Two immigration advocacy groups are asking a federal court to let them join a lawsuit between the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The lawsuit — United States of America v. Susan Hutson, in her official capacity as Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff — centers around ICE allegations that the OPSO hasn’t complied with federal requests for information on immigrants booked into the parish jail.
ICE is seeking a judicial order to force OPSO to respond to 20 administrative subpoenas issued between October 2025 and January 2026.
The OPSO says a consent decree from a prior case — Cacho v. Gusman — prevents them from complying with ICE.
Cacho was brought against OPSO in 2010 by two construction workers, who alleged the office violated their constitutional rights by keeping them well beyond their criminal sentence based on a hold request from ICE, also known as a detainer. The case was settled in 2013, with OPSO agreeing to a consent decree that included a provision banning the department from honoring most ICE detainer requests or sharing information with ICE.
Cacho is working its way through the court system after the state alleged the consent decree violates a 2024 state law requiring local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
On Tuesday (April 7), the Southern Poverty Law Center and Al Otro Lado filed a motion for intervention with the Eastern District Court, asking to join the lawsuit with OPSO.
The advocacy groups are intervening on behalf of a client in detention, who ICE is trying to get sensitive information about from OPSO, including information on emergency contacts. SPLC attorney Susan Meyers said this is an example of ICE issuing the subpoenas in bad faith.
“ We have argued in our briefing to the court that these [subpoenas] were issued according to an improper purpose, that they were issued to coerce compliance out of OPSO,” she explained.
Under the Constitution, federal law enforcement agencies can’t deputize local ones. However, local law enforcement agencies can enter into an agreement called a 287(g), which allows local law enforcement agencies to be voluntarily deputized by ICE.
New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno signed an executive order in February prohibiting any public official from entering into a 287(g) with ICE. That order does not extend to the sheriff’s office, and Meyers alleges ICE is trying to strong-arm OPSO into an agreement.
“ What ICE is really after is to undo Cacho and to present a picture of collaboration between OPSO and ICE and to further the [Trump] administration's goals here, and not specifically to get the information that it is seeking about these people through these subpoenas,” Meyers said. “So that is its’ collateral purpose, this sort of larger political project. And [ICE] is issuing these subpoenas, we argue, in bad faith, because ICE knows that it's not entitled to this information.”
While OPSO did not object to SPLC and Al Otro Lado joining the lawsuit, the federal government did. The judge overseeing the case is expected to rule on whether the groups can join the lawsuit by the end of the month.
