Miguez shifts to 5th

By Greg LaRose

State Sen. Blake Miguez is leaving the U.S. Senate race after U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow’s entry into the Republican field and will instead run for the House seat she’s vacating. We look at how his move impacts an increasingly crowded 5th Congressional District race that will pit at least four state lawmakers against one another.

By Brian Martucci

A year into the second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, countless U.S. residents and visitors have been touched by the federal government’s rapidly changing data collection and surveillance apparatus. Privacy advocates are increasingly alarmed these tools could be used to chill constitutionally protected expression, while at the same time pressuring tech companies — many of which have cozied up to Trump in his second term — to make it harder for Americans to keep tabs on their government. 

By Bobbi-Jean Misick, Verite

As the Trump administration shifted the focus of its immigration enforcement efforts from the nation’s borders to its interior last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is increasingly turning to local law enforcement agencies through the issuance of immigration detainer requests, newly published data shows. ICE’s New Orleans Field Office is a national leader in the issuance of such requests.