In most ways, New Orleans and Minneapolis couldn’t be more different.
One city, nestled on the Gulf Coast, is a 307-year-old metropolis where millions of tourists flock every year to celebrate Mardi Gras, sample Cajun and Creole cuisine and explore centuries-old French architecture. Follow the Mississippi River over 1,000 miles north and you find Minnesota’s largest city, which developed as an industrial powerhouse and made waves as the site of massive racial justice protests after George Floyd was murdered there by a police officer in 2020.
But in both cities, a similar climate of fear has descended among immigrant communities as federal immigration enforcement operations begin.
Once-bustling shops and restaurants are quiet. Immigrants are avoiding work and keeping their children home from school. And masked, armed federal agents in tactical gear have been seen questioning, chasing and detaining people.
The dual operations, set amid the start of the holiday season, demonstrate the Trump administration’s sweeping ambitions to curb immigration and deport undocumented immigrants, in part with high-profile and elaborately produced, targeted campaigns in Democrat-led cities.
In the New Orleans area, “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” led by top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino after highly publicized stints in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Chicago, has already seen dozens of immigrants arrested, according to the Department of Homeland Security. In the Twin Cities metropolitan area, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement effort called “Operation Metro Surge” is specifically targeting Somalis, whom President Donald Trump has called “garbage” who should “go back to where they came from.”
White House border czar Tom Homan defended the Minnesota crackdown, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday US citizens “have nothing to fear” and “we’re concentrating on public safety threats and national security threats.”
But residents and local leaders in both cities tell a different story, describing communities paralyzed with fear and worried they could be swept up in the immigration operations.
A young mother in Marrero, a New Orleans suburb, ran toward her home Wednesday, chased by masked federal agents wearing ICE vests, video obtained by CNN shows.
“Leave me alone,” she screamed before making it inside her house.
Federal agents chase a US born woman back to her Louisiana home
The scene is just one of the harrowing incidents that have played out as federal agents enact “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” led by Bovino, who’s been spotted in the Crescent City’s French Quarter.
The woman, 22-year-old Jacelynn, who asked to only be identified by her first name because of privacy concerns, told CNN she was walking home from the grocery store when masked federal agents in an SUV attempted to approach her a few feet away from her house.
“I got spooked by how fast they pulled up,” Jacelynn said. “Two people came out and they were like ‘Ma’am, ma’am come here, please’ and I kept yelling at them saying ‘I’m legal! I’m a US born citizen! Please, leave me alone! I’m going home, my daughter is in the house. My baby is waiting for me!’”
A DHS spokesperson told CNN they were pursuing a “criminal illegal alien” when “they encountered a female matching the description of the target. Agents identified themselves and the individual ran toward her residence. Agents immediately stopped upon reaching the property, determined the individual in question was not the target, and all agents departed the area.”
The New Orleans operation has so far yielded fewer arrests than anticipated, with around 50 people detained since Bovino and his team arrived last week, according to a federal law enforcement official. CNN previously reported federal immigration authorities aimed to arrest up to 5,000 people — hundreds more than in Chicago — across a zone extending some 80 miles northwest to the state capital, Baton Rouge.
New Orleans has a relatively small immigrant population, although it’s grown in recent years. Around 6.5% of the city’s population were foreign-born in 2024, according to census data, and around half of those were noncitizens. Around half the total foreign-born population were from Latin America.
“Immigrants that have come in the recent decades have been widely welcomed and have assimilated well and become a part of the fabric of our communities,” said Sue Weishar, who has spent decades working with the city’s immigrant and refugee populations.
In Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb where about 10% of the population are not US citizens, masked men – some in Border Patrol vests – and at least one carrying a rifle – surrounded a man as his children and neighbors cried out, according to two people who shared video of the incident with CNN.
The man was detained and taken away in a white SUV as his children cried for him in his driveway and in the apartment window. Two eyewitnesses who recorded video told CNN the man worked in construction and was known as a friendly neighbor.
“He’s a well-known man here in our area. He helps with everything, and he even gives out food sometimes,” Diana Moya, who works near the area and took video of the arrest, said. “It’s so exhausting seeing (immigration raids) happen and being around it. It’s terrifying regardless if you’re documented or not documented.”
In response to questions about the incident, a DHS spokesperson told CNN “U.S. Border Patrol agents conducted a targeted enforcement operation as part of Operation Catahoula Crunch resulting in the arrest” of a man. They said he had “committed a felony and has been previously removed from our country.” The agency did not respond to questions about the nature of the felony.
The operations have created a culture of disquiet that has chilled New Orleans’ usually vibrant atmosphere, according to politicians, activists and business owners.
As agents detain and arrest immigrants, the Big Easy feels like a “place of fear and anxiety,” New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Wednesday.
“I think everybody is on high alert right now,” she said.
On the opposite side of the country, a usually bustling Minneapolis mall that hosts dozens of Somali shops was largely quiet Wednesday.
“We’ve never been empty like this,” a woman who runs a hair salon told CNN. She said usually, “we are busy, always working, but today there is nobody … they are hiding.”
The Karmel Mall is filled with rows of boutiques selling traditional Somali attire, colorful prayer mats and gold jewelry. Offices throughout offer visa and overseas shipping services.
Some members of the Somali community at the mall are carrying their US passports on them wherever they go.
“I got my passport right here, I’m not going to lie to you,” Edil Hussein, a 24-year-old American-born Somali woman, told CNN, describing the situation as “insane.”
Minneapolis has over double New Orleans’ share of immigrants: Immigrants made up around 14% of the population in 2024, according to census data. Around 42% of those were not US citizens. Around 43% of the city’s total immigrant population were from Africa.
On the other side of the river in St. Paul, around 17% of the population was foreign-born in 2024, says census data. Around 40% of the immigrants were not US citizens, and around 25% of the foreign-born population were from Africa.
The Twin Cities metropolitan area is home to the nation’s largest diaspora from Somalia, a Muslim-majority nation on the Horn of Africa. Poverty and relentless conflict sent many Somalis to seek refuge in other countries, including the US.
The Twin Cities specifically became known as a welcoming area due to refugee resettlement agencies and nonprofit faith-based organizations that offered social and professional resources and accessible jobs in the agricultural and meatpacking industries, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. Somali refugees and immigrants began arriving in the 1990s, after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the country plunged into an ongoing civil war.
The area’s Somali population has “contributed greatly to the fabric of who we are,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “They are our banker. They are our babysitter. They are my bodyguard … To just go after a whole community indiscriminately, it’s unconstitutional.”
The vast majority – 87% – of foreign-born Somalis in Minnesota are naturalized US citizens, census data shows. It’s unclear exactly how many undocumented Somalis – the stated target of the ICE operation – may be living in the area. Homan, the border czar, has pushed back against local officials’ claims there are very few Somali undocumented immigrants in the US, arguing “we don’t know how many illegal Somalis there are,” because of less strict immigration policies under former President Joe Biden.
DHS has highlighted 19 arrests ICE made in the Twin Cities without sharing the total number of arrests made so far in the area. Fourteen of the people arrested – which includes eight men from Somalia, six from Mexico, one from Venezuela, one from Ecuador, one from the Dominican Republic, one from Guatemala and one from El Salvador – have been convicted of a crime, according to two DHS news releases. The others had been previously arrested or charged with crimes, according to DHS.
In the days after the operation was reported, there was a spike in calls to police with residents sending videos of ICE enforcement including arrests and traffic stops, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told CNN.
According to some local officials, the fear sweeping the Twin Cities immigrant communities isn’t just a side effect – it’s part of the point of the operations.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said the crackdown is “all about striking fear into the hearts of Minnesotans” in an interview with CNN’s Kate Bolduan Thursday.
Flanagan described the president’s comments about Somalis as “vile” and “dehumanizing.”
“This is just about making people afraid of folks who are our health care professionals, our teachers, our congresswomen, our mayors, our neighbors. And it’s disgusting,” she added.
Both cities have caught Trump’s ire.
The president had floated New Orleans, a Democratic outpost in a strongly Republican state, as a possible location to send the National Guard months ago, after deployments in other cities ostensibly to fight crime. He said in September the Big Easy had become “quite tough, quite bad.”
But violent crime in the city has dropped in the past year, with homicides down about 27%, a 15% decrease in reported rapes and a 16.5% drop in robberies, according to data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a national organization of police chiefs.
The Somali population in Minnesota – a strongly Democratic state – has been a longtime target of the president’s vitriol. Advocates say his attacks amount to xenophobia and racism.
Somali immigrants, Trump said, are “ripping apart” Minnesota, adding that the state is a “hellhole.”
He often references a $300 million fraud scandal centered on Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit organization, and a Covid-19 program meant to provide free meals to needy kids. The vast majority of the roughly 70 people charged in the case are members of the state’s Somali community.
Trump mentioned the scandal a week before Thanksgiving, calling Minnesota a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity” as he announced plans to terminate Temporary Protected Status – a government protection for people who are unable to return safely to their home countries – for Somali residents in the state.
“Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from,” the president said on Truth Social.
His anti-Somali rants have extended to Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents Minnesota as the first Somali-American in Congress and is a vocal advocate for Muslims and immigrants. The president has called Omar a “disgrace” and said she “and her friends” are “garbage” and shouldn’t be allowed to serve in Congress.
But even as anxiety pervades New Orleans and the Twin Cities, politicians and community members in both areas have expressed a drive to push back against the immigration blitz and protect their neighbors.
They’re learning in part from cities that have previously seen similar operations, like Chicago and Charlotte, and following similar strategies: distributing whistles to alert sightings of federal agents, conducting know-your-rights trainings and forming neighborhood watch groups in immigrant neighborhoods.
New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, who was born in Mexico, has issued five requests to Border Patrol: that they provide regular public briefings; guarantee due process protections; not wear masks; provide safeguards against discrimination and racial profiling; and provide humanitarian care to detainees.
“This operation is actually causing harm for the city of New Orleans, and it’s causing harm for people beyond those who are being targeted,” Moreno said Friday.
In response to questions about Moreno’s requests, DHS sent CNN a statement saying in part, “These politicians should be thanking the brave men and woman of DHS law enforcement for putting their lives on the line to make their city safer. We hope they will put public safety above politics and support DHS in getting these public safety threats out of their community.”
In Minneapolis, Mayor Frey has banned local, state and federal law enforcement from using any city-owned parking lots, ramps or garages for immigration enforcement, citing how agents previously used those spaces as staging grounds in Chicago.
At a vigil Thursday in the Lyndale neighborhood of Minneapolis, Frey said, “What you see is a visual representation of ‘we have your back’ and ‘when you come for one of us, you come for all of us.’”
On Thursday, community members braved the snow and faced off against what appear to be federal agents outside a residence in Minneapolis. One of the agents identified himself as being with ICE; another wore a vest marked “police,” video of the incident shows.
Community members confronted ICE in Minneapolis
The observers blasted their whistles and verbally confronted the agents, asking them to show warrants or badge numbers.
As the agents stood watching, the community members’ voices rose in a single unified chant:
“Leave our neighbors alone.”
