New Orleans leaders blast immigration crackdown, pointing to video of agents chasing US citizen
Source: AP
Updated 10:46 PM EST, December 5, 2025
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans’ mayor-elect said Friday that a federal immigration crackdown launched this week is already causing harm as encounters between masked agents and residents, including some caught on video, has prompted public backlash in the blue city.
Frustrated city officials pointed to the case of Jacelynn Guzman, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen who was walking back to her Louisiana home from a trip to the grocery store on Wednesday when a truck pulled up beside her and two masked federal agents approached her, according to security footage obtained by The Associated Press.
Guzman began running away as a second vehicle arrived and the agents pursued her down the sidewalk until she reached her family’s home in Marrero, a neighborhood across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans. Guzman’s mother has lived there her entire life.
“We’re legal, we are from here, born and raised,” Guzman shouted back at the agents. “Don’t chase me, that is disgusting.” Guzman, who has no criminal record, told the AP that she panicked when agents approached. “That was my only thought that they were going to take me and I wasn’t going to get to have a say in that decision,” Guzman said. “Because most likely they didn’t care that I was saying I was a U.S. citizen. So why would they care what else I had to say?”
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/new-orleans-border-patrol-citizen-chased-20cbe0f35e7780a332fccd5b87420948
No difference between this and "walking while black", "shopping while black", "driving while black", etc.
Racial/ethnic profiling and targeting. "Stop and frisk". Guilty by assumption.
Any groups that in the past, "tuned out" of politics, and what was happening to other people, are getting a wake-up call.
Imagine going through a couple hundred years of this. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. Decade after decade. Century after century. Generation after generation.
All the pleading about "Say her name" and repeating of "I can't breathe", weren't just clever "slogans". They are reminders of the extra-judicial death sentences meted out to the innocent whose ancestors helped to build this damn country - most before the "executioners'" families "got off the boat". Harriet Tubman (and the untold many others) wasn't a fictional character.
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