Angel Maras, wearing a paint-splattered T-shirt and lugging a tool bag, wove his way along Bourbon Street in New Orleans, passing daiquiri shops, street performers and a woman in a thong trying to lure tourists into a strip club. It was a day like any other in his eight years of working construction jobs in the French Quarter.
But as he loaded his bag into his car on Thursday evening, Mr. Maras said he worried about how long the normalcy would last. The New Orleans area is expected to be the next focus of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and he and many others were bracing for masked federal agents to swoop in, carrying out the kind of raids that residents of Chicago and Charlotte, N.C., have seen this fall.
“I know I should be OK because I have a work permit, but many of my other Honduran friends don’t,” said Mr. Maras, 24. “And my family and friends have reached out to me to say they are really worried. They are afraid they will see a video of me being hauled away.”
The timing of the planned operation remains unclear, but many immigrants, fearful of being swept up, have started hunkering down. Some have avoided work this week and have kept their children home from school. Businesses that serve largely Hispanic clienteles have experienced a sudden drought of customers. The presence of United States Border Patrol officers in Charlotte in recent days, which led to the arrests of more than 250 people, had a similarly paralyzing effect.
In New Orleans, some people are also wondering whether the looming action could have broader implications for a city that has already had a remarkably turbulent year. The city suffered a deadly terrorist attack early on New Year’s Day, had its mayor indicted in August and is now grappling with a budget crisis.
The economy in New Orleans is largely powered by the tourism industry, which is, in turn, sustained by thousands of service workers: cleaners, cooks, dishwashers, cashiers, ride-share drivers and people working in maintenance and construction. Many such jobs are filled by immigrants.
At the historic Hotel Monteleone a block from Bourbon Street, where the lobby already twinkled with Christmas decorations, Stephen Caputo, the general manager, was contending with widespread uncertainty.
Many of his staff members, particularly in housekeeping, are of Latino descent. Many are immigrants who are in the country legally. But their status offers only so much comfort.
“We told the staff that, as we understand it, the agents are going to be looking for criminals and sex offenders and people that were supposed to be deported,” Mr. Caputo said. “But there is a lot of misinformation and fear going around about when it will start, and if they would be stopping people on the streetcar or coming through our doors.”
Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana and other Republican state officials have expressed eagerness for federal intervention. Unlike officials in some Democratic-led states, who have resisted influxes of National Guard troops and federal immigration agents, Mr. Landry has asked President Trump to send them in.
In September, Mr. Landry announced that the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the maximum-security prison known as Angola, had started holding undocumented immigrants accused of violent offenses.
“We certainly welcome them to come into the city and be able to start taking some of these dangerous criminal illegal aliens off of our streets,” Mr. Landry said of federal law enforcement in an interview this week with Fox News. “And we’ve got a place to put them at Angola.”
Last week, plans emerged showing that the Border Patrol would expand its enforcement operations into North Carolina and New Orleans, led by Gregory Bovino, a senior official in the agency who has directed similar operations in Chicago and Los Angeles this year.
The region in and around New Orleans is familiar turf for Mr. Bovino, who was promoted in 2018 to serve as the chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s New Orleans sector, covering much of the Gulf Coast.
City officials appear to have little information as of yet about what will unfold and when.
In a news conference this week, Anne Kirkpatrick, the New Orleans Police superintendent, said she was expecting Border Patrol officers to come but she did not know specifics. Representatives for the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on Friday on what was planned.
Some city officials have struck a far different note from their state counterparts, reflecting a vast ideological gulf between leaders in the diverse and largely left-leaning city and those representing Louisiana as a whole, which is far more conservative.
In a statement on Friday, Helena Moreno, New Orleans’s mayor-elect and a Mexican American immigrant herself, expressed wariness about what might be coming.
“The reports of due process violations and potential abuses in other cities are concerning,” Ms. Moreno said. “I want our community to be aware and informed of the protections available under law.”
Other officials emphasized the vital function immigrants have played in shaping the city’s economy and culture.
“No one should be treated like a criminal for seeking safety, opportunity or a better life,” Lesli Harris, a city councilwoman, said in a statement on Friday. “Immigrant residents are workers, business owners, parents, students, caregivers and neighbors. They deserve dignity, not fear or intimidation.”
Mr. Caputo, the Hotel Monteleone manager, noted that the city’s revival after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 depended on an infusion of immigrant labor. “Who rebuilt New Orleans?” he asked. “That’s who.”
Merari, a 40-year-old mother of two from Honduras, washes dishes at a restaurant in the French Quarter. Her 21-year-old daughter told her not to go to work this week. “She doesn’t want me leaving home at all,” said Merari, who asked to be identified only by her first name for fear of drawing the attention of immigration agents.
Her teenage son’s school sent home literature informing parents about their rights and offering advice on what to do if confronted by immigration agents. “Don’t open the door,” was one tip.
Rumors and disinformation have filled the void left by an absence of information about the Border Patrol’s plans.
In Kenner, a New Orleans suburb where much of the region’s immigrant work force lives, many have opted to lie low.
Williams Boulevard, one of Kenner’s main thoroughfares, is lined with shopping centers anchored by Honduran, Mexican, Brazilian and other Latino restaurants. “That street is usually packed with traffic at this time, but look at it now, just a car going by every once in a while,” Clebson Soares, the owner of Alliance Brazilian Supermarket, said on Friday.
He worried about the repercussions for his business. Usually, the lunch rush on Friday is one of the busiest times of the week. This week, the seating area inside the store was mostly empty.
“I’ve still got my bills to pay,” Mr. Soares said while taking a lunch break. “This place is usually totally full. But I think everyone is scared. Everyone is locked in their homes. And this might go on for a long time.”
In the French Quarter on Thursday evening, as Mr. Maras loaded his tools, two men passing by with electrical equipment shouted out to him with a friendly warning.
“You better watch out, brother!” one of them said. “ICE is coming!”
Mr. Maras tensed up and quickly got in his car.
Rick Rojas is the Atlanta bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the South.
The post New Orleans, a City of Service Workers, Braces for an Immigration Crackdown appeared first on New York Times.
