Immigration

Background

Immigration policy isn't an abstract debate in Louisiana. Louisiana has become the second-largest center for immigration detention in the United States. After Texas, Louisiana has the most number of people detained in the country, currently detaining 13% of immigrants nationwide.

Our communities have watched immigration enforcement carried out in ways that violate due process and cause families and neighbors to live in fear. ICE has engaged in systemic abuses, including racial profiling, family separation, and the targeting of our immigrant neighbors, and even U.S. citizens, which have undermined the values of justice, dignity, and equality that this nation professes to uphold. Lauren has stood with families in this district dealing with uncertainty connected to enforcement actions. As a teacher, Lauren has spent her career watching what instability does to kids. When a parent is detained without warning or when a family doesn't know if they'll be together at dinner, a child cannot learn and a community cannot thrive. She has organized with her fellow union members to ensure that immigrant families get connected to the resources and support during the times they need them the most.

And this district owes immigrants something we don't say out loud often enough: gratitude. After Hurricane Katrina, when over 214,000 homes across New Orleans were damaged or destroyed and much of the region lay in ruins, it was immigrant workers who did the grueling, dangerous work of gutting flooded houses, framing new walls, and putting blue tarps over damaged roofs so families could come home. Nearly half the reconstruction workforce in the months after the storm was Latino, and researchers have found more than half of those workers were undocumented. They worked long days in hazardous conditions, often without protective equipment, and too many were never paid what they were owed. Twenty years later, many of those same workers and their families have put down roots here. They have opened businesses, raised kids in our schools, and become part of the fabric of Southeast Louisiana. The Hispanic population in the greater New Orleans area has grown substantially since Katrina, adding to our workforce, our tax base, and our local economy. As a state that lives at the mercy of hurricanes and coastal erosion, we know exactly who shows up after the storm. It's long past time that we said thank you and treated these neighbors like the essential part of our recovery and our future that they are.

Congressman Scalise has held this seat for over two decades. In that time, Congress has not passed a single major bipartisan immigration reform bill. Meanwhile, the crises pile up: worker shortages, backlogged courts, and a patchwork of executive actions that swing wildly from one administration to the next because Congress refuses to legislate. LA-01 deserves a representative who will actually do the job.

Lauren’s Priorities in Congress

• Support the creation of new humane, accountable, and community-centered structures that uphold immigrant rights, prioritizing pathways to citizenship, community safety, and fair labor standards
• Advocate for policies that respect immigrants' dignity and refocus federal enforcement on actual public safety threats — not sweeps that destabilize schools, places of worship, workplaces, and neighborhoods
• Support a permanent legislative fix for Dreamers who were brought to this country as children and have built their lives here
• Push for full independent investigations and oversight when ICE’s actions result in due process violations, injury, or death like in the cases of Keith Porter, Jr., Renee Good, Alex Pretti, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero
• Support funding for modern border and port-of-entry technology, staffing, and asylum-court capacity so cases are resolved in months, not years.
• Vote for legislation that dismantles ICE and ends its current enforcement and detention operations
• Oppose any expansion of ICE’s authority or budget until the agency is fully dissolved