This article was produced in partnership with Gulf States Newsroom.
Alexander Sanchez had only been in the United States for two months when police officers pulled him over one morning in December near a major intersection in Kenner, about 10 miles outside of New Orleans.
It was a routine stop — the Kenner Police officers who pulled him over said Sanchez had run a red light — but it ended with Sanchez in a federal immigration detention center.
According to the police report, when an officer asked Sanchez for his driver’s license and his car’s registration and insurance information, Sanchez – who was undocumented and could not obtain a driver’s license in Louisiana – handed him a Honduran passport.
Speaking through an interpreter in a phone interview in June, Sanchez said he told the officer, “No tengo permitido” — I’m not permitted.
Sanchez was booked into the Kenner jail for driving without a license and the traffic signal violation. He said he spent three days in jail and then he was taken to federal immigration detention in rural Louisiana.
Hours after his arrest, Kenner, officers filled out a second arrest report for Sanchez based on a procedural request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — called an immigration detainer. Detainers are used to request that local law enforcement either let ICE know when they’re going to release detainees who may be subject to deportation or to hold them for 48 hours beyond when they would otherwise be released to facilitate their transfer to immigration detention.
Sanchez would be held for months inside a notorious former state prison in Winnfield — now used for immigration detainees — with a history of alleged human rights abuses. (Sanchez is no longer in immigration detention, he asked that his current location not be disclosed. He is identified by his middle name and second last name for the same reason.)
Sanchez’ case is hardly unique in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans with a large Hispanic population.
Gulf States Newsroom and Verite News analyzed Kenner Police Department arrest records for the first five months of this year and found that traffic arrests from stops and crashes in that city are serving as a gateway to immigration detention — and possible deportation — for many.
President Donald Trump came into office this year promising a nationwide crackdown undocumented immigrants. Among the tools his administration has used more extensively are detainer requests, which were up more than 60 percent in the first five months of 2025 compared to the same period last year, according to federal data reported by the Deportation Data Project.
But in Kenner, the increase has been even more dramatic. ICE issued at least 129 immigration detainers through Kenner PD between January and May, a more than sixfold increase from the 20 detainers issued through Kenner PD during the same period in 2024.
The vast majority of people booked on immigration detainers after being arrested by Kenner police from January through May were born in Honduras, according to the data shared by the Deportation Data Project.
According to Kenner arrest records, at least 75 of them, more than half, were initially booked for traffic-related offenses following a stop or collision.
The most common traffic offense linked to an immigration detainer was driving without a license — under state law, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Louisiana licenses — often accompanied by other traffic-related charges.
More than half of the people whom Kenner PD arrested for unlicensed driving between January and May 2025 became subjects of immigration detainer requests, like the one issued for Sanchez.
Asked for comment on Sanchez’s case, an ICE spokesperson said the agency “defers to KPD.”
Rachel Taber, a member of New Orleans-based immigrants rights group Union Migranté, said she has been consulting with people whose loved ones have ended up detained and in some cases deported after traffic stops in Kenner. She stressed that the arrests can traumatize families who may be separated over a traffic offense.
“The penalty doesn’t fit the crime,” Taber said. “A minor traffic infraction does not merit … never being able to hug your kids again.”
As of Tuesday (Aug. 12) it was not clear how many of the people for whom detainers were issued had more serious criminal records. (Verite News and Gulf States Newsroom have requested all criminal background check information obtained by Kenner law enforcement.)
ICE issued at least 129 immigration detainers through Kenner PD between January and May, a more than sixfold increase from the same period in 2024.
As more local departments, encouraged by Trump, are partnering with ICE, similar patterns are emerging throughout the country. In June, The Washington Post reported on how expanding partnerships between ICE and police agencies around the country have deployed traffic arrests as part of the machinery of immigration enforcement.
Though Louisiana law enforcement agencies have partnered with ICE in the past, no such formal partnerships were in place at the beginning of this year, when Trump took office. This year, however, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and his conservative allies in the state legislature have strongly pushed for their adoption. And in March, Kenner PD became one of the first Louisiana departments to ink a new agreement with the federal agency, although as of last month, that program had not been fully implemented, Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley said in an interview.
To Conley, ICE’s increased reliance on local law enforcement, and its use of detainers, shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the emphasis on local-federal partnerships from both Trump and Landry, who has pushed local agencies in Louisiana to cooperate with federal immigration agencies.
“I think it was the perfect storm, with a governor coming in that’s very law-and-order, and then you have the president coming in that ran on immigration reform and border security. So I don’t think it’s a coincidence now that we had these spikes,” he said.
Conley said traffic enforcement is the “number one” concern for Kenner constituents. Driving without a license is a particular concern because of the risk that unlicensed and uninsured drivers may cause an accident, and the other drivers involved may “never get made whole,” Conley said.
Michele Waslin, assistant director of the Immigration History Research Center at University of Minnesota, said that scenario is why some states have expanded eligibility for driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.
“Obviously, people are driving without licenses. You’re not stopping them from driving,” Waslin said. “We want them to be licensed and insured … so in the case that there is an accident, what you described won’t happen.”
Waslin, who has studied the intersection of driver’s license policy and immigration enforcement, said laws blocking undocumented immigrants from accessing licenses “very clearly intersect with agreements with state and local police to identify people for deportation.”
Conley said his agency is not enforcing immigration law, but making arrests based on criminal laws.
“They’re in our lockup based on a lawful criminal arrest. If [Homeland Security Investigations] calls and puts a detainer on them, I’m going to honor the detainer,” Conley said, referring to a branch of ICE that investigates immigration violations.
‘You’re going to get brought to jail’
Sanchez fled Honduras after receiving death threats, according to his immigration attorney, Jeremy Jong. In October, he settled in the New Orleans metro area, near his aunt, Judith Cruz.
On the morning Sanchez was arrested, he was driving to Cruz’s house in St. Rose, which borders Kenner, to take her to church, Cruz said in an interview.
Sanchez couldn’t get a driver’s license because Louisiana requires applicants for driver’s licenses to show proof that they are in the country legally.
Driving without a license is considered a misdemeanor in Louisiana. According to a Kenner city ordinance, the penalty for driving without a license is up to $500 in fines and no more than 60 days behind bars, The state penalty is more stringent , with possible fines and a maximum of six months behind bars.
Though it is a crime, not all law enforcement agencies routinely arrest people for driving without a license. In Kenner, however, it’s required. For undocumented immigrants like Sanchez, an arrest can lead to an ICE detainer request, then a lengthy stay in immigration detention and possible deportation.
Conley said police in Kenner have long been required to arrest anyone suspected of driving without a license. In an interview in May, the police chief said his department has been “transparent” about its policy.
“Mothers have no choice but to work to provide for our families. And when you drive to work, you’re taking your life in your hands.”Judith Cruz
“Here in the city of Kenner, it’s very well known that if you’re operating a vehicle and you’ve never been issued a license, you’re going to get brought to jail,” he said.
Kenner PD is a potential outlier. Verite News and Gulf States Newsroom asked 10 law enforcement agencies in the region, including the Louisiana State Police, about their policies and practices for encounters with unlicensed drivers. Of the seven that responded, only one other agency – St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office – has a mandatory arrest policy on suspicion of driving without a license.
Through a translator, Cruz said she knows many immigrants in her community who have been arrested by Kenner Police and booked into the city’s local jail for traffic violations. She said some of them, like her nephew, ended up in the hands of immigration agents.
She said mothers who need to provide for their children and cannot always get a ride will take the risk of driving without a license in order to get to and from work.
“Mothers have no choice but to work to provide for our families. And when you drive to work, you’re taking your life in your hands,” Cruz said. “It’s just very painful to think about all the children that could be left home without their families.”
There are two main ways that ICE learns of people in local jails who may have violated federal immigration law. When someone is booked into jail, that person’s information is often electronically shared with multiple federal agencies, according to Lindsay Williams, a public information officer for ICE.
If agents at ICE find the person is suspected of immigration violations, they’ll contact the ICE office responsible for the region where the arrest was made, and that office will issue a detainer, Williams said. Local or state agencies can also inform ICE agents in their area about people in custody. Williams said officials in the New Orleans ICE office learn about arrests by Kenner PD through both methods.
The records obtained by the newsrooms do not shed light on why authorities requested an immigration detainer for each individual in Kenner.
A boom in federal-local immigration enforcement partnerships under Trump
The jump in detainers issued to Kenner PD aligns with a national increase in ICE’s use of these requests that may be attributed to pressure from the Trump administration to ramp up immigration arrests in order to fulfill his campaign promise of mass deportations.
In the early days of his second term Trump urged homeland security officials to secure more agreements with local agencies to collaborate on immigration enforcement. These partnerships – called 287(g) agreements – deputize local officials to perform some ICE duties.
“If you want to increase the number of deportations, if you want large numbers, then you’re going to use these partnerships more and more,” Waslin said.
In Louisiana, Landry, an immigration hardliner and Trump ally, began laying the groundwork for increased state and local participation in immigration enforcement in 2024. During that year’s legislative session, Landry worked with Republican lawmakers on a civil law that prohibits law enforcement agencies from following so-called “sanctuary” policies that limit cooperation with ICE. This June, Landry signed a new piece of legislation with sharper teeth into law, making it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for local officials to refuse to comply with immigration detainer requests.
As of mid-August, ICE has 897 active partnerships with agencies around the country for the 287(g) program, according to the agency – compared to 135 in December near the end of the Biden Administration. In Louisiana, which had no participants enrolled in the program at the end of last year, 17 agencies, including Kenner PD, have signed up.
While the department is not yet fully accredited in the program, Williams, the ICE representative, said Kenner PD’s existing relationship with the agency was a “main contributing factor” to securing the partnership.
“The relationship is a stellar example of state and local cooperation with ICE for upholding public safety and has been for many years across multiple presidential administrations,” Williams said in an email.
Once accredited, Kenner PD will operate under what is called a “jail enforcement model,” which authorizes police officers to investigate immigration statuses of people booked into the city’s jail, place them into immigration proceedings and issue immigration detainers themselves.
‘A failure to yield upended her life’
In some cases in Kenner, people were involved in traffic crashes other people had a hand in — only to be arrested and later booked by immigration agents, Kenner PD records show.
In an incident on March 7, a woman spoke to police as the victim of an alleged hit-and-run, according to a probable cause statement in arrest reports.
Police arrested her for driving without a license, and she was booked on an ICE detainer the next day. Conley said people involved in an accident will be asked if they have a driver’s license and will “be held to the law.”
In Kenner, records do show arrests of some people who were accused of crimes with serious penalties and then booked on immigration detainers. For example, between January and May, 2025, Kenner police took at least three people into custody who were suspected of sex-related crimes and then booked on detainers.
Nationally, the share of people arrested by immigration officers who also have past criminal convictions has fallen when compared to the previous presidential administration, one recent analysis showed.
Jong, an attorney at immigrants rights organization Al Otro Lado, said he’s had a few clients who have been detained after being arrested for traffic offenses in Kenner.
He still thinks about a client, a woman from El Salvador, who was arrested by Kenner police officers for allegedly failing to obey a traffic sign back in 2017. Jong said the woman’s family was “ruined” by her deportation.
“A failure to yield upended her life and split up this family,” Jong said. “Her husband was torn up.”
Jong said knowing the possible consequences for arrests of immigrants in Kenner, he doesn’t understand the department’s policy of arresting people who are unable to obtain driver’s licenses in the state for not having them.
“There’s so much discretion for a police department to determine what laws you’re gonna put people in jail for,” Jong said. “It does seem like they are making the conscious decision to do something that is gonna lead to many of their residents getting deported.”
In an email, Conley said the responsibility lies with the individual who isn’t licensed, and that Kenner is “diverse and inclusive.”
Sanchez was detained for five months at Winn Correctional Center. He said near the end of his time there, he experienced headaches daily and became paranoid – fearful of the danger he said he escaped in Honduras.
He said he thinks fondly about his time in Louisiana before he was arrested because he felt safe.
“Things were going pretty well for me,” he said. “I wasn’t in danger.”
He said he tries not to think about his time in immigration detention.
