In a move pressed by the New Orleans City Council and prodded by a lawsuit from two men who were held behind bars on immigration holds months after their legal release dates, Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman will no longer accept such requests by federal officials unless inmates are also charged with major violent offenses. Immigrant advocates said the change marks the first of its kind in the South and places Orleans Parish among a growing roster of state and local jurisdictions nationwide that have balked at a federal push to use local law enforcement as a tool for deportation. They also say Gusman has gone further than others by agreeing to include the policy shift in a legal settlement with lawyers for the two former inmates.
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