A Honduran man accused of reentering the United States illegally arrived with his wife, an American citizen, for a U.S. Customs appointment in New Orleans in early April, hoping to emerge a step closer to securing citizenship himself.
Instead, customs officers acting on a mandate from called New Orleans’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office. ICE agents arrived midway through the appointment and arrested the man, Pedro Alejandro Lujan-Martinez, then whisked him to detention.
Lujan-Martinez, who holds a mortgage on a New Orleans-area home and has no other criminal record, two days later found himself in a witness box in federal court, charged with reentering the United States after being deported to Honduras a decade ago. Four other men accused of the same violation sat beside him. A judge speaking through a single Spanish translator heard all five cases at once, speeding the process along.
As Trump directs the might of federal law enforcement to pitch in on his sweeping , the White House has frequently publicized arrests of migrants accused of trafficking, drug smuggling and other grave offenses.
Meanwhile, prosecutors scrambling to fall in line with the president's agenda have pursued an unprecedented number of criminal cases against people like Lujan-Martinez — immigrants whose only alleged crimes are that they reentered the United States after having been deported. U.S. Attorney's Offices have done so by making prodigious use of a statute that deems “illegal reentry†into the country a federal felony, according to a Times-Picayune review of federal court documents and Justice Department data.
The records shed new light on a major shift , which has pivoted from historic priorities such as , environmental crimes and civil rights violations as it aims to implement Trump’s “Operation Take Back America.†The department historically preferred to leave cases where immigration violations were the sole offenses to immigration courts, whose proceedings are civil, rather than criminal.
“(Immigration) may have been right above the duck docket,†said Harry Rosenberg, who was U.S. Attorney in New Orleans under Republican President George H.W. Bush, using legal parlance for the least-coveted cases among federal prosecutors. “But it was always a de minimis percentage of the U.S. Attorney’s practice.â€
Now, seven months into the 2025 fiscal year — four of which came after the start of Trump’s second term — prosecutors in the New Orleans-based U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana have charged more people with illegal reentry than in the entire prior fiscal year,Â
The numbers have surged in the Shreveport-based Western District, too. In the Baton Rouge-based Middle District, an outlier, they are on pace to slightly exceed last year’s total.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to answer detailed questions about the wave of prosecutions.
Among the lowest-level immigration-related felonies in the federal system, illegal reentry is the only charge faced by nearly all those in the new wave of defendants.
Claude Kelly, the chief federal public defender in New Orleans, said the fresh appears to have sowed confusion among the tangle of federal agencies now tasked with carrying out Trump’s agenda. Some defendants who bond out have been swiftly re-arrested and deported by ICE, “in effect ending the criminal matter,†said Kelly, whose office is representing the bulk of the wave of defendants.
“Everyone, including our office, is in the process of figuring out this new world,†he said.
A major shift
Trump in January signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to “prioritize the prosecution of criminal offenses related to the unauthorized entry or continued unauthorized presence†of immigrants. The directive was “unprecedented in that it redirects the full energy of the DOJ to punish immigration-status based offenses,†attorneys with the Immigration Legal Resource Center, an advocacy group, wrote in response to the order.
Criminal immigration caseloads soon began to skyrocket, data show:
- The New Orleans-based U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed 45 illegal reentry prosecutions so far in the 2025 fiscal year, which is halfway concluded. It filed only 24 such cases during the entire 2024 fiscal year, and 20 the previous year.
- Prosecutors in the Western District, which covers Lafayette, Lake Charles, Shreveport and other swaths of the state, have filed 27 illegal reentry cases this year, compared to 12 cases last year and nine cases the prior year.
- The Baton Rouge-based Middle District is an outlier, as prosecutors there have charged just 14 cases midway through the current fiscal year, compared to 26 total last year and seven cases the prior year.
In New Orleans, the prosecutions swelled particularly in April, when 21 people were charged for illegal reentry, court records show.
Of the defendants charged in that latest wave, all of whom were men, one had a previous rape conviction; three had faced domestic abuse charges; one had been accused of a nonfatal shooting; one had a prior drug possession charge; and one had been arrested for fleeing a traffic stop. The remaining 14, including Lujan-Martinez, had no prior criminal records, according to federal court filings.
The trend in prosecutions is similar nationwide. Justice Department attorneys filed more than 14,000 illegal reentry cases halfway through the 2025 fiscal year — roughly equal to the total from 2023 and putting the department on pace to exceed last year’s total, of 18,000, by about 10,000 cases.
Trump in his second term has laid out a far more aggressive immigration agenda than during his first presidency, promising to deport millions of people and collaborating to ship hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious prison in the Central American country. He has defied federal judges who weighed in to stop him. And on Friday, ICE officials  who is a U.S. citizen with "no meaningful process," a federal judge wrote in a court order. The administration also deported two other U.S.-born children.Â
Immigration attorneys and advocates have argued that prosecuting migrants in criminal court unnecessarily burdens the federal system and adds to fear felt by immigrant communities.
But charging people with felonies for illegally reentering presents advantages to an administration trying to get tough on immigration, said Walter Becker, a former federal prosecutor: A felony conviction makes someone eligible for harsher punishment if they illegally enter the United States again.
“Operation Take Back America requires that (federal law enforcement) surge existing resources to address the Justice Department's core enforcement priorities: stopping illegal immigration, eliminating Cartels and TCOs, and ending illegal trafficking of dangerous drugs and human beings,†Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote outlining the new Justice Department agenda.
FBI agents in recent weeks from their typical duties to full-time immigration enforcement. The bureau historically played “zero†role in those operations, said Kenneth Polite, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney General who was New Orleans' top federal prosecutor under Democratic President Barack Obama.
The effects of Trump’s immigration agenda are likely to be felt across the federal system — not just in cases involving immigration charges, Polite said.
“When they’re critical witnesses at trial or grand jury (in other cases), those crimes don’t proceed in terms of investigation or prosecution, because people do not show up before the government,†Polite said.
Effects on courts
Rosenberg, the George H.W. Bush-era former U.S. Attorney, described attending a hearing several weeks ago where seven of eight defendants in the jury box were men facing immigration charges. Such scenes have become common in federal courtrooms since Trump’s inauguration.
On the morning of April 11, when Lujan-Martinez faced a magistrate judge, the Spanish translator spoke in a low murmur as the judge explained to the men in the jury box how they had been accused of federal crimes.
As the judge heard arguments about whether Lujan-Martinez could walk free on bond while his criminal case unfolds, the ICE agent who arrested him, William Phillpott, testified that Lujan-Martinez, who wore a white shirt, close-cropped hair and shackles on his hands, had been detained and deported once before in 2015.
In April, when Lujan-Martinez and his wife scheduled a customs appointment for her husband to obtain a green card under a process for undocumented partners of U.S. citizens, customs agents alerted ICE. They did so under an order by Trump's administration compelling federal agencies to collaborate on immigration arrests, Phillpott said.
Prosecutors argued that Lujan-Martinez should remain locked up pending the conclusion of his criminal case. But due to his lack of criminal history, his marriage to an American citizen and his status as a mortgage holder, the judge ruled he should be freed on a $5,000 bond and an ankle monitor.
His wife shifted nervously in the courtroom, blowing her husband a kiss as he walked to the jury box. “Te amo,†she mouthed to him — Spanish for “I love you.†He nodded back, smiling softly.
Lujan-Martinez's wife declined to be interviewed after the hearing, saying she was distraught by the possibility that her husband might be deported.
His future appeared uncertain this week.
Though Kelly noted that ICE has swiftly deported some migrants released on bonds in their criminal cases, leading federal prosecutors to drop their criminal cases, others have remained out on bond as the cases proceed.
Court records showed Lujan-Martinez's case was still active on Friday. His next court appearance is scheduled for May 7.
