BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Border Patrol agents carried out roundups in metro Baton Rouge Tuesday morning, with arrests spotted in Gonzales Monday night and Gardere Tuesday morning.
Security camera footage obtained exclusively by WAFB shows a white sedan pulling into a parking lot on Gardere Lane as an unmarked black SUV follows closely behind.
Ali Mousa, an employee at Major Discount Food Market, witnessed an arrest outside his workplace.
"I was just working, and that guy just pulled up, and then two cars followed. Agents popped out of one car and started arresting him. He tried to move and run away -- they got him," Mousa said.
Business impact
Mousa, a U.S. citizen, said agents asked for his identification. The man arrested was one of his regular customers.
"They don't bother nobody, they just work, feed their family basically -- do their job, go home, I never had a problem with nobody," Mousa said.
Jay Mousa, Ali's father and owner of Major Discount Food Market, said the roundups have impacted his business.
"It's bad, it's really bad," Jay Mousa said. "We used to have a lot of Honduran people come in and buy stuff, now it's dead, you don't see anybody around. "I don't know what we are going to do, man; we need money from people to survive."
The Mousa family immigrated from Egypt and has operated the store since 2018. Ali Mousa was born in the United States. Despite needing the business, the Mousas said they understand why people are staying home.
"Think about it, you have kids in the house waiting for their dad to come back from work to give them money, to give them food-- they waited, and they never came back -- it's crazy," Ali Mousa said. "That's the thing, they never gave him a chance to say goodbye to their family," Ali Mousa said.
Operation Catahoula Crunch
The Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Catahoula Crunch in New Orleans last week and has expanded to the greater Baton Rouge area. Officials have announced arrests of alleged gang members, rapists, and domestic abusers.
Records obtained by the Associated Press show just one-third of detainees in the New Orleans area had a criminal record, despite an insistence by DHS, it would be targeting those with prior convictions.
No information was available on the criminal history of the individual arrested in Gardere.
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