Justice

New Orleans Adopts a Bias-Free Immigrant Policing Policy

Advocates see the plan, which forbids police officers from racial profiling, as “one of the best in the country.”
A great many Latino immigrants came to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (above, Pedro Ryes works at a lunch truck in June 2007). A new policy aims to ease the tension between these new arrivals to the city and local police.AP Photo/Bill Haber

Immigrants who live and work in New Orleans haven’t always had the rosiest relationship with their city’s police force. But by the end of February, that strain will undergo a much-awaited change, as the city’s new immigrant-friendly, “bias-free” policing policy finally goes into effect.

Here’s Jolene Elberth, immigration organizer at the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, an immigrants’ rights group that has been pushing for this policy, in a press release: