It is performative bullying at best. Domestic terrorism at its core.
“Operation Catahoula Crunch,” President Donald Trump’s bloated immigration enforcement action in New Orleans, is named after Louisiana hunting dogs that roam swamps. The operation, led by CBP commander Greg Bovino, began prowling through neighborhoods in New Orleans on Dec. 3, 2025.
Filming and Production, Post-Production: Michael Nigro
Additional Post-Production: TRNN
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:
My name’s Jose Castillo. We’re here in New Orleans. In my family business, it’s a little Norma Sweets Bakery. Been here since 2011. And this is the first time that we’ve been affected from our government really so much. I mean, people are afraid to go out, people are afraid to spend money. I have a family member, I have friends, American citizens walking around with a passport, American passport, because they’re afraid. Afraid that they’re going to be profiled. They’re afraid if they can’t speak English, good enough to explain who they are.
Speaker 2:
Children are skipping school because they’re afraid of ice. Parents are unable to go to the grocery store because they’re afraid of ice. Workers are losing their jobs and risking their businesses because they’re afraid of ice. And our city counselors haven’t even put ice on the agenda for their meeting today. City council must stop ignoring immigrant rights groups who are asking to take a stand. We’re not going to wait for city council to say that they’re going to do something. We
Speaker 3:
Are here today to demand that city council takes action. These people are planning to stay here for two months and take as many as 5,000 of the people who live in the greatest city of New Orleans. And now it’s a humanitarian crisis. It’s going to be an economic crisis. Please believe this will affect you. This will affect every business in New Orleans because if people don’t pay rent, which is what’s happening, they can’t go to work because they’re living in hiding because they’re afraid of being snatched up in sense of torture centers of which we have nine in this state. And guess what’s going to happen? I’m not doing this to disrupt you. I promise you, I’m not doing this to attack you. I’m begging you to listen to me. If these people don’t pay rent, those landlords don’t get their money. 5,000 people, they don’t get their money, then those landlords.
People will not buy groceries right now. The grocery stores will suffer. The businesses will suffer. This city lives on hospitality. Who do you think washes all the dishes in those restaurants and drugs? So I’m not doing this. I promise you.
Speaker 4:
Save. Save. Let the people speak. Do your job. Go ahead. No side hand.
Speaker 5:
We’re in Kenner, Louisiana, and I just heard a bunch of chaos, so I come outside and I see everyone coming down the street, I guess, warning others about immigration being in the area. And it’s honestly just very sad to see. It had me crying. It broke my heart.
Speaker 4:
You know what? Nothing to fear if you’re an American citizen. If you’re not an American citizen, then look out. What about legal?
Speaker 5:
I don’t know. Seeing families ripped apart like that, our kids got off the bus crying, saying that some of their friends, moms were taken. It’s just really heartbreaking and it’s not okay what they’re doing. That’s my
Speaker 6:
Question. Why taking guns on our people, throwing them on the floor? Acting like they killing people. We not. I hope and I pray that another hurricane comes to the United States and hits everybody home. Everyone hopes to see who’s going to kick their room. I want to see that. I really do.
Speaker 5:
Hopefully they come to some kind of conclusion that helps them, because I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s right at all. And it’s still an ongoing federal
Speaker 4:
Investigation here that stemmed from an earlier incident.
Speaker 5:
This community is … This is a good area. It’s a good area. It’s quiet. No one bothers anyone. It’s going to take away probably 90% of our community over here. And it’s so sad. It is. And it’s game on guys.
Speaker 6:
Look at their face. We got this. We got this.
Speaker 5:
I think it’s very, very, very messed up what they’re doing. And I have no words for what I’m witnessing in front of me. Hey, fuck you. Seeing it firsthand in front of you, it hits very different versus seeing it online on social media or hearing about it, but seeing it’s not okay. It’s not.
DHS has several hundred agents working Operation Catahoula Crunch, and has said repeatedly that it plans to make at least 5,000 arrests across the region.
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents drive tinted-window SUVs and profile people of color. Activist groups, citizen collectives, and a clique of photographers post up in areas around the city, profiling SUVs that have tinted windows, after-market antennas, and license plates on vehicles that had been previously documented as occupied by federal agents.
In a city, however, where seemingly half the population drives brawny SUVs or pickups, everything begins to look like a federal caravan streaking through the city. Finding the proverbial needle in a haystack is one thing, but not knowing where the haystack is located makes the exercise feel futile.
Given that the people and the areas that the agents are patrolling are predominantly Black and Hispanic, the search area shrinks–a bit.
If you find a raid, it’s usually in progress. You’ll hear whistles and horns—activists warning the community that ICE is nearby. Frightened people peer out a cracked-open door or behind a half-drawn shade. U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino will climb out of the back seat of his gold Suburban, wait for masked agents in tactical gear to converge around him, and then begin to prowl the sidewalks and streets. They all have cameras. Most of the agents have GoPros attached to their body armor or ballistic helmets, but Bovino always travels with at least one agent who carries professional video equipment, usually trained on Bovino.
CBP’s movement, sometimes targeted and sometimes aimless, through heavily Hispanic and immigrant neighborhoods reminds one of the intentional terror spread by “night riders” in the Reconstruction South. Both wanted to torment and terrorize a populace into submission.
The whole operation, like others in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Charlotte, is a mix of a rolling photo-op, a recruiting film, and blunt terrorism.
The political and communications strategist Sawyer Hackett recently called Trump’s immigration agenda ethnic cleansing: “the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to a particular ethnic group.”
The administration’s unabashed use of the words “remigration” or “reverse migration,” terms for involuntary mass expulsion, along with other language appropriated by far-right groups, has ramped up in recent weeks, including Trump’s referring to Somalis as ‘garbage,’ and saying “I don’t want them in our country.” Now, in Minnesota, where 83% of the Somali population is composed of naturalized citizens, DHS has launched an enforcement operation focused on arresting and deporting Somali immigrants.
While the U.S. Constitution and federal law prohibit law enforcement from using race as the sole basis for stops, a recent Supreme Court order temporarily permits ICE agents to use factors such as Hispanic appearance or speaking English poorly, which critics argue amounts to racial profiling.
Journalists and photojournalists saw this at 26 Federal Plaza in New York, where masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents skulked in the hallways, waiting to harvest Black and Brown human beings, immigrants, who were attending their mandatory check-in hearings and who were then given future court dates by a judge. According to the publication The City, data obtained from U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement via Deportation Data Project shows that of the 3,212 people ICE arrested across New York City’s five boroughs this year, 2,250—or 70%—of them have neither a criminal conviction nor charge.
In the first two days of Operation Catahoula Crunch, CBP apprehended 38 people, and less than a third of those detained had a criminal history.
The act of being undocumented in the United States is not a crime. The act of being undocumented in the United States is a civil violation, just like a speeding ticket, littering, or public intoxication.
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