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Lafayette mother taken into ICE custody
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Governor’s path through Legislative session will require deft politics
El Salvador native had been checking in with authorities regularly BY CLAIRE TAYLOR | Staff writer Venessa Marroquin, of Lafayette, left her 3-year-old daughter with family on March 28 and drove to New Orleans for what she thought would be a routine check-in with officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office there. Instead, she was arrested and transferred to a detention facility in another state. Marroquin was held in a Hancock, Mississippi, jail for three days, then moved to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, said Terry Lavergne, a friend, sponsor and godfather to her daughter. “You can imagine what a 3-year-old is going through,” Lavergne said. “She put her head on my shoulder and cried.” Marroquin, her husband and other family members don’t have visas or other legal status to be in the United States, said Lavergne, a Donald Trump supporter who said he doesn’t blame the president for Marroquin’s detention. The family doesn’t cause any trouble, he said. They don’t even break the rules in the mobile home park where they live. Around five years ago the family left El Salvador after a brother was killed and a sister was threatened if she called the police, Lavergne said. Scared for their lives, he said, they walked into the United States from Mexico and came to Lafayette because a relative was here. “They are scared and getting more scared,” Lavergne said of the family. There are tens of thousands of immigrants like Marroquin, who are allowed to remain in the United States, sometimes for decades, even though their asylum applications have been denied, their case is pending appeal or they’re working through the legal process for asylum. ICE releases such individuals under orders of supervision, which allows the government
ä See MOTHER, page 4A
STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
Gov. Jeff Landry faces challenges over the state budget, auto insurance and his private school voucher program, among others. BY TYLER BRIDGES | Staff writer Gov. Jeff Landry was riding high when he kicked off the regular legislative session a year ago. Only months before, he had outpaced the field to be elected governor. Shortly after taking office, he called two special sessions where state lawmakers approved almost everything he wanted. But Landry is now facing headwinds when he convenes his second regular session as governor on Monday. On March 29, voters handed Landry his worst defeat in his 15 months as governor by soundly rejecting all four changes to the state constitution he sought.
Landry is also encountering a res- showed that voters were evenly dividtive Republican freshman class in the ed on Landry, with 45% offering favorHouse that is pushing for changes in able and unfavorable views of him. car insurance laws that the governor The poll also showed that 45% of the and his trial lawyer allies oppeople surveyed believe Loupose. ä Lawmakers isiana is heading in the wrong “His political honeymoon direction while 38% said the is over,” said veteran pollster seek solution state is heading in the right and political consultant Ber- to insurance direction. To be sure, history shows nie Pinsonat. “He has to do crisis. PAGE 6A that a governor’s honeymoon a better job of selling his acwon’t last long. complishments and bringing In the case of Landry’s Democratic stuff to the public that will satisfy their predecessor, John Bel Edwards, it problems.” A poll conducted by Pinsonat and didn’t last even a day. House RepubliGreg Rigamer for conservative busi- cans broke 40 years of tradition on the ness owner Lane Grigsby immediately ä See LANDRY, page 6A after the March 29 ballot box defeat
Arrested campaign consultant has worked for top La. politicians Lau accused of creating false text messages
websites, producing social media videos and consulting for high-profile politicians who hoped to win elected office in Louisiana. But a recent cyber investigation that BY MEGAN WYATT | Staff writer prompted his arrest has thrust Lau into Chun Ping “Eddie” Lau usually worked the spotlight and put him at the center of behind the scenes, crafting campaign a debate about whether spreading false-
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hoods on the campaign trail is a criminal act. Lau, 47, faces one count of spreading knowingly false political information, a felony, though the law has not been invoked in decades and courts have previously declared it unconstitutional. The case has not been sent to the District
Attorney’s Office yet, and Lau has not entered a plea. He’s accused of sending false text messages to voters in a recent state Senate race that pitted two Republicans, Brach Myers and Jesse Regan,
ä See CONSULTANT, page 4A Lau
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