Orleans sheriff, federal government face off in court over jail’s immigration data-sharing policy

By Bobbi-Jeanne Misick

Contributing Writer

(Veritenews.org) — Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office faced off in court on Tuesday, March 17, as part of an ongoing legal dispute over how much information the local jailer is required to provide federal immigration agencies about detainees in its custody. The dispute stems from a 13-year-old Sheriff’s Office policy, adopted under court order, that largely limits deputies from cooperating with immigration enforcement agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

DHS filed suit against Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson in January over a series of administrative subpoenas from ICE asking the Sheriff’s Office for documents about or interviews with migrants booked into the jail.

According to the lawsuit, the Sheriff’s Office has declined to comply with the subpoenas, citing its 2013 immigration policy – the result of a settlement in a 2011 civil rights case – which prohibits Sheriff’s Office deputies from initiating investigations into jail residents’ immigration statuses and blocks the office from honoring detainer requests from ICE to local law enforcement agencies, asking them to maintain custody of arrestees who are suspected of immigration violations.

The policy was enacted in 2013 by then-Sheriff Marlin Gusman to settle the civil rights case, Cacho v. Gusman, which alleged that the Sheriff’s Office held two construction workers – Mario Cacho and Antonio Ocampo – in the parish jail for months beyond when they were meant to be released after serving separate, short sentences for minor offenses. Detainer requests only allow local jails to hold people for two days beyond their release dates.

The state of Louisiana has recently intervened as a party in the Cacho case – which is separate from the DHS suit – arguing that a 2024 state law banning local law enforcement agencies from adopting so-called “sanctuary” policies should nullify the settlement and the policy. Last month, the federal judge presiding over the case sent the central question in the dispute to the Louisiana Supreme Court, saying it was a matter of state, not federal, law.

In a filing earlier this month responding to the DHS suit, attorneys for the Sheriff’s Office argued that the documents “were issued for an improper purpose, namely to circumvent the limits on ICE’s ability to compel compliance” with its requests.

In court, Peter Mansfield, chief of the Civil Division for the local U.S. Attorney’s Office, who was representing the federal government, said Hutson’s office refused to negotiate how it could comply with the administrative subpoenas.

“If the OPSO had come to ICE with issues with the format,” Mansfield said, “We would’ve engaged in a good faith dialogue” instead of taking the matter to court.

Law enforcement agencies are not legally required to respond to ICE’s administrative subpoenas, which are not issued by a judge.  However, they can become legally enforceable with a judicial order, which is what ICE is seeking in its lawsuit.

Last Tuesday’s evidentiary hearing was held before Federal Magistrate Judge Eva Dossier, to allow both parties to present their arguments as to why Dossier should grant or deny ICE’s request to order OPSO to comply with the subpoenas.

In filings before the hearing, attorneys for the Sheriff’s Office argued that ICE did not follow the proper procedure when issuing the subpoenas and that the federal agency has gone beyond the authority it has been granted through Congress by issuing the subpoenas in the first place.

Mansfield argued that ICE was acting within its authority.

Furthermore, the documents said ICE’s subpoenas were unduly burdensome because several of them asked the local agency to compile lists of people booked into the jail who could not prove they are in the country lawfully.

“ICE has not attempted to cure any of those defects,” Tracey Comeaux, OPSO’s chief legal officer said in court on Tuesday.

Comeaux said OPSO met with ICE, in part to come to some agreement on how the local agency could comply with the administrative subpoenas.

“It became clear that ICE wanted to force compliance,” Comeaux told the court.

In court, Dossier asked both parties if setting up the requested interviews with persons of interest inside the jail via Zoom would be a compromise they could potentially agree on.

“Zoom would be a creative solution that the agency is willing to discuss with the OPSO,” Mansfield said, adding that the best solution would be for OPSO to “allow ICE agents into their facility.”

In court, Comeaux explained that OPSO has not tracked data that would indicate whether or not someone is in the U.S. unlawfully for more than 10 years.

“It seems to me that the data produced would be unhelpful but I don’t understand why that would be undiscoverable,” Dossier told Comeaux.

Dossier did not issue a ruling on Tuesday, instead asking counsel for the federal government to come up with amendments to the subpoenas that might allow OPSO to comply without violating  the Cacho settlement. She gave them one week to submit the amended subpoenas.

This article originally published in the March 23, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.