A second occupation of New Orleans

For the entire 20th century, and particularly throughout the civil rights struggle, Louisiana governmental officials denied the right of federal officials to hold any arrest powers in the Pelican State. Those restrictions on policing authority included the FBI agents, ATF operatives and, in particular, any federal military police deployments.

Louisiana governors would cite the post-Reconstruction Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which effectively prohibited military occupying forces from entering states without gubernatorial approval. Subsequent state administrations held firmly onto that federal power to deny federal police access. More importantly, existing Louisiana statutory law prohibits federal officers from any arrest authority whatsoever – unless the governor allows it.

The staunch refusal to allow federal military or civilian police actions in Louisiana was justified on the altar of “states rights.” For over 125 years, conservatives have embraced a noncooperative federalism – predicated upon the constitutional framers’ wariness of a centralized military force conducting local police work – as their “sine qua non.” That is until Gov. Jeff Landry decided to completely flip the script.

Almost two weeks ago, Donald Trump encountered a serious legal problem under the 1878 Act when he sent 4,700 National Guard members and Marines into Los Angeles for law enforcement purposes. Citing the 19th century law and the lack of cooperative approval by California Governor Gavin Newsom, Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer issued a 52-page ruling that states “Contrary to Congress’s explicit instruction, federal troops executed the laws…Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act.”

Suddenly, President Trump could not send troops to any city he chose. The U.S. president lacks in California the special administrative authority that he enjoys in the federal District of Columbia, and consequently needed a state gubernatorial invitation for an invasion.

Answering his autocratic call, Gov. Landry rolled out the red carpet for federal troops to occupy New Orleans for the first time since April 24, 1877. The last time that Union forces left, on orders from President Rutherford B. Hayes, their departure left African Americans deprived of any civil rights. The troops evacuated and Black ballots no longer counted. (That is if African Americans were allowed to vote at all.)

Now, the looming potential return of Yankee occupying forces would ironically rob those Black voters in Orleans Parish of the franchise once more – at least symbolically. Our local electorate would once more answer to the military whims of the national government, and their elected parish representatives would be denied any power to object. Unable to control our Orleans’ local public safety in order to ensure our municipal autonomy, federalism would cease to have any real legal status for the people of the Crescent City.

Ironically, Jefferson Davis would be rolling in his grave at the precedent. The entire constitutional arguments employed by the ideological right about “federal interference” during the civil rights struggle have been reduced to nothing more than rhetoric by the actions of Louisiana’s governor. Federalism suited conservatives when it took away rights, and now centralism becomes the dominant ideology for much the same motivation.

The Civil War is back on, and this time, the Union forces invade to subjugate a minority-majority city rather than liberate it.

This article originally published in the September 8, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.