5 May 2025
By Bobbi-Jean Misick
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) – An attorney for Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson cast state Attorney General Liz Murrill’s attempt to repeal the Sheriff’s Office’s longstanding immigration policy as baseless during a federal court hearing on Wednesday of last week, saying that the state has not offered any proof that Hutson’s deputies are violating state law.
The policy was enacted in 2013 following a court settlement in a 2011 civil rights case filed against the sheriff’s office. It places strict limitations on honoring detainer requests from federal immigrant authorities and prohibits deputies from initiating immigration-status investigations.
Murrill, who derisively refers to the directive as a “sanctuary” policy, has said she believes that the sheriff’s office is running afoul of a recently enacted state law that requires local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration officials. She has asked a federal judge to allow the state to join the case as a named party.
Speaking before federal Magistrate Judge Janis van Meerveld, Hutson’s chief of staff John Williams – who is acting as the agency’s attorney in Wednesday’s hearing – said the state has not shown that Orleans Parish deputies have hindered any ICE investigation since the law went into effect in May 2024.
“Above all, the sheriff is a law enforcement officer – she is one of the chief law enforcement officers of Orleans Parish,” Williams said. “She will continue to protect and enforce the laws of Louisiana.”
“There’ve been no direct communications [with ICE] where we were not collaborating or partnering in ways that were appropriate,” he said.
Murrill’s move to dissolve the policy is part of a broader conservative push – in Louisiana and across the country – to eliminate so-called “sanctuary cities,” places where local law enforcement is restricted, to one degree or another, from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling on the federal government to publish a list of localities that “obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
And last week, the U.S. Department of Justice, which had never formally objected to the policy in the 12 years it’s been on the books, filed a “statement of interest” in support of Murrill’s intervention and the dissolution of the Sheriff’s Office’s policy.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Hutson’s office has refused any ICE requests since the law took effect. Reached for comment after the hearing, Williams said he is “not personally aware” of the Sheriff’s Office refusing to honor an immigration detainer from ICE.
But after the hearing, Brian Acuna, deputy director of ICE’s regional office in New Orleans, said the Sheriff’s Office has long ignored immigration detainer requests, and has continued to do so even after the state law took effect.
“That [OPSO] policy has an effect of allowing criminal aliens back onto the street,” Acuna said in a phone interview. “That is a huge public safety issue.”
‘This is all premature’
The current policy stems from a suit filed by two construction workers – Mario Cacho and Antonio Ocampo, who were picked up in New Orleans on minor charges in 2009 and 2010. At the request of ICE, which was investigating their immigration statuses, the two were illegally held in the city’s jail for months beyond their short jail sentences. Under the law, such requests only allow local jails to hold people for 48 hours after they were scheduled to be released.
The pair sued in 2011. Two and a half years later, then-Sheriff Marlin Gusman agreed to a settlement, or consent decree.
As part of the agreement, Gusman adopted the current policy, which bans the Sheriff’s Office from honoring ICE detainer requests without a court order – except for inmates charged with a short list of especially serious crimes – and bans sheriff’s deputies from initiating immigration investigations or offering ICE information about inmates’ release dates or address.
The existence of the policy itself appears to go against the new state law, which bars any law enforcement policy that places limits on honoring ICE hold requests or providing information to ICE. But in court on Wednesday, Williams told van Meerveld that the Sheriff’s Office is reviewing the policy and may suggest revisions.
On last Wednesday, attorneys for Cacho and Ocampo urged van Meerveld to remember the reason for the consent decree in the first place.
“Our clients were over detained without due process for months on end,” Matt Vogel, supervising attorney at the National Immigration Project, said in court. “This case was about justice for them and about making sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Zachary Faircloth, principal deputy solicitor for the state, argued on that the recent change to state law should have dissolved the OPSO policy based on the language in the 2013 consent judgement, which says the provisions in the order have “permanent effect, absent a change in federal or state law applicable to immigration detainers.”
“The consent decree turns on whether or not there was a change in state or federal law,” Faircloth said in court.
But Vogel, like the Sheriff’s Office, argued that until Murrill can prove that OPSO has violated state law, it’s too early for the judge to reconsider the policy.
“This is all premature. It’s all speculative,” Vogel said.
This article originally published in the May 5, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.