Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson during a April 8, 2025, press conference at OPSO headquarters. (John Gray/Verite News)
NEW ORLEANS – A controversial new state law that creates criminal penalties for local law enforcement officers who do not fully cooperate with federal immigration investigations is set to go into effect next month, putting the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office in a legal quagmire.
For more than a decade, under a legal settlement in a federal civil rights case, the sheriff’s office, which runs the New Orleans jail, has maintained a policy that places tight restrictions on how its employees can interact with federal immigration authorities…