Locals protests ICE’s presence in New Orleans

By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer

With a biting winter wind whipping around them at Lafayette Square and a chill, intermittent rainy drizzle falling, Janna Saslaw, Sallie Davis and Sandra Stimpson reflected on why they were compelled to participate in the anti-ICE protest and march that was just wrapping up on Jan. 25.

The gathering at the square had been organized and led by the New Orleans Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression within 24 hours after the tragic, shocking murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis. Pretti’s summary execution occurred just two weeks after the similar murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Davis even wore an eagle costume to the Jan. 25 protest, having been inspired by protesters in Portland who had famously confronted ICE agents while wearing now-iconic frog costumes.

“[Her eagle outfit] started because of solidarity with Portland, but [stores here] were out of frogs,” Davis said, “so I decided the eagle was the symbol” she would wear at the protest.

“I’ve decided that you sometimes get more attention [with costumes],” she added, “so I went as the symbol of our country, the real country.”

Davis also carried a flag with her at the event.

“I believe that flag stands for not the Trump administration but our constitution, and it’s under attack,” she said.

Saslaw then said, “New Orleans is the real America. You get into any line in a grocery store, and you’ll see everybody talking to everybody, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

“But all of a sudden some of our folks with color to their skin are afraid to go to that grocery store. That’s unbearable.”

Stimpson had similar thoughts.

“New Orleans is a real mix of people,” she said. “It’s always been a real mix. It’s an immigrant city. Without the immigrants, we never would have survived Katrina.” (The city’s rebuilding after the hurricane was undertaken in large part by immigrants.)

While much of the attention of the country and the world has been rightfully and urgently focused on the tragedies in Minneapolis, the protesters in New Orleans also spoke against the attempts by Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a close ally of President Trump, to similarly use federal agents to conduct an illegal, violent crackdown on immigration in New Orleans and the rest of the state.

“Trump, hear us loud and clear, immigrants are welcome here” the protesters shouted as they marched through the Central Business District. “Landry, hear us loud and clear, immigrants are welcome here!”

Toni Jones, spokesperson for the New Orleans Alliance, said the several hundred protesters who turned out at Lafayette Square two Sundays ago helped to keep the pressure on state and federal officials who were continuing the anti-immigration campaigns of fear and repression.

“It was a great showing of people,” Jones said. “We need to continue demonstrating if we want to see justice.”

Jones said that in addition to such public events, the Alliance is pressing City of New Orleans officials to be more proactive in pushing back against Landry and other state administrators who want to impose federal force in the city. She said city officials need to adopt official policies that stand against and block the state and federal forces from doing in New Orleans what they’re doing in Minneapolis.

In the week since Pretti’s murder, the federal government showed a few signs of relenting in their campaign of chaos, including the removal of thinly veiled fascist Greg Govino as Border Patrol czar, the apparent sidelining of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and an allegedly productive phone conversation between President Trump and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has been steadfast in his vocal resistance to the feds’ presence and abhorrent tactics in Minneapolis.

Jones said these apparent small victories are evidence that sustained, passionate protests can eventually make a difference, something the Alliance wants to happen here in New Orleans as well.

“We want to keep Landry and the GOP out of our city,” Jones said. “We need to make it clear that people here don’t want them here, and when [state and federal officials] see that more people are getting involved in the movement, it gets them to back down.”

However, Jones added that there’s more to be done by the resistance against state-imposed terror, including locally. She said the fact that protest organizers were able to bring several hundred people out on such a frigid winter day and just one day after Pretti’s death shows what the New Orleans community is capable of.

“We were able to do it the very next day after Alex had been shot,” Jones said. “It’s important for us to get ahead of things before the Republicans are able to change the narrative.

“We’re going to be fighting and attacks that come down,” she added.

This article originally published in the February 2, 2026 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.