said there have been “elevated violent crime rates” in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport along with shortages in law enforcement personnel.

Landry also said the state’s vulnerability to natural disasters makes the issue more challenging, and the extra support would be especially helpful for major events, including Mardi Gras and college football bowl games.

Louisiana National Guard spokesperson Lt. Col. Noel Collins declined to comment Tuesday.

In 2022, New Orleans had the dubious distinction of being considered the “murder capital of the country,” reporting the highest per-capita homicide rate in the nation. That year there were 266 murders — a rate of 70 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Three years later, however, shootings, carjackings and armed robberies have plummeted. While there has been a spike of homicides in recent weeks, the city is still on pace to have its lowest number in nearly 50 years, according to crime data from the police department. As of early November, the New Orleans Police Department reported 97 murders.

Democrats worry deployment will lead to issues and chaos

Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, a Democrat who takes office in January, has firmly rejected the idea of a National Guard deployment in the blue city and has expressed concern that a federal immigration enforcement surge will lead to rights violations. She did not provide comment on the impending deployment.

Outgoing Mayor LaToya Cantrell, a Democrat facing federal corruption charges, previously said the city was open to working with the federal government to improve public safety.

A spokesperson for Cantrell, Terry Davis, told The Associated Press in a written statement that the city and its police “have a track record of working collaboratively” with the National Guard and state and federal law enforcement agencies.

Other New Orleans officials have warned that troops could disrupt unique cultural traditions, such as the frequent brass band parades in the streets that are known as second lines or jeopardize hard-won relationships between communities and the police.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, a Louisiana Democrat who represents New Orleans, had a strong reaction to news of another deployment of a federal agency to his hometown: “New Orleans welcomes partnership. We do not welcome occupation,” he said in a press release Tuesday evening.

Carter went on to describe the deployment as a “political stunt” that causes “chaos” and lacks transparency and “meaningful coordination” with local officials.

“These are militarized forces who are not trained in our local laws, not trained in community-based de-escalation, and do not know our neighborhoods or our people,” he said. “That is a recipe for fear, confusion, and dangerous mistakes.”

In January, 100 guard members were sent to the city to help with security measures following a New Year’s Day truck attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens of other revelers on Bourbon Street.

In September, Landry also suggested that federally funded National Guard troops should be sent to Baton Rouge and Shreveport, and Monday indicated troops would be sent to cities beyond New Orleans.

Other Louisiana cities eye deployment

In Baton Rouge, the capital, Republican Mayor Sid Edwards said this month that extra assets could provide “much-needed boots on the ground” amid a police shortage.

Although homicides are on pace to decrease from the previous year there as well, the city has struggled with gun violence, with bystanders caught in crossfire made worse by the use of machine gun conversion devices. A recent multiagency initiative to crack down on violent crime resulted in more than 100 arrests and the seizure of guns.

In conservative Shreveport, the hometown of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux told the AP in October that violent crime has significantly decreased. Arceneaux said he was willing to work with the National Guard but would prefer receiving state police officers instead.

Louisiana is the latest place where Trump has sent — or tried to send — National Guard troops in recent months. Other cities include Los Angeles, Baltimore, Washington and Memphis, Tennessee. Leaders in Democratic-controlled jurisdictions have turned to legal action to block planned deployments, such as in Chicago and Portland, Oregon.

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Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writer Michelle Price contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.

HOLLY RIDGE, La. (AP) — In a rural corner of Louisiana, Meta is building one of the world’s largest data centers, a $10 billion behemoth as big as 70 football fields that will consume more power in a day than the entire city of New Orleans at the peak of summer.

While the colossal project is impossible to miss in Richland Parish, a farming community of 20,000 residents, not everything is visible, including how much the social media giant will pay toward the more than $3 billion in new electricity infrastructure needed to power the facility.

Watchdogs have warned that in the rush to capitalize on the AI-driven data center boom, some states are allowing massive tech companies to direct expensive infrastructure projects with limited oversight.

Mississippi lawmakers allowed Amazon to bypass regulatory approval for energy infrastructure to serve two data centers it is spending $10 billion to build. In Indiana, a utility is proposing a data center-focused subsidiary that operates outside normal state regulations. And while Louisiana says it has added consumer safeguards, it lags behind other states in its efforts to insulate regular power consumers from data center-related costs.

Mandy DeRoche, an attorney for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, says there is less transparency due to confidentiality agreements and rushed approvals.

“You can’t follow the facts, you can’t follow the benefits or the negative impacts that could come to the service area or to the community,” DeRoche said.

Private deals for public power supply

Under contract with Meta, power company Entergy agreed to build three gas-powered plants that would produce 2,262 megawatts — equivalent to a fifth of Entergy’s current power supply in Louisiana. The Public Service Commission approved Meta’s infrastructure plan in August after Entergy agreed to bolster protections to prevent a spike in residential rates.

Nonetheless, nondisclosure agreements conceal how much Meta will pay.

Consumer advocates tried but failed to compel Meta to provide sworn testimony, submit to discovery and face cross-examination during a regulatory review. Regulators reviewed Meta’s contract with Entergy, but were barred from revealing details.

Meta did not address AP’s questions about transparency, while Louisiana’s economic development agency and Entergy say nondisclosure agreements are standard to protect sensitive commercial data.

Davante Lewis — the only one of five public service commissioners to vote against the plan — said he’s still unclear how much electricity the center will use, if gas-powered plants are the most economical option nor if it will create the promised 500 jobs.

“There’s certain information we should know and need to know but don’t have,” Lewis said.

Additionally, Meta is exempt from paying sales tax under a 2024 Louisiana law that the state acknowledges could lead to “tens of millions of dollars or more each year” in lost revenue.

Meta has agreed to fund about half the cost of building the power plants over 15 years, including cost overruns, but not maintenance and operation, said Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a consumer advocacy group.

Public Service Commission Jean-Paul Coussan insists there will be “very little” impact on ratepayers.

But watchdogs warn Meta could pull out of or not renew its contract, leaving the public to pay for the power plants over the rest of their 30-year life span, and all grid users are expected to help pay for the $550 million transmission line serving Meta’s facility.

Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard University’s Electricity Law Initiative, said tech companies should be required to pay “every penny so the public is not left holding the bag.”

How is this tackled in other states?

Elsewhere, tech companies are not being given such leeway. More than a dozen states have taken steps to protect households and business ratepayers from paying for rising electricity costs tied to energy-hungry data centers.

Pennsylvania’s utilities commission is drafting a model rate structure to insulate customers from rising costs related to data centers. New Jersey’s utilities regulators are studying whether data centers cause “unreasonable” cost increases for other users. Oregon passed legislation this year ordering utilities regulators to develop new, and likely higher, power rates for data centers.

And in June, Texas implemented what it calls a ‘kill switch’ law empowering grid operators to order data centers to reduce their electrical load during emergencies.

Locals have mixed feelings

Some Richland Parish residents fear a boom-and-bust cycle once construction ends. Others expect a boost in school and health care funding. Meta said it plans to invest in 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy in Louisiana and $200 million in water and road infrastructure in Richland Parish.

“We don’t come from a wealthy parish and the money is much needed,” said Trae Banks, who runs a drywall business that has tripled in size since Meta arrived.

In the nearby town of Delhi, Mayor Jesse Washington believes the data center will eventually have a positive impact on his community of 2,600.

But for now, the construction traffic frustrates residents and property prices are skyrocketing as developers try to house thousands of construction workers. More than a dozen low-income families were evicted from a trailer park whose owners are building housing for incoming Meta workers, Washington says.

“We have a lot of concerned people — they’ve put hardship on a lot of people in certain areas here,” the mayor said. “I just want to see people from Delhi benefit from this.”

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Brook reported from New Orleans.

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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.

Nine men accused of breaking out of a New Orleans city jail in May after slipping through a hole behind a toilet and scaling a barbed wire fence pleaded not guilty to escape charges on Wednesday.

Officials have repeatedly pointed to video surveillance of the brazen escape, one of the largest jailbreaks in recent U.S. history, and vowed to bring the inmates to justice. A 10th inmate, Derrick Groves, a convicted killer, is the lone fugitive still on the run.

“Everyone is entitled to due process. But there’s a video of these detainees running out of the jail in the middle of the night. They were not heading to court hearings,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said on Wednesday. “We will continue to hold everyone accountable for the escape.”

The nine men appeared via Zoom from the Louisiana State Penitentiary for their arraignment Wednesday. Groves’ attorney was present for the hearing but did not enter a plea on his behalf, reported The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune.

All 10 men are charged with simple escape, which is tacked on top of previous criminal counts that initially landed them in jail, Murrill’s office confirmed. The men’s attorneys could not immediately be reached for comment.

The escape charge carries a sentence of two to five years in prison.

Authorities say that the men broke out of the jail after yanking open a locked door to access a cell, where the water had been turned off, removing a toilet and squeezing through a hole in a wall. Video surveillance shows 10 men sprinting out of the jail and fleeing into the coverage of darkness.

The getaway went unnoticed for hours until a routine morning head count. When authorities located the point of the escape they found a message written on the cell wall above the hole, once covered by the toilet: “To Easy LoL”.

At least 16 people have been arrested and charged for helping in the escape or the aftermath. Many of them are family members of the escapees and face charges for providing transport, food, shelter and cash to the fugitives.

The weather system moving across the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday was showing a greater chance of becoming a tropical depression as it moves toward the northern Gulf Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The system has a 40% chance of becoming a tropical depression as it moves west over the Gulf toward southeastern Louisiana on Thursday, the federal agency said. The severity of its impact will depend on how far it travels offshore, where conditions are ripe for a tropical depression, before reaching Louisiana. The tropical weather will affect Alabama and Mississippi as well.

Regardless of whether the system intensifies, heavy downpours could cause flooding, officials warned.

New Orleans is bracing for 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of rain through Saturday, but some areas could see as much as 10 inches (25 centimeters), especially near the coast, the National Weather Service said.

“While a tropical depression cannot be ruled out near the coast on Thursday, the main focus remains the heavy rain threat,” the agency wrote on X.

Volunteers and local elected officials played music as they shoveled sand into bags to hand out to residents in New Orleans on Wednesday morning at the Dryades YMCA.

“My street flooded just the other day when we got a little bit of rain and so I want to just make sure that I’m proactive,” New Orleans resident Alex Trapps said as he drove away with sandbags in his car.

The looming threat in the southeast comes on the heels of a series of lethal floods this summer. On Monday, flash floods inundated New York City and parts of New Jersey, claiming two lives. And at least 132 people were killed in floodwaters that overwhelmed Texas Hill Country on the Fourth of July.

The system percolating over Florida will be called Dexter if it becomes a named storm. Six weeks into the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, there have been three named tropical storms — Andrea, Barry and Chantal — but no hurricanes.

Chantal made landfall in South Carolina last week, and its remnants caused flooding in North Carolina that killed an 83-year-old woman when her car was swept off a rural road.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association said in May there was a 60% chance that there will be more named storms this hurricane season than there have been in past years on average.

The currently developing weather system is expected to move fully inland by the end of the week.

Southern Louisiana — a region all too familiar with the potentially devastating impacts of flooding — is expected to be hit hardest Thursday and beyond.

Erika Mann, CEO of the Dryades YMCA, said that local elected officials managed to organize the storm supply distribution within a day after the threat intensified.

“We open our doors and help the community when the community is in need,” Mann said.

Some residents who came to get supplies “jumped out of their cars and they helped. And it just represents what New Orleans is about. We come together in crisis,” Mann said.

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Riddle 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.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Federal authorities have charged three small-town Louisiana police chiefs with taking hundreds of $5,000 bribes over nearly a decade in exchange for filing false police reports that would allow noncitizens to apply for visas that let certain crime victims stay in the U.S.

The false police reports would indicate that the immigrant was a victim of a crime that would qualify them to apply for a so-called U visa, U.S. Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook said Wednesday at a news conference in Lafayette. He said the police officials were paid $5,000 for each name they provided falsified reports for, and that there were hundreds of names over the years.

There had been “an unusual concentration of armed robberies of people who were not from Louisiana,” Van Hook said, noting that two other people were also charged in the alleged scheme.

“In fact, the armed robberies never took place,” he said.

Fraud, bribery and conspiracy charges

Earlier this month, a federal grand jury in Shreveport returned a 62 count indictment charging the five defendants with crimes including conspiracy to commit visa fraud, visa fraud, bribery, mail fraud and money laundering, Van Hook said.

Those charged are Oakdale Police Chief Chad Doyle, Forest Hill Police Chief Glynn Dixon, former Glenmora Police Chief Tebo Onishea, Michael “Freck” Slaney, a marshal in Oakdale, and Chandrakant “Lala” Patel, an Oakdale businessman.

If convicted, the defendants could face years or even decades of jail time. Court and jail records don’t list attorneys for any of them.

According to investigators, people seeking special visas would reach out to Patel, who would contact the lawmen and offer them a payment in exchange for falsified police reports that identified the migrants as victims of armed robberies that never occurred.

The scheme went on for nearly a decade, Van Hook said. When pressed about the extent of the fraud, Van Hook said there “hundreds of names” —- specifically for visas that were approved.

Asked what might happen to the people who allegedly paid bribes, including whether they might be charged or their immigration status might be changed, Van Hook said he couldn’t say yet but that the investigation is ongoing.

U visas offer a rare pathway to citizenship

Getting a U visa can give some crime victims and their families a pathway to U.S. citizenship. About 10,000 people got them in the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2022, which was the most recent period for which the Homeland Security Department has published data.

These special visas, which were created by Congress in 2000, are specifically for victims of certain crimes “who have suffered mental or physical abuse” and are “helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity,” based on a description of the program published by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“These visas are designed to help law enforcement and prosecutors prosecute crimes where you need the victim or the witness there, ” Van Hook said. “U visas serve a valuable purpose, and this is a case where they were abused.”

In 2021, USCIS warned that the U visa program was susceptible to fraud after an audit from the Office of Inspector General found that administrators hadn’t addressed deficiencies in their process.

The audit found that USCIS approved a handful of suspicious law enforcement signatures that were not cross-referenced with a database of authorized signatures, according to the OIG report. They were also not closely tracking fraud case outcomes, the total number of U visas granted per year, and were not effectively managing the backlog, which led to crime victims waiting for nearly 10 years before receiving a U visa.

Current and former police chiefs are arrested

The current or former police chiefs are from small central Louisiana municipalities that are near each other. They’re in a part of the state that is home to multiple immigration detention facilities. Although Louisiana doesn’t share a border with a foreign country, there are nine ICE detention facilities in the state — holding nearly 7,000 people.

Local news outlets reported seeing ICE and FBI agents entering the homes of two of the chiefs. Van Hook said authorities searched multiple police departments and a Subway sandwich shop that Patel operated.

Two of the police chiefs were arrested Tuesday at a hotel in Baton Rouge, where the annual Louisiana Association of Chiefs of Police conference was being held. Details surrounding the other arrests were not immediately available.

Van Hook and others said at Wednesday’s news conference that the arrests don’t mean the indicted chiefs’ departments are corrupt.

“It saddens me to have any fellow law enforcement officers caught up in crimes,” said Rapides Parish Sheriff Mark Wood, whose office assisted in the investigation. “It puts a bad light on the good cops that do their job right and hold the line as they should.”

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This story was updated to correct that the news conference took place in Lafayette, not Baton Rouge.

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Mustian reported from New York. Associated Press writer Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seventeen immigration court judges have been fired in recent days, according to the union that represents them, as the Trump administration pushes forward with its mass deportations of immigrants in the country.

The International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents immigration court judges as well as other professionals, said in a news release that 15 judges were fired “without cause” on Friday and another two on Monday. The union said they were working in courts in 10 different states across the country — California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

“It’s outrageous and against the public interest that at the same time Congress has authorized 800 immigration judges, we are firing large numbers of immigration judges without cause,” said the union’s President Matt Biggs. “This is nonsensical. The answer is to stop firing and start hiring.”

Firings come with courts at the center of administration efforts

The firings come as the courts have been increasingly at the center of the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement efforts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arresting immigrants as they appear at court for proceedings.

A spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which is the part of the Justice Department that oversees the courts, said in an email that the office would not comment on the firings.

The large-scale arrests began in May and have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants appearing in court. In what has become a familiar scene, a judge will grant a government lawyer’s request to dismiss deportation proceedings against an immigrant. Meanwhile, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are waiting in the hallway to arrest the person and put them on a fast track to deportation as soon as he or she leaves the courtroom.

Immigration court judges are also dealing with a massive backlog of roughly 3.5 million cases that ballooned in recent years. Cases can take years to weave their way to a final determination, with judges and lawyers frequently scheduling final hearings on the merits of a case over a year out. Unlike criminal courts, the government isn’t required to provide lawyers to everyone going through immigration courts; immigrants can hire their own lawyer but if they can’t afford one they represent themselves — often using an interpreter to make their case.

Senator alleges one firing is punishment

Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois alleged that one of the judges fired was essentially being punished for talking to him during a visit the senator made a few weeks ago to the Chicago Immigration Court.

In a news release Tuesday, Durbin said the judge “took time to show me the court and explain its functions.” He said after the visit, the judge received an email from the Justice Department telling her that all communications with congressional offices should be routed through headquarters and that immigration judges shouldn’t be talking directly with members of Congress.

“Her abrupt termination is an abuse of power by the Administration to punish a non-political judge simply for doing her job,” said Durbin, who’s the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Courts are getting a cash infusion

Under recently passed legislation that will use $170 billion to supercharge immigration enforcement, the courts are set to get an infusion of $3.3 billion. That will go toward raising the number of judges to 800 and hiring more staff to support them.

But the union said that since the Trump administration took office over 103 judges have either been fired or voluntarily left after taking what was dubbed the “Fork in the Road” offers at the beginning of the administration. The union said that rather than speeding up the immigration court process, the Justice Department’s firings would actually make the backlogs worse. The union said that it can take as long as a year to recruit, hire and train new immigration court judges.

There are currently about 600 judges, according to the union figures. Immigration courts fall under the Justice Department.