Louisiana

Lawsuit challenges Louisiana’s Ten Commandments requirement for schools

Published

1 year ago

June 25, 2024

Lawsuit challenges Louisiana’s Ten Commandments requirement for schools

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana — A lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Louisiana challenging the state’s recently passed law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in public schools.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing parents of Louisiana public school children, confirmed in a post on social media that it was involved the lawsuit. The New York City law firm Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation are also are plaintiffs, according to CBS News.

“Public schools are not Sunday schools,” the ACLU says in its post on social media. “Louisiana public schools must remain welcoming to all students, regardless of their faith.”

Under the legislation signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry last week, all public K-12 classrooms and state-funded universities will be required to display a poster-sized version of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” next year.

“There is no longstanding tradition of permanently displaying the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms in Louisiana or the United States more generally,” the lawsuit says. “Indeed, for nearly half a century, it has been well settled that the First Amendment forbids public schools from posting the Ten Commandments in this manner.”

The lawsuit cites the 1980 Supreme Court decision striking down a similar law passed in Kentucky.

It also argues that Louisiana’s law “unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture.”

“It also sends the harmful and religiously divisive message that students who do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments — or, more precisely, to the specific version of the Ten Commandments that H.B. 71 requires schools to display — do not belong in their own school community and should refrain from expressing any faith practices or beliefs that are not aligned with the state’s religious preferences,” the lawsuit says. “And it substantially interferes with and burdens the right of parents to direct their children’s religious education and upbringing.”

The lawsuit filed Monday seeks a court declaration that the new law, referred to in the lawsuit as HB 71, violates First Amendment clauses forbidding government establishment of religion and guaranteeing religious liberty. It also seeks an order prohibiting the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill has said she is looking forward to defending the state’s law. She issued a statement saying she couldn’t comment directly on the lawsuit because she had not yet seen it.

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)

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Louisiana

Here’s how much the shift to closed-party primaries could cost Louisiana

Published

12 hours ago

December 5, 2025

Press Room

Louisiana’s shift away from its signature “jungle” primary system is about to come with a serious price tag, The Center Square writes.

Beginning in 2026, voters casting ballots for Congress, the state Supreme Court, BESE and the Public Service Commission will participate in closed-party primaries—while unaffiliated voters can pick just one side. The Legislative Fiscal Office says switching to this more traditional system could cost taxpayers up to $47 million over five years, driven largely by the possibility of more runoff elections.

Each statewide runoff alone could reach $7 million, thanks to printing, staffing and overtime needs. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State’s office is preparing for more than $2 million in voter education and reprogramming costs as Louisiana overhauls ballots, party labels and election technology for 2026.

Read the full story.

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Louisiana

Shops empty in a Hispanic neighborhood as immigration crackdown comes to Louisiana – WTOP News

Published

24 hours ago

December 5, 2025

Press Room

Shops empty in a Hispanic neighborhood as immigration crackdown comes to Louisiana – WTOP News

KENNER, La. (AP) — The doors of Carmela Diaz’s taco joint are locked, the tables are devoid of customers and…

KENNER, La. (AP) — The doors of Carmela Diaz’s taco joint are locked, the tables are devoid of customers and no one is working in the kitchen. It’s one of many once-thriving Hispanic businesses, from Nicaraguan eateries to Honduran restaurants, emptied out in recent weeks in neighborhoods with lots of signs in Spanish but increasingly fewer people on the streets.

In the city of Kenner, which has the highest concentration of Hispanic residents in Louisiana, a federal immigration crackdown aiming for 5,000 arrests has devastated an economy already struggling from ramped-up enforcement efforts this year, some business owners say, and had far-reaching impacts on both immigrants and U.S. citizens alike.

“Fewer and fewer people came,” said a crying Diaz, whose Taqueria La Conquistadora has been closed for several weeks now with both customers and workers afraid to leave home. “There were days we didn’t sell anything. That’s why I made the decision to close the business — because there was no business.”

On Wednesday, convoys of federal vehicles began rumbling back and forth down Kenner’s main commercial streets as the Department of Homeland Security commenced the latest in a series of immigration enforcement operations that have included surges in Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina. Bystanders have posted videos of federal agents detaining people outside Kenner businesses and at construction sites.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino also made an appearance in the city, surrounded by agents in tactical gear, to tout to reporters the launch of the operation dubbed Catahoula Crunch, a name derived from the big game hound that is the Louisiana state dog.

A community on edge

The state’s Hispanic population has boomed in the last two decades, with many of them arriving in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina to help rebuild. In Kenner, just west of New Orleans between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, Hispanics make up about 30% of residents.

Diaz, who is from El Salvador, arrived in 2006 after years of doing farm work in Texas. She opened food trucks, earning enough to buy a home in Kenner, and her business has since expanded to a fleet of trucks and two brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Nearly all that is shuttered at the moment due to the crackdown, and Diaz is scraping by through making home deliveries to people fearful of being swept up by agents.

“They don’t respect anyone,” Diaz said. “They don’t ask for documents. They don’t investigate. They slap the handcuffs on them and take them away.”

DHS says operations target violent offenders

Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Thursday that federal agents have already made dozens of arrests, though the agency has not released a full list of people detained.

“Americans should be able to live without fear of violent criminal illegal aliens harming them, their families, or their neighbors,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “In just 24 hours on the ground, our law enforcement officers have arrested violent criminals with rap sheets that include homicide, kidnapping, child abuse, robbery, theft, and assault.”

The office of Mayor Michael Glaser, a former police chief, declined to comment on his stance on the operation. But it said the crackdown “falls under federal jurisdiction” and the mayor expects all agencies operating in the city to conduct themselves “professionally, lawfully and with respect for our community.” It also said the city is “not participating in or advising” on the operation.

However, the city’s police are among the hundreds of local and state law enforcement agencies nationwide that have signed agreements to be part of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that authorizes them to hold detainees for potential deportation.

Fearing for vulnerable relatives

Sergio Perez, a Guatemalan immigrant and U.S. citizen who has lived in Kenner since 2010, said he has loved ones there who lack legal permission to be in the country risk and being detained or deported. He also worries that anyone who is Hispanic is at risk of abuse by federal agents, regardless of their immigration status.

While Perez considers Kenner home — a place where it’s easy to find favorite dishes like “caldo de res,” a hearty beef and vegetable stew — he’s prepared to leave the country if family members are deported.

“They don’t want us here,” Perez said. “It’s like you are in someone’s house and you don’t feel welcome. They’re just killing our spirit.”

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Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writer Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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© 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

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Louisiana

First recovery center for women and their children launches in New Orleans

Published

1 day ago

December 4, 2025

Press Room

First recovery center for women and their children launches in New Orleans

At a small play area inside a newly renovated building on Canal Street in New Orleans, De Jon Muwwakkil watched her daughter work a pulley elevator on a dollhouse and tuck a stuffed panda behind a miniature cupboard — “his new home,” the child announced.

For Muwwakkil, who completed outpatient substance use treatment through Volunteers of America Southeast Louisiana, moments like that show what recovery could like when women don’t have to choose between getting help and caring for their children.

“Having my child in the program with me was the pinnacle, the top-notch service I needed,” she said.

Many women in New Orleans have never been able to consistently stay with their children throughout treatment. But on Tuesday, Nov. 25, VOASELA held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Canal Pointe, New Orleans’ only family-centered residential treatment and recovery facility for pregnant women and mothers with children. The site, a former auto dealership across from University Medical Center, has been transformed into a 31-room center where families will live together for about 90 days while the parent goes through treatment.

“This is an opportunity,” Muwwakkil said. “It keeps women and children safe, away from the triggers, away from the bad actors in the streets, away from the bad substances, the traumatic experiences of someone’s life.”

Keeping families together

A small library inside Canal Pointe is stocked with local children’s books, and the facility also includes a teaching kitchen, play areas, community areas for families, and private rooms equipped with cribs and trundle beds so mothers and children can stay together. Outpatient services are already operating, and residential admissions are expected to begin in December or January.

Medication-assisted treatment will be provided on site through DePaul Community Health Centers. The first week for new residents is typically a blur of medical appointments, group therapy, individual counseling and case management, staff said.

Jackie Kellett, VOASELA’s assistant vice president of integrated and behavioral health and a licensed clinical social worker, said treating mothers alongside their children is essential. Child care barriers often stop women from seeking help, but they don’t have to choose between getting help and their children at Canal Point. With everyone able to stay together, Kellett pointed out the facility would also be able to offer services to anyone in the family who needs it. She often has seen multigenerational substance use.

“I’ve worked with clients where sometimes their first substance use was with their parents, when they were as young as 9 doing heroin,” Kellett said. “It’s really important to break that cycle.”

A growing crisis

Louisiana continues to see high overdose rates among pregnant and postpartum women. Accidental overdose is the leading cause of death among pregnant women in the state. In the most recent report, 28 women died of overdose in a single year.

Nick Albares, who helped oversee the project’s development, said the $8-million-plus facility was funded through a mix of tax credits, federal and private grants, and philanthropy. It will cost roughly $2 million annually to operate. Medicaid is expected to cover about a month of treatment per participant, supplemented by TANF dollars. But outside support will remain critical.

No one will be turned away because of an inability to pay, Albares said. “But it’s not a program that is sustainable on its own.”

“It’s going to take everyone to make it work,” said Voris Vigee, CEO and president of VOASELA.

The facility will accept women from across Louisiana.

VOASELA leaders emphasized the project’s goal of providing long-term stability for families navigating both addiction and poverty. The organization expects Canal Pointe to serve 150 to 200 mothers and children each year.

The organization is accepting donations of hygiene items, cleaning supplies and new clothing for residents.

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