Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 14, 2025

[Adam Isacson]

https://www.wola.org/2025/11/weekly-u-s-mexico-border-update-border-patrol-chicago-drawdown-the-u-s-militarys-role/

Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 14, 2025

With this series of weekly updates, WOLA seeks to cover the most important developments at the U.S.-Mexico border. See past weekly updates here.

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THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:

• Bovino’s Border Patrol contingent moving out of Chicago: About 200 Border Patrol agents at the heart of the so-called “Operation Midway Blitz” campaign in Chicago will be departing the city soon. Along with high-profile commander Gregory Bovino, they are reportedly headed to Charlotte and New Orleans. Bovino’s aggressive tactics in Los Angeles and Chicago, which have earned rebukes from judges, have brought into sharp relief the difference between Border Patrol’s and ICE’s approaches. Favored by current DHS management, the Border Patrol approach is poised to be replicated nationwide in 2026.
• The military role in border security and migration: Some aspects of the Defense Department’s role in border and migration policy, which the Trump administration has expanded in ways that strain longstanding norms of U.S. civil-military relations, may be declining or leveling off. Some missions, however, appear set to grow significantly in 2026, as the Pentagon prepares to launch a new national defense strategy that prioritizes the homeland and the Western Hemisphere as the military’s top objectives.
• Links: “mass deportation” and human rights in the U.S. interior: Links to updates about tactics in the administration’s ongoing “blitz” in Chicago and elsewhere in the U.S. interior, conditions in ICE detention, dynamics in immigration courts, and other emerging human rights issues.

THE FULL UPDATE:

Bovino’s Border Patrol contingent moving out of Chicago

Next destinations may be Charlotte and New Orleans

A contingent of over 200 Border Patrol agents who had been pursuing migrants in an intense, controversial campaign of raids in Chicago since mid-September appears poised to leave the city after arresting more than 3,000 people. Severalmedia outlets, citing official sources, reported that the deployment led by high-profile At-Large Commander Gregory Bovino would be departing shortly. The group’s next likely destinations are Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana, either simultaneously or consecutively.

Bovino posed on November 10 with about 100 agents in front of downtown Chicago’s iconic mirrored “Bean” sculpture. This recalled a group photo that Bovino posted to Twitter in front of the Hollywood sign in September, shortly before departing Los Angeles. (In both images, nearly all agents’ faces are masked or blurred.)

Bovino, an unusually publicity-seeking agent who began the year as chief of Border Patrol’s quiet El Centro Sector in southeast California, became the face of the Chicago operation, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called “Operation Midway Blitz.” This, and a June-September operation in Los Angeles, were marked by a constant stream of social media posts and videos touting the agents’ activities, along with a similarly constant stream of allegations of racial profiling and human rights abuse, and rebukes from federal judges.

(For more about the Border Patrol contingent’s controversial arrest and crowd-control tactics, including serious allegations of misuse of force, see the “‘Mass deportation’ and human rights in the U.S. interior links at the bottom of this and the last few WOLA Border Updates.)

Posed in front of the “Bean” (formally known as “Cloud Gate”), agents—many with their faces covered, some carrying long guns—shouted “Little Village!” as the photographer snapped the shot. This was a reference to the heavily Mexican-American Chicago neighborhood where the agents carried out many raids and frequently confronted residents. “Making fun of our neighborhoods and communities is disgusting,” responded JB Pritzker (D), the governor of Illinois and a vocal opponent of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

The 110-ton sculpture’s creator, artist Anish Kapoor, said he was considering legal action. “Abducting street vendors, breaking doors, pulling people from cars, using teargas on residential street… I mean, this is fascist America and just beyond belief,” said the artist, a supporter of refugee causes.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other DHS agencies, along with a reduced number of Border Patrol agents, will remain and continue to operate in Chicago, just as they have in other cities where surges have declined from earlier peaks, such as Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Along with the Border Patrol agents, though, “an on-call task force composed of FBI and assistant U.S. attorneys” will also be departing Chicago, according to the Chicago Tribune.

All media reports point to Charlotte, in Bovino’s home state, as a likely next destination, along with New Orleans. The sheriff’s office for Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, told CNN that it had not been in contact with any DHS officials about a possible move to their jurisdiction.

Use of force and highly aggressive tactics

“If the reports are true, it could not have come soon enough,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) said on November 11, adding that Bovino’s agents are leaving behind “trails of tears and chaos.” In a statement reported by CNN, Johnson added, “Greg Bovino’s legacy in Chicago is chaos, criminality, and terror… It is the grassroots resistance to Bovino that has forced them to retreat… Bovino did nothing to make our city safer. He will not be missed in Chicago.” Gov. Pritzker added, “The people of Chicago have deserved better than having CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and Greg Bovino in this city.”

The Border Patrol contingent’s departure comes just days after U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis imposed new limits on their use of force, particularly in crowd control situations. Ellis castigated Bovino for appearing to defy an earlier order limiting use of tear gas and other crowd control weapons; she said that Bovino lied to her about being hit with a rock before personally tossing a tear gas canister at protesters in Little Village, an act caught on video. (Bovino is frequently photographed with a tear gas canister clipped to his uniform.)

The Los Angeles and Chicago operations laid bare a reality known to many border residents: Border Patrol’s tactics are more aggressive and violent than those usually employed by ICE. Nick Miroff explained in a November 10 post at the Atlantic:

Border Patrol and ICE tend to have a different approach to immigration enforcement: ICE officers are used to working in U.S. cities and targeting specific individuals they’re seeking to arrest. Border Patrol agents work in remote desert and mountain areas where they are trained to see anyone they encounter as a suspected illegal entrant. They don’t hesitate to use force on suspects who run or resist arrest. But they’ve never been deployed to U.S. cities at this scale, hundreds of miles from any border crossing.

At the Wall Street Journal, Josh Dawsey, Michelle Hackman, and Tarini Parti found that the mismatch between ICE’s more targeted approach and Border Patrol’s flashy, indiscriminate approach is causing “infighting at DHS.” They note that “longtime immigration officials,” including White House “Border Czar” Tom Homan, “want to rely on traditional methods including using police research to develop target lists” and prioritizing migrants with criminal records. Bovino’s Border Patrol contingent, by contrast, prefers “large, attention-grabbing operations.”

The Journal authors note that Bovino currently has the upper hand, as he has the full-throated support of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, to whom he is reporting directly, and her special advisor Corey Lewandowski, a onetime Trump campaign manager. As detailed in WOLA’s October 31 Border Update, the Trump administration is replacing the directors of several ICE field offices around the United States with career Border Patrol agents whom Bovino is playing a role in recommending.

Despite their camera-ready bravado, the Journal noted, the Border Patrol tactics have “proved inefficient in significantly boosting arrest numbers.” In May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller instructed ICE to arrest 3,000 people per day nationwide, about five times the Biden-era level. While daily arrests are usually below half that number, it’s notable that “Operation Midway Blitz” arrested just over 3,000 people over two months—equivalent to Miller’s one-day national quota. And on November 12, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ordered the release from ICE detention of 615 people arrested in Chicago (although many of them have probably been deported already).

A data analysis from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found that during Greg Bovino’s tenure as chief of Border Patrol’s El Centro sector—a position he held since 2020, with one hiatus in 2023—that sector consistently led all of Border Patrol’s nine US-Mexico border sectors in the frequency of use-of-force incidents. “El Centro’s data reflects the highest ratio of use of force to assault of any Border Patrol sector in the nation, far higher than the other 19 sectors and the Border Patrol overall.”

El Centro under Bovino’s tenure is an outlier when comparing CBP’s use of force statistics with its migrant apprehension statistics. El Centro is a pretty quiet sector, apprehending fewer migrants than all but one of Border Patrol’s nine U.S.-Mexico border sectors. Measuring “uses of force per 100,000 apprehensions,” however, makes evident the propensity to use force of El Centro agents under Bovino’s command.

Use of Force Incidents, as a Proportion of Apprehensions, by U.S.-Mexico Border Patrol Sector, Fiscal 2022-2025

Sector	FY 2022			FY 2023			FY 2024			FY 2025
	Apps	Incidents	Inc./100K	Apps	Incidents	Inc./100K	Apps	Incidents	Inc./100K	Apps	Incidents	Inc./100K
Del Rio	480,931	38	7.9	393,226	75	19.07	244,105	59	24.17	32,780	22	67.11
Tucson	251,984	197	78.18	373,625	237	63.43	463,567	130	28.04	41,287	106	256.74
El Paso	307,844	79	25.66	427,471	218	51	256,102	137	53.49	47,165	99	209.9
RGV	468,124	102	21.79	338,337	70	20.69	135,099	41	30.35	36,391	35	96.18
San Diego	176,290	153	86.79	230,941	138	59.76	324,260	129	39.78	49,902	101	202.4
Yuma	310,094	70	22.57	174,201	41	23.54	53,877	14	25.99	7,722	10	129.5
Laredo	106,843	49	45.86	45,644	43	94.21	31,108	36	115.73	14,562	44	302.16
El Centro	72,378	112	154.74	50,570	108	213.57	17,484	61	348.89	4,633	19	410.1
Big Bend	31,948	12	37.56	11,823	8	67.66	4,921	6	121.93	3,096	8	258.4
Border-Wide	2,206,436	812	36.8	2,045,838	938	45.85	1,530,523	613	40.05	237,538	444	186.92

In fiscal 2025, El Centro agents were involved in 19 use-of-force incidents and apprehended 4,633 people; that ratio of 410 incidents per 100,000 apprehensions (or “4.1 per 1,000”) was one-third higher than the second-place sector (Laredo, 302) and more than double the border-wide average (187). In 2024, El Centro’s ratio of 349 incidents per 100,000 apprehensions was nearly triple that of the second-place sector (Big Bend, 122) and more than 8 times the border-wide average (40).

The table above also shows a sharp border-wide increase in “use of force incidents per apprehensions” in 2025. This could be a factor of the Trump administration’s more permissive attitude toward the use of force, and of the sharp recent 2025 reduction in apprehensions (see WOLA’s October 31 Border Update). One reason “organizational culture change under Trump” might be a factor is that apprehensions declined much more (-84%) than use-of-force incidents (-28%).

A model likely to be replicated

The “Border Patrol / Chief Bovino” model of aggressive enforcement may grow further in 2026, with profound effects on the makeup and mission of DHS, argued Jason Houser, a former Biden-era ICE chief of staff, in a November 1 column at MSNBC. “Under Bovino’s command, the Department of Homeland Security has assembled something new: a hybrid, unaccountable task force reporting directly to DHS headquarters and the White House and operating outside the traditional command structures that govern federal law enforcement,” Houser wrote. “It isn’t ICE. It isn’t CBP. It’s a Frankenstein force, stitched together from multiple agencies but loyal to none. Its purpose is to create a community response designed for social media clicks, rather than to keep communities safe.”

Houser views this model as central to a massive ramp-up of deportations next year, aided by over $170 billion in new funding for CBP and ICE from the “big bill” that Congress passed in July.

This isn’t just about optics today or this week — it’s about setting the stage for the administration’s next act. Bovino’s “task force” is laying the groundwork for a rapid expansion of so-called soft-sided detention facilities across the country.

Plans and resources are coming together to establish temporary detention compounds capable of processing thousands of people at a time in areas where the Border Patrol will expand deployments in early 2026. These aren’t being built to house violent offenders or national security threats. They’re designed to absorb the surge of arrests of people who pose no safety threat that this political task force intends to generate.

“The way Trump has organized ICE and CBP now, they are like a secret police. They wear masks,” Gov. Pritzker warnedin a New Yorker interview. “They do not carry or show their badges or their names. They are in unmarked cars. They’re grabbing people without telling you who they are and throwing those people into their cars and taking them away.” Pritzker worried that this model could “end up in a clash” between federal and local law enforcement officers, because “What do you do when someone right in front of you is breaking the law? You’re supposed to arrest them. So I think something really dangerous and terrible could happen.”

At the Atlantic, Miroff focused on Trump-era agencies’ adoption of face masks, which “quickly turned officers and agents into a faceless, impersonal, undifferentiated goon squad. It’s a look that has long been associated with authoritarian regimes and secret police, and the basic visual signifiers of American law enforcement—criminals wear masks; cops show their faces—were suddenly inverted.” Voicing concerns about “online activism, facial recognition, and anonymous threats,” even veteran ICE officials told Miroff that they did not believe the practice might end anytime soon.

The military role in border security and migration

Recent coverage of the Defense Department’s role in border and migration policy, which the Trump administration expanded dramatically this year despite longstanding norms discouraging U.S. military participation in internal law enforcement, suggests that some aspects of these missions are declining or have leveled off. Some missions, though, appear set to grow significantly in 2026.

Marines exit San Diego

Four days into the Trump administration, the White House posted cinematic video of active-duty U.S. Marines deploying to the border, landing in Osprey aircraft and armored personnel carriers to fulfill a mission in support of CBP. Ten months later, Border Report revealed, the Marines have quietly withdrawn back to Camp Pendleton in Southern California.

The contingent was based at the Imperial Beach Border Patrol station, where the border meets the Pacific, and then moved about 60 miles east to Campo, California. “Most of their time was spent putting up concertina wire on border barriers to prevent migrants from scaling down the fences,” noted Border Report’s Salvador Rivera. People interviewed in Campo and a Border Patrol agent in Imperial Beach said they had not seen Marines “for weeks” or until “about a month ago.”

Naval vessel departs

The U.S. Navy informed of the departure of a littoral combat ship, the U.S.S. St. Louis, that had been stationed near where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier in the year, the Trump administration had ordered Navy destroyers to be stationed off the coast of both ends of the U.S.-Mexico border; now it is not clear what vessel might replace the littoral combat ship, which is designed to operate near coastlines.

Guantanamo

New York Times reporter Carol Rosenberg, who covers events at the Defense Department’s Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in southeastern Cuba, published a report offering a view into the rushed, improvised way that military personnel prepared the base to receive detained migrants, after President Donald Trump’s January announcement that his administration would send as many as 30,000 people there. The new information comes from 84 pages of partly redacted emails obtained via Freedom of Information Act litigation by the organization American Oversight.

The base has since held a total of 700 migrants, reaching a daily high of 178 in February. “No ICE detainees were being held there this week. The last detainees, 18 men, were sent to Guatemala and El Salvador last month,” Rosenberg recalled.

The executive director of American Oversight, Chioma Chukwu, told Rosenberg that the trove of documents shows “that the administration had ‘no plan, no foresight and no concern for the human cost of its own chaos.’” They show that as many as 90 percent of people held at the base were considered “low risk to public safety,” that detainees often protested the poor conditions of their detention, and that ICE was woefully unprepared to receive them.

Cost of U.S. cities’ deployment

The Intercept, reporting on information that the office of Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) shared with the National Priorities Project, noted that the Trump administration’s military (mostly National Guard) deployments in interior U.S. cities have cost the Defense Department $473 million so far.

The current $473 million price tag now includes $172 million spent in Los Angeles, where troops arrived in June; almost $270 million for the occupation of Washington, D.C., which began in August; nearly $15 million for Portland, Oregon, which was announced in September; and more than $3 million for Memphis, Tennessee, and almost $13 million for Chicago, which both began last month.

While these are not specifically border or migration missions, personnel sent to these cities have at times accompanied ICE and CBP, or have been stationed outside federal buildings during protests of the Trump administration’s immigration policies and actions.

The data provided to the National Priorities Project included an estimate of $323,333 per day to maintain a 60-day deployment of 500 National Guard members. That is $647 per soldier per day.

This military model may grow

Journalist Ken Klippenstein recalled that the Defense Department’s four-year National Security Strategy, “now in its final edits,” will make the U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere the Department’s top security priority, ranked above global terrorism or China and other “near-peer” powers.

“For the first time ever, the strategy incorporates everything from closing the borders and establishing ‘National Defense Areas’ along them, immigration enforcement operations, the war against Antifa and other domestic groups, and even boat strikes in the Caribbean into a singular coherent war,” Klippenstein noted.

Other news

• At a nationwide meeting in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved, by a 216-5-3 vote, a “special message” voicing strong concerns about the direction of U.S. immigration policy; the New York Timescalled it a “rebuke” of the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” campaign. It is the first such document, known as a “Special Pastoral Message,” since 2013, and it reflects concerns expressed by Pope Leo XIV (see WOLA’s November 7 Border Update). It reads:

We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.

• A report from Human Rights Watch and Cristosal, and an investigation by the New York Times, provide new detail about the persecution, torture, and sexual violence that 252 Venezuelan men suffered in El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) prison after the Trump administration, invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, rounded them up without due process and sent them there in March 2025. Both reports were based on interviews with 40 of the men, who the Trump administration accused without proof of being members of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization that it has labeled “terrorist.” They were released to Venezuela in July; they told of beatings, being shot with rubber bullets, being sexually abused, being denied medical treatment, undergoing forced labor, enduring constant humiliation from guards, and other violations.
• Among those on the planes to the CECOT, along with the Venezuelans, were (we believe) 23 citizens of El Salvador, including Kilmar Abrego García, whom the Trump administration sent to El Salvador even though an immigration judge had granted him withholding of removal to prevent him from being sent there. Abrego García, returned to the United States in June, is willing to be deported to Costa Rica, and the Costa Rican government has indicated that it would take him. But the administration is insisting on deporting him to the west African nation of Liberia, and is petitioning a judge to allow that to happen.
• The chief of Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector stated that an agent had a shot “fired in his direction” from the Ciudad Juárez side of the border while he was pursuing migrants by the Rio Grande near downtown El Paso on November 7.
• UNHCR data show no increase in the number of migrants leaving Venezuela amid the threat of possible U.S. hostilities against the country’s ruling regime. Instead, the Washington Post reported, the Trump administration’s revocation of protections including Temporary Protected Status (TPS)—which expired for more than 600,000 people on November 7—is leading Venezuelans to flee the United States. “Some Venezuelans have been frantically scrubbing their social media and messaging accounts—deleting old posts, photos, even casual comments that mention the Venezuelan government or the opposition—in case they’re forced to return.”
• A three-year-old Colombian child died when a boat returning migrants southbound from Panama to Colombia capsized over the November 8-9 weekend. It is the second time this year that a child has died on the southbound maritime route that avoids having to traverse the Darién Gap.
• Former CBP officer Diego Bonillo was sentenced to 15 years in prison for allowing traffickers to pass through his booth at the Otay Mesa port of entry, southeast of San Diego, in 2023 and 2024.
• The Laredo, Texas City Council will meet on November 14 to review CBP’s blueprints for the border wall segment that the administration seeks to build along the city’s riverfront. Laredo is one of the largest cities along the border that has not yet been walled off, and a significant portion of its population opposes barrier construction.
• Fifty-nine percent of the majority Mexican-American county encompassing the mid-Texas border city of Eagle Pass voted for Donald Trump last year, but many are now having second thoughts, the Guardian reported. “Now Eagle Pass has gone back to normal, but this is still a broken system. Because you’re deporting people doesn’t mean that you’re fixing it,” said the city’s fire chief.
• The Trump administration’s tariffs are causing net job losses in Ciudad Juárez—7,661 fewer in its employment market so far this year, Norte reported. Most of the losses are in export-oriented assembly plants, or maquiladoras. The Confederation of Mexican Employers (COPARMEX) issued a warning that public security challenges in Mexican border cities, including an increase in extortion, are also dragging down the economy of Mexico’s northern border region.

Links: “mass deportation” and human rights in the U.S. interior

Chicago

Kyle Kingsbury, I Want You to Understand Chicago (Aphyr, Saturday, November 8, 2025).

This weight presses on me every day. I am flooded with stories. There are so many I cannot remember them all; cannot keep straight who was gassed, beaten, abducted, or shot

Casey He, Masked ICE Agents Put Damper on Oak Park Girl Scout Food Drive: ‘It’s Heartbreaking as a Mom’ (The Chicago Sun-Times, Saturday, November 8, 2025).

Federal immigration agents were confronted in Oak Park on Saturday morning by residents blowing whistles as local Girl Scouts collect food for local pantries, rattling some girls and their parents

Andrew Jeong, ICE Accused of Pepper-Spraying 1-Year-Old Girl and Her Dad Near Chicago (The Washington Post, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

Rafael Veraza said he and his family were driving out of a parking lot when they were sprayed. The Department of Homeland Security disputed the allegation

Charles Thrush, Feds Tell Faith Leaders ‘No More Prayer’ Outside Broadview Facility (Block Club Chicago, Friday, November 7, 2025).

In a possible violation of the First Amendment, federal officials instructed demonstrators to stop holding religious gatherings outside the immigration processing facility in suburban Broadview after faith leaders were denied entry to the building for the third time on Friday

Julianne Mcshane, A Border Patrol Agent Bragged About Shooting Someone, Texts Show (Mother Jones, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

“Sweet. My fifteen mins of fame. Lmao”

Sara Tenenbaum, Undocumented Mexican Immigrant in Custody for Firing Shots at Border Patrol in Little Village, DHS Says (CBS News, Monday, November 10, 2025).

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said a man is in custody for allegedly firing shots at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood over the weekend

Robert Mackey, Border Patrol Chief Reprimanded for Lying Claims Shots Were Fired at Immigration Officers in Chicago(The Guardian (UK), Sunday, November 9, 2025).

Gregory Bovino was called out by a judge only two days earlier for lying about being assaulted by a protester

Caroline Kubzansky, Laura Rodriguez Presa, DHS Reports Shots Fired at Immigration Agents in Little Village as Residents Confront Bovino, Border Patrol (The Chicago Tribune, Saturday, November 8, 2025).

Community members once again confronted a convoy of Border Patrol agents led by Cmdr. Gregory Bovino as it moved through Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods

Matt Delaney, Mexican Migrant With Criminal Record Charged With Shooting at Border Patrol Agents in Chicago (The Washington Times, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

Federal officials have arrested an illegal immigrant from Mexico with a criminal record on charges of targeting Border Patrol agents in a Chicago shooting last weekend.

Bill Kirkos, Nayeli Jaramillo-Plata, Priscilla Alvarez, Federal Judge Says Border Patrol Chief Admitted He Lied, in Ruling Limiting Federal Agents’ Use of Force in Chicago (CNN, Friday, November 7, 2025.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction restricting the use of force by federal agents in Chicago, finding the Trump administration’s version of recent events involving agents was not credible

Jon Seidel, Judge Says He’ll Order Release of Hundreds of People Arrested Under Feds’ Deportation Blitz (WBEZ(Chicago Illinois), Wednesday, November 12, 2025).

The 615 detainees are from a list of roughly 1,800 arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Chicago area between June 11 and Oct. 7, and there could be more to come

Gregory Royal Pratt, Judge Rules Mandatory Detention of Chicago Day Care Teacher by ICE Is Illegal (The Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, November 12, 2025).

According to the ruling, Diana Santillana will be given a bond hearing in front of an immigration judge, who could order her released while her civil deportation case proceeds

Tammy Duckworth @Senduckworth on Twitter (U.S. House of Representatives, [Twitter, Friday, November 7, 2025).

Time and again, Trump’s agents are using excessive force that “shocks the conscience.” Just this week, they violently tore a teacher—with legal work authorization—from a preschool as children watched on in horror. I’m demanding investigations. Trump has gone too far

Andrew Carter, Inside Chicago’s Growing Resistance Movement Against Operation Midway Blitz: ‘Small Acts Have Huge Consequences’ (The Chicago Tribune, Saturday, November 8, 2025).

In Chicago, the resistance to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation mission has taken many forms. A movement has grown through acts large and small

Joseph Cox, The Latest Defense Against ICE: 3d-Printed Whistles (404 Media, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

Chicagoans are making, sharing, and printing designs for whistles that can warn people when ICE is in the area. The goal is to “prevent as many people from being kidnapped as possible”

Natasha Korecki, DHS Takes Credit for Crime Being Down in Chicago. Data Shows That Was Happening Before It Arrived. (NBC News, Wednesday, November 12, 2025).

Immigration officials said Tuesday that a drop in crime numbers was thanks to their work. Police data shows the decrease was taking place before federal agents arrived in the city

Adrian Carrasquillo, ICE Has Created a ‘Ghost Town’ in the Heart of Chicago (Huddled Masses, The Bulwark, Friday, November 7, 2025).

Local communities are stepping up to save neighborhood restaurants and stores

Houston

Texas Sues Harris County Over $1.35m Deportation Defense Fund (UPI, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Harris County for allocating $1.35 million to oppose federal deportation efforts

Los Angeles area

Jill Cowan, Mimi Dwyer, Immigration Agents Arrest Man in L.A. Raid and Drive Off With His Toddler (The New York Times, Friday, November 7, 2025).

The child was later reunited with her grandmother, but the episode alarmed immigrant rights groups. The father, a U.S. citizen, faces a gun possession charge

Izzy Ramirez, “They Took My Mom. Then They Took My Dad and Uncle,” Oxnard ICE Raids Through the Eyes of 16-Year-Old Boy (L.A. Taco, Monday, November 10, 2025).

A high school student and budding mariachi recounts the damage done to his family by two separate immigration raids, four months apart, detailing the lasting trauma federal enforcement is leaving on brown youth across the U.S.

New York

Dana Rubinstein, Luis Ferre-Sadurni, New York Prepares for a Potential Trump Immigration Crackdown (The New York Times, Friday, November 7, 2025).

The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor has stoked speculation that President Trump might move to send forces into the city

Benjamin Weiser, Luis Ferre-Sadurni, Sister of Blind Man Targeted for Deportation Asks U.S. to Free Him (The New York Times, Friday, November 7, 2025).

Eva Magdalena Chalco Chango, who has no lawyer, asked a federal judge to free her brother, whom she has cared for throughout his life

Portland

Mike Rogoway, Veterans Rally Near Portland ICE Facility to Decry Deportations, ‘Authoritarianism’ (Oregonlive, Wednesday, November 12, 2025).

“I didn’t carry a weapon so it could be turned against my own community,” a veteran from Idaho told a crowd of well over 200

C.J. Ciaramella, Oregon Woman Says ICE Broke Out Her Car Windows and Detained Her for Filming Them (Reason, Wednesday, November 12, 2025).

Berenice Garcia-Hernandez says she was dragged out of her car and detained for nearly seven hours for snapping photos of ICE agents

Conditions in detention

Camilo Montoya-Galvez, ICE’s Detainee Population Reaches 66,000, a New Record High, Statistics Show (CBS News, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

ICE’s detainee population is at the highest level on record as President Trump intensifies his crackdown on illegal immigration — and just over half did not have criminal charges or convictions, according to data obtained by CBS News

David Ingram, Julia Ainsley, ‘Mega Detention Centers’: ICE Considers Buying Large Warehouses to Hold Immigrants(NBC News, Friday, November 7, 2025).

The Trump administration is exploring a plan to buy warehouses designed for companies like Amazon, sources said, which would drastically increase the Trump administration’s capacity for detaining immigrants

Sean Beckner-Carmitchel, Inside Adelanto: A Visit to Adelanto Ice Processing Facility (The LA Ten Four, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

The author observes the conditions at the facility, including the cramped and restrictive living quarters, the lack of access to medical care, and the harsh rules governing visitor interactions

Pablo Manriquez, Judge Puts ICE Detention Center Under Court Supervision (Migrant Insider, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

After weeks of protests, a new temporary restraining order mandates sanitation, potable water, medical access, and pro bono attorney lists after reports of “serious conditions” at Broadview

Migrants at Largest Us Detention Camp Face Foul Water, Rotten Food, Congresswoman Says (Reuters, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

Andrew Free, First Geo Forced Labor Case at SCOTUS (#DetentionKills, Monday, November 10, 2025).

How Records About a Death in ICE Custody Helped Propel a Case to the Supreme Court

Immigration courts and children

Alisa Reznick, ‘Shock to the System’: As Funding Remains Uncertain, Some Migrant Children Are Facing Court Alone(KJZZ Arizona, Friday, November 7, 2025).

The Trump administration cut most of the federal funding for a program providing free legal counsel to unaccompanied immigrant children who are seeking asylum in the U.S. The money was restored under court order, but attorneys say the lapse sent organizations into a tailspin that’s still playing out today

Anusha Mathur, Ximena Bustillo, The DOJ Has Been Firing Judges With Immigrant Defense Backgrounds (National Public Radio, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

NPR’s data analysis shows that the DOJ has tended to fire judges with immigrant defense backgrounds in its recent rounds of dismissals

Parents and children

Rebecca Schneid, Viral Videos Show Toddlers Caught Up in ICE Arrests (Time, Sunday, November 9, 2025).

Children are increasingly coming into harm’s way as immigration agents step up aggressive arrests and raids across the country

Ben Strauss, Maria Luisa Paul, As Deportation Fears Rise, Immigrant Parents Ask: Who Cares for My Kids? (The Washington Post, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

More parents — from the undocumented to U.S. citizens — are rushing to make temporary guardianship arrangements, lawyers said

ICE to use “bounty hunters”

Joseph Cox, Ice Plans to Spend $180 Million on Bounty Hunters to Stalk Immigrants (404 Media, Wednesday, November 12, 2025).

Newly released documents provide more details about ICE’s plan to use bounty hunters and private investigators to find the location of undocumented immigrants

DACA recipients

Isabela Dias, Then They Came for the Dreamers (Mother Jones, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

Immigrants brought here as children were told they wouldn’t be deported. Now, they’re being targeted anyway

Starting new lives after deportation

Doris Anahi Munoz, ICE Destroyed Her Family’s American Dream — So She’s Chasing the Mexican Dream (Palabra, Tuesday, November 11, 2025).

Her family’s American Dream was destroyed by ICE. Now, this Chicana artist is forging a Mexican Dream, caught between immigration raids in LA and a new life in Mexico City

Deportation planes

Kelly Rissman, Noem Wanted to Buy Spirit Airlines Planes – Except the Airline Didn’t Own Them (The Independent(UK), Saturday, November 8, 2025).

DHS looked at buying the planes from Spirit Airlines, according to a report

Data and transparency

Austin Kocher, ICE and EOIR Data Cut Off During Government Shut Down Just as ‘Mass Detention’ Gets $45b Boost(Austin Kocher, Sunday, November 9, 2025).

ICE hasn’t produced crucial detention data in over 45 days despite continuing its aggressive—and sometimes illegal—enforcement rampage during the partial government shutdown

Minho Kim, To Preserve Records, Homeland Security Now Relies on Officials to Take Screenshots (The New York Times, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

AI-generated videos of ICE raids

Jason Koebler, AI-Generated Videos of ICE Raids Are Wildly Viral on Facebook (404 Media, Wednesday, November 12, 2025).

An account is spamming horrific, dehumanizing videos of immigration enforcement because the Facebook algorithm is rewarding them for it

Deported people’s stories

Caitlin Dickerson, Hundreds of Thousands of Anonymous Deportees (The Atlantic, Sunday, November 9, 2025).

Amid the president’s fast-moving deportation campaign, the stories of most people being swept up are missed

Religion and migration

Elizabeth Bruenig, The Catholic Church and the Trump Administration Are Not Getting Along (The Atlantic, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

The religion’s call to radical love can’t countenance this much cruelty

John Ismay, Ruth Graham, Bishops With Ties to Trump Commission Criticize Treatment of Immigrants (The New York Times, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

The Roman Catholic prelates cited detainees’ lack of access to religious sacraments like communion

Public opinion

Astead Herndon, Voters Signed Up to Deport Criminals, Not Grandmas (Vox, Thursday, November 6, 2025).

Vox’s Astead Herndon and immigration reporter Molly O’Toole unpack the latest (confusing) polls

Adam Isacson (he/him), Director for Defense Oversight

WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas (www.wola.org)

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