New Orleans became the first city in the Deep South to formally defy federal requests to detain suspected illegal immigrants, the New York Times reported Monday.
The city’s policy directs the New Orleans Parish sheriff’s office to decline all requests by ICE to detain persons suspected to be undocumented, unless they are being held on certain felony charges, according to the Times. It also bars ICE agents from entering parts of the jail without a warrant or court order.
Similar policies have been enacted since 2011 in Chicago, New York, Washington, and Connecticut, but the New Orleans policy goes farther than others in refusing to cooperate with aspects of the federal immigration system, the NYT reported.