News Nation: Federal New Orleans effort may expedite deportations: Ex-ICE official

This interview appeared on News Nation on December 1, 2025. To watch the video clip, please click here.

(NewsNation) — More than 200 Border Patrol agents will be deployed to New Orleans for their latest enforcement operation this week as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown continues.

But Jason Houser, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief of staff under former President Joe Biden, says that while what is expected to be a monthslong effort could yield a high number of arrests, those being taken into federal custody will not necessarily equate to what Department of Homeland Security officials consider “the worst of the worst.”

Instead, Houser expects the operation could yield similar results to the Border Patrol’s recent effort in Chicago, where only a small percentage of those being detained are considered dangerous criminals or high-risk security concerns.

Federal officials reported more than 3,200 arrests in Chicago, where Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino oversaw the immigration-focused operation for more than two months. But of about 650 arrests that attorneys challenged, only 16 represented either a high risk of public safety or a high risk of leaving the country.

Houser expects “much of the same” in New Orleans, where, like the Border Patrol’s recent short stint in North Carolina, the number of serious criminal immigrants remains relatively low.

“What I see here is that the (Trump) administration is being challenged by the fact that they want to show these large-scale surges and show that social media content that kind of shows that they’re tackling public safety,” Houser told NewsNation on Monday. “But in all actuality, what we’re not seeing — as most reporting across the spectrum is showing — is that they’re not targeting convicted criminals.”

Instead, Houser said that rather than going after targeted sex and drug traffickers, federal law enforcement agents and officers are going after “low threats” that yield “volume arrests.” But what sets New Orleans apart is its proximity to Alexandria, Louisiana, which is one of ICE’s main epicenters for deportation flights to Latin and Central America.

Houser said the Trump administration has struggled to meet its own expectations for the number of deportations of dangerous migrant criminals that President Donald Trump promised. That’s where the New Orleans immigration crackdown could produce results, he said.

Arrests in New Orleans will allow deportations to proceed more quickly than in previous immigration enforcement operations, Houser said. Bovino and hundreds of Border Patrol agents deployed to cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte have focused on taking people into custody, Houser said, while ICE’s mission is to focus on high security risks and deportations.

Federal data shows more than 1.5 million migrants have previously been ordered to leave the United States but remain here. Now, as the federal focus shifts to New Orleans, the short distance that migrants would have to be moved to be deported will likely factor into what happens in the coming months.

Data obtained by NewsNation from DHS sources shows that there are nearly 80,000 migrants in Louisiana who have previously been ordered to leave the United States. Additionally, more than 15,000 migrants who entered the country are among the nearly 350,000 migrants actively targeted by DHS who entered the country illegally have prior criminal convictions.

Meanwhile, of the more than 35,000 foreign nationals living in Louisiana who come from “special interest” countries, nearly 2,300 are considered high-risk security threats and have been ordered to leave the country.

Another 570 have previous criminal convictions, DHS sources told NewsNation.

Now, with the federal immigration crackdown set to begin in a matter of days, Houser believes the location of the ICE center in southern Louisiana could be a game-changer for migrants who are on target lists for federal immigration officers and agents.

“That will really collapse to the due process and the ability for these attorneys for these migrants to get involved or to make appeals,” Houser said. “What we’re going to see again is the splash of the arrest numbers. But arrests don’t equate to those being removed, and it doesn’t equate to those that all Americans agree that we want federal law enforcement focused on public safety threats.”

That’s not what has been seen under Bovino’s watch, Houser said, adding that the immigration system needs to grow. While that involves federal law enforcement participation, Houser said that Bovino has been acting “outside” of the DHS, Border Patrol or ICE chain of command and has lost sight of those dangerous migrant criminals who are not being taken into federal custody.

“Criminals go into the shadows,” Houser told NewsNation. “People who want to hurt us take time and tension, they need to be targeted, they need to be found, they need to be arrested … but this (operation) is not focused on the hardcore individuals that we need federal law enforcement to target and tackle.”