New Orleans, a city that attracts millions of visitors from around the globe drawn to its jazz, Creole cuisine and lavish Mardi Gras parades, warily awaits the kick-off of an expansive, two-month immigration crackdown to arrest thousands of foreigners.

Around 250 federal agents are expected to arrive Friday and launch operations in earnest in December throughout southeast Louisiana.

Louisiana's Republican Governor Jeff Landry and other state officials have ratcheted up pressure on New Orleans with laws and legal challenges to compel its cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

New Orleans police chief Anne Kirkpatrick said her officers will not participate in immigration removal, even as the department's longstanding federal oversight, which had shielded the department from engaging in immigration enforcement, ended Wednesday.