With a bundle of lime-green signs under her arm, Magali Ortiz strolled down St. Charles Avenue on a sunny Carnival afternoon.
Clad mostly in shades of green, a small but energetic group moved along with her. From the sides of the street, eager hands reached toward them for stickers and signs—many handwritten in black magic marker, with clever slogans that read “NOLA Melts ICE” and “ICE in our drinks, not in our parades.”
Ortiz handed out the signs one after another.
She was part of a small advance crew of about 20 self-organized, unaffiliated volunteers who walked the entire Uptown route on Saturday ahead of the pro-military Legion of Mars parade.
Last year, the Mars parade featured an ICE tactical vehicle that at one point blasted Vanilla Ice’s song, “Ice, Ice, Baby.” Back then, ICE officers weren’t yet covering their faces with masks. But ICE officers in olive green uniforms, wearing plate carriers and tactical belts, threw plastic beads from atop the armored “Special Response Team” vehicle.
That is what drove Ortiz and others to walk ahead of Mars this year.
To help New Orleanians protect themselves and show their disapproval of ICE during the Mars parade, the volunteers spent hours creating hundreds of big and little signs, stickers, and wallet-sized “know your rights” cards.
The idea was not simply to protest, but to enable those in the parade crowd to stage their own protest.
That stance seemed especially important in light of this week’s New Orleans Police Department policy change, which directs its officers to remand people with detainers to federal custody if the local jail won’t accept them.
“No ICE in the Big Easy!” Ortiz called out, as another protester pulled a wagon with a sound system bumping songs from Jon Batiste and Bad Bunny.
More hands, young and old, reached out for signs.
Carnival parades as protest sites
(Photo by Delaney Nolan | The Lens)
Mardi Gras is recognized as a festive spectacle. But it’s also long been a venue for political expression.
Many parades – in particular, Krewe de Vieux – deliberately make space for satire, ragging on local politicians. In the last couple of years, groups like the Krewe of Zeitoun have organized Carnival-time parades to express support for Palestinian rights, calling attention to Gaza amidst Mardi Gras.
Parade spectators, too, frequently become part of this party-and-politics dialogue.
Last year, the Orpheus parade included several Tesla Cybertrucks, emblematic of Tesla founder Elon Musk’s corporate dominance. At the time, Musk had just begun making his DOGE-driven cuts to federal services and dismantling USAID.
Parade watchers evidently found it repugnant. They pelted the Cybertrucks with beads so vigorously that some of the Cybertruck drivers reportedly became concerned for their safety and left the parade route early.
This is not the time of year for subtlety or nuance.
“Carnival is like a pressure valve, about excess,” said Ortiz. Now, during intense political times, acts of protest must be excessive too, she said.
Still, in 2020, when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s investigation division first hit the ground in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, locals barely responded. People wore pink “pussy” hats in objection to Trump’s presidency and its policies toward women. But this was during President Trump’s first term, before the administration began its hyper-focus on immigration, with enforcement that has earned a reputation for violence.
“Colorful costumes. Numerous parades. And yes, lots of beads. It’s Mardi Gras time in New Orleans, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) will be there!” read a feature published on ICE’s official website.
That year, investigative personnel from HSI, one of two major branches within ICE, worked security and helped local responders in and around the French Quarter, with an eye “to combat human trafficking,” according to captions and text on the website.
Anti-ICE signs go fast
Occasionally, on Saturday, as the crew distributed the lime-green signs along St. Charles, a heckling voice would break through the noise: “We support ICE!” a voice would say. Or, “Those people don’t belong here!”
Ortiz responded with the spirit of the holiday, calling back, “Happy Mardi Gras!”
They’d expected some opposition. But in fact, the hecklers were few.
Instead, as the anti-ICE crew walked, occasional applause erupted. People called out, “Thank you!”
Onlookers seemed eager to have a way to show opposition to ICE. “The signs we handed out weren’t just being placed into people’s hands,” Ortiz said. “We were giving them to people who were eager, who were receptive,” who chanted along with us and asked for more signs for their siblings and friends in the crowd.
Before they’d even reached Calliope Street, the walking protesters had handed out all 500 of their handmade signs.
ICE returns in 2025, after New Year’s attack
Last year, after the New Year’s truck attack on Bourbon Street, federal agents were widely present during Carnival. But the Department of Homeland Security was mostly only visible in that its vehicles were used to block side-street approaches to St. Charles Avenue during parades.
Then came the loud and visible ICE presence in last year’s Mars parade. That shook New Orleans’ immigrant and Latino community, Ortiz said.
Some found it disturbing to see ICE amid a Carnival parade, she said, because it seemed “to normalize this concept of ICE agents being friendly and tossing beads.”
ICE agents were not part of this year’s Mars parade. Ortiz and her crew got word in advance that ICE was not included. But the protesters decided to show up anyway, “to say we really, really don’t accept ICE in our community,” and send a message that ICE should not return in future parade rolls.
They hope the message will be heard by other agencies, as well—including state agencies like the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and area police departments, including Jefferson Parish and Kenner, which have signed 287(g) agreements that allow local officers to enforce federal immigration law in cooperation with ICE.
On Thursday, February 12, Mayor Helena Moreno signed an executive order prohibiting any New Orleans public official from entering a 287(g) agreement.
But earlier in the week, the NOPD changed a crucial policy. Under its longtime federal consent decree, NOPD officers were barred from complying with immigration detainers. But now, under the new policy, officers are directed to remand people with immigration detainers to federal custody if the local jail won’t accept them. The change in policy also appears to broaden the type of information NOPD officers share with immigration agents.
Announcements and explanations of the changes have been confusing, critics say. Moreno argued the department was forced to make the change due to a Louisiana law that passed last year, banning so-called “sanctuary cities.”
NOPD officers stationed Uptown during the Legion of Mars parade told The Lens that ICE did not have a presence on the route on Saturday, but that HSI officers were present.
On the same day, a Coast Guard helicopter—the military division of DHS, which recently has participated in immigration sweeps at seafood docks in St Bernard Paris —also flew overhead, circling for hours.
