Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 7, 2025
Adam Isacson
Weekly U.S.-Mexico Border Update: November 7, 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.
Your donation to WOLA is crucial to keeping these paywall-free and ad-free Updates going. Please contribute now and support our work.
THIS WEEK IN BRIEF:
- Fiscal 2025 Drug Seizures at the U.S.-Mexico Border: The US government’s 2025 fiscal year ended on September 30. CBP’s data shows that its seizures of fentanyl plummeted in 2025, while the agency saw significantly more cocaine. As in past years, more than 85 percent of all drugs except marijuana get seized at official border crossings, not in the areas in between the crossings where Border Patrol operates. WOLA offers a graphical presentation of highlights from the data.
- Pope Leo speaks out about U.S. migration policies: The Catholic Church’s first U.S.-born Pope, a native of Chicago, continues to make very strong statements of concern about the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies. Leo XIV once again called on November 4 for a compassionate reception of “the foreigner,” and reportedly “teared up” in October when El Paso advocates showed him a video of what migrants are experiencing.
- Notes from elsewhere in the hemisphere: As more people turn to it at a time when its funding has been slashed, Mexico’s asylum system is in danger of stalling out. Despite a looming threat of hostilities, the United States continues to send hundreds of Venezuelan citizens each week aboard deportation flights to Caracas. Guatemala reported receiving more than 37,000 of its citizens aboard deportation flights during the first 10 months of 2025; that is fewer than last year, but far more are people who were arrested in the U.S. interior, often after years of living in the United States.
- Links: “mass deportation” and human rights in the U.S. interior: Links to coverage of tactics in the administration’s ongoing “blitz” in Chicago, incidents elsewhere in the United States, arrests of U.S. citizens, conditions in ICE detention, concerns about the organizational culture at Border Patrol and ICE, and polling showing increased disapproval of the “mass deportation” effort.
THE FULL UPDATE:
Fiscal 2025 Drug Seizures at the U.S.-Mexico Border
WOLA’s October 31 Border Update examined Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, released on October 24, about the border agency’s encounters with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border during the 2025 fiscal year, which ended on September 30. That data showed a sharp drop in migration after the Trump administration took power, suspended asylum access, and launched its “mass deportation” effort. Although encounters with migrants remain at near 60-year lows, the data showed an 83 percent increase in Border Patrol’s apprehensions from July to September; this growth, as noted below, halted in October.
The CBP data also informed about the agency’s seizures of illicit drugs at the border during fiscal 2025. A few trends stand out after examining the drug seizure dataset:
- As in prior years, CBP seizes more than 85 percent of drugs at the U.S.-Mexico border’s ports of entry: the official border crossings, where people, vehicles, and cargo undergo inspection. The only exception is marijuana, which is seized chiefly in the areas between ports of entry, where Border Patrol operates.
- Seizures of fentanyl, the drug detected in most U.S. overdoses, have dropped sharply since 2023.
- Seizures of cocaine have increased.
- Seizures of marijuana and heroin continued a several-year decline, while seizures of methamphetamine have plateaued.
Fentanyl seizures drop
CBP’s U.S.-Mexico border fentanyl seizures fell to 11,486 pounds in 2025, the fewest since 2021. That is a remarkable 46 percent drop from 2024 and a 57 percent drop from 2023.
Data table - If chart is not visible, click here
The reasons for the drop are unclear. Plausible but unconfirmed hypotheses include:
- Reduced demand in the United States as drug users avoid a product known to be unpredictably lethal.
- Turmoil among Mexican suppliers after a Sinaloa cartel faction reportedly issued an order, in 2023, to stop producing the drug.
- Initial results from the Biden administration’s installation of new scanners at ports of entry and pursuit of intelligence-based operations to disrupt Mexican criminal organizations, particularly in Sonora.
- Initial results of stepped-up Mexican government efforts against laboratories and precursor chemicals.
- A false impression: tunnels or other robust new smuggling modalities may be in use, and CBP may not have detected them yet.
While there may be no correlation, it is notable that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data similarly show opioid overdose deaths in the United States began a roughly 40 percent decline in mid-2023.
If chart is not visible, click here
As in 2024, CBP made 86 percent of its 2025 fentanyl seizures at the border’s ports of entry. Of the remainder, Border Patrol seized 5 percent at border-zone road checkpoints and 9 percent elsewhere in border zones.
Similar to past years, CBP made 96 percent of its fentanyl seizures in California and Arizona in fiscal 2025. For the first time in three years, seizures in California exceeded seizures in Arizona.
If chart is not visible, click here
Cocaine seizures increase
Seizures of cocaine increased 35 percent from 2024 to 2025. As indicated by a September Wall Street Journalinvestigation, among other sources, cocaine production has increased in Colombia and in the Andes generally, and demand for the drug has been growing in the United States for the first time this century.
Similar to prior years, CBP made 85 percent of its 2025 cocaine seizures at the border’s ports of entry. Of the remainder, Border Patrol seized 8 percent at border-zone road checkpoints and 7 percent elsewhere in border zones.
Data table - If chart is not visible, click here
CBP’s San Diego (California) and Laredo (South Texas) field offices accounted for 70 percent of 2025 seizures.
Methamphetamine seizures are level
Seizures of methamphetamine increased during the COVID pandemic, but have been relatively flat since then. They shrank 1 percent from 2024 to 2025.
Similar to prior years, CBP made 88 percent of its 2025 methamphetamine seizures at the border’s ports of entry. Of the remainder, Border Patrol seized 3 percent at border-zone road checkpoints and 9 percent elsewhere in border zones.
Data table - If chart is not visible, click here
Similar to cocaine, CBP’s San Diego (California) and Laredo (South Texas) field offices accounted for 72 percent of 2025 meth seizures.
Heroin seizures remain low
Seizures of heroin—which fentanyl has displaced in U.S. illicit drug markets—have changed little since 2022. They increased by 17 percent from 2024 to 2025, but remain at a historically low level and below the amounts recorded in 2022 and 2023.
Similar to prior years, CBP made 86 percent of its 2025 heroin seizures at the border’s ports of entry. Of the remainder, Border Patrol seized 3 percent at border-zone road checkpoints and 11 percent elsewhere in border zones.
Data table - If chart is not visible, click here
Heroin seizures are more geographically dispersed: 35 percent took place in CBP’s San Diego (California) field office area in 2025, 21 percent in CBP’s Tucson (Arizona) field office area, and 19 percent in CBP’s Laredo (South Texas) field office area.
Marijuana seizures keep dropping and are mainly a Texas phenomenon
Seizures of marijuana at the border began falling in the 2010s as U.S. states began to legalize the drug’s medical and recreational use, decimating Mexican smugglers’ business. Seizures fell again in 2025, by 28 percent from 2024, to 40,751 pounds. That is as much marijuana as CBP would have seized in 20 days in 2018.
Unlike the other drugs, marijuana is large and bulky and often gets carried into the United States between ports of entry. Similar to prior years, CBP made 88 percent of its 2025 marijuana seizures in the areas between the border’s ports of entry, where Border Patrol operates.
Data table - If chart is not visible, click here
Border Patrol seized 23 percent at border-zone road checkpoints and 65 percent elsewhere in border zones. Texas, the only border state that prohibits recreational marijuana sales, accounted for 91 percent of CBP’s border-zone seizures of the drug. The agency made 54 percent of marijuana seizures in South Texas’s Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector, and 22 percent in West Texas’s remote Big Bend Sector.
Migrant apprehensions remained flat from September to October, following two months of sharp increases
NewsNation reporter Ali Bradley revealed on November 3, and CBP confirmed on November 5, that Border Patrol agents apprehended 7,990 people along the U.S.-Mexico border in October. (CBP reported it as “258 per day,” which is 7,998—a rounding difference—over 31 days.)
That would be a 5 percent decrease from 8,386 Border Patrol apprehensions in September, ending two months of increases that had September’s levels 83 percent above July’s, which were almost certainly the lowest since the mid-1960s. Of the nine geographic sectors into which Border Patrol divides the border, the Tucson (Arizona) Sector saw the largest number of migrants for the second straight month, followed by the Rio Grande Valley Sector (south Texas).
If chart is not visible, click here
This may be further evidence of reversion to a seasonal migration pattern, with numbers rising with the arrival of fall and spring, then dropping in summer and winter. Asylum seekers, who were the majority of recent years’ border-zone apprehensions, tended not to follow this seasonal pattern, as they intended to turn themselves in to U.S. officials rather than evade them in the outdoors. Asylum seekers cannot currently seek protection at the U.S.-Mexico border due to a January White House proclamation suspending the right to asylum, which is still facing a legal challenge.
Pope Leo speaks out about U.S. migration policies
Pope Leo XIV—formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, the Catholic Church’s first U.S.-born pope, originally from Chicago—continues to issue strong statements of concern about the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.
On November 4, speaking to reporters outside the Castel Gandolfo papal retreat near Rome, Leo was asked about the spiritual rights that migrants in U.S. agencies’ custody should have. He replied by invoking Matthew 25: “Jesus says very clearly at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked, ‘How did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?’” adding, “I think there’s a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what’s happening” in the United States right now.
The Pope called on U.S. authorities to allow religious workers to access those in custody. “Many times they’ve been separated from their families. No one knows what’s happening, but their own spiritual needs should be attended to.” At the Broadview Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility outside Chicago on November 1, agents turned away Catholic priests and an auxiliary bishop who had sought to offer communion to people held inside. It was the religious leaders’ second attempt to do this.
Pablo Manríquez at Migrant Insider recalled that, on October 1, Leo had questioned U.S. Catholic politicians who support a hard line against immigration: “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
In a video interview with Border Report, Dylan Corbett of the El Paso-based Hope Border Institute narrated an October meeting with Pope Leo in Rome, in which he participated along with the city’s bishop, Mark Seitz, and other Catholic leaders from the border city. (The Institute carries out research and social services on both sides of the border, guided by Catholic social teaching.)
Corbett said that he brought the Pontiff letters that Hope Border Institute had been receiving from migrants across the United States affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown, along with a video. Leo made time to read the letters and watch the video. “He watched it and it was a very powerful experience,” Corbett told Border Report, adding that the Pope “teared up.”
Corbett continued: “He was very clear about how he felt about it. He said, ‘This is a real injustice.’ He talked about how the church needed to be united and clear in opposing what’s happening and pushing for a better future for so many immigrant families across the country.”
Meanwhile in El Paso, every year since 1997 the Catholic dioceses of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez have held a binational mass in the Rio Grande riverbed that separates the two cities, south of the border wall, to commemorate migrants who have perished. This year, however, the Trump administration’s changes to the border prohibited the event from taking place in the riverbed.
In May, the administration declared that a fringe of territory along the river is now considered a “National Defense Area,” basically an extension of the nearby Fort Bliss army base; being present there is now considered trespassing on a military installation. The mass to honor the dead had to take place north of the border wall, without complete view or participation from the Ciudad Juárez side.
Notes from elsewhere in the hemisphere
Mexico’s asylum system is in danger of stalling out
Arizona public radio and Border Report published analyses of the Mexican government’s asylum system, which is badly overstretched right now. A larger population is seeking protection in Mexico now that the Trump administration has suspended U.S. asylum access. Simultaneously, the U.S. administration slashed funds, mainly channeled through the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), that had previously supported key functions at COMAR, the Mexican government’s Refugee Commission. UNHCR had to cut its support to COMAR by 30 percent during the second half of 2025, noted KJZZPhoenix’s Nina Kravinsky.
Asylum claims that should take 45 business days are now taking as much as two years to process, and applicants’ work permits are delayed, forcing many to subsist in the informal economy.
COMAR has also ceased providing what had been reasonably good public reporting about asylum applications in Mexico. WOLA maintains a chart and table of the agency’s data through November 2024.
Quieter conditions, and southbound migration, at Mexico’s southern border
Visiting Mexico’s southern border-zone city of Tapachula, the Arizona Republic’s Daniel González found a sharp slowdown in new arrivals from Central America due to the Trump administration’s crackdown. Shelters are nearly empty, few are boarding rafts across the Suchiate River between Mexico and Guatemala, and some people are passing through the city on southbound migration routes. Of those in the city, a majority may seek to settle in Mexico, at least for now, which leaves them facing the backlogged system described above.
Experts whom González interviewed cautioned that because the administration’s policies leave the root causes of migration in place, its crackdown on asylum, suspension of the CBP One app, and stepped-up deportations will bring only temporary reductions in the number of people seeking to migrate.
Smuggling network sanctioned
The Mexican magazine Proceso and CBS News reported on the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctioning of an “elaborate” smuggling network bringing migrants—many of them from outside the Western Hemisphere—from Cancún, in southeast Mexico, to the U.S.-Mexico border city of Mexicali, in the country’s northwest. The organization, led by Indian-Mexican dual citizen Vikrant Bhardwaj, “has smuggled thousands of illegal aliens from Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia into the United States,” including by using “its own yachts and marinas,” with “operational support from individuals employed by the Sinaloa Cartel,” Treasury contended.
Deportations to Venezuela continue
Even as the Trump administration pressures Venezuela’s regime by positioning a flotilla of naval vessels and other military assets close to its coast, it continues to send regular deportation flights to the South American nation. Planes on October 29 and 31 delivered 573 more people to Caracas: 459 men, 97 women, and 17 minors. In an October 31 social media post, the authoritarian regime’s Ministry of Justice reported that the U.S. government had deported “more than 16,000” Venezuelans aboard 82 flights since February. U.S. authorities encountered Venezuelan citizens over 800,000 times at the U.S.-Mexico border between 2021 and 2025.
Panama flight
An October 30 flight from Panama removed 34 Colombian citizens back to their country under a program supported by the U.S. government. Since it began in August 2024, during the Biden administration, this program has removed 2,736 people aboard 59 flights, according to the Panamanian government. The U.S. government has covered most of these flights’ costs using a $14 million allocation of State Department funds: $7 million each in 2024 and 2025.
Data update from Guatemala
The Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM), the Guatemalan government’s migration agency, reported that the U.S. government has deported 37,375 of the country’s citizens during 2025 through October 31. Mexico’s government has returned another 5,586 people.
If chart is not visible, click here
This is actually 30 percent fewer than the number of deportations to Guatemala through October 2024, and 12 percent fewer than through October 2023.
While this may seem surprising given the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation focus, the overall number is smaller because of this year’s sharp drop in apprehensions of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. CBP’s encounters with Guatemalan citizens plummeted 90.5 percent during the first nine months of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024. That is the 11th-steepest drop in border encounters among all nationalities with at least 500 encounters in either of the two nine-month periods.
If chart is not visible, click here
As with other nationalities, many would-be migrants have stopped coming to the U.S.-Mexico border for now because “a climate of terror has been created in the United States. This has an impact,” Juan José Hurtado of the Huehuetenango-based migrant support organization Pop Noj told La Hora, referring to the Trump administration’s suspension of asylum access and stepped-up “mass deportation” campaign. While migration to the United States continues, it is reduced as smugglers’ fees have risen to nearly $24,000, an analyst at the ASIES think tank told the same outlet.
People recently detained at the U.S.-Mexico border had tended to make up the majority of those removed to Guatemala. With fewer border arrests, overall deportations are fewer, even as ICE ramps up its deportations of Guatemalan citizens who had been living in the U.S. interior.
Information that the Deportation Data Project obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed ICE’s interior arrests of Guatemalan citizens more than quadrupled from December 2024, the Biden administration’s last whole month (1,007), to June 2025, the last whole month in the FOIA dataset (4,281).
If chart is not visible, click here
The IGM’s own data point to a considerable increase in the average age of deported Guatemalans: from 23.4 years old in 2021 to 30.7 years old during the first nine months of 2025—a seven-year increase. When the deported population gets older, that very likely means that it includes many more people who had been living inside the United States for a long time. People arrested in the U.S. interior, likely after being rooted in U.S. communities for years, are now very likely the majority of the (currently reduced) population of people now being deported to Guatemala.
If chart is not visible, click here
Further evidence of increased ICE deportations of Guatemalan people from the U.S. interior comes from the ICE Flight Monitor project managed by Human Rights First. The Monitor detected 31 deportation flights to Guatemala in January; that increased to 55 flights by September.
If chart is not visible, click here
With ICE receiving over $70 billion in new resources from the “big bill” that the U.S. Congress passed in July, the agency’s capacity is growing. Along with it, the number of deported Guatemalan citizens is also likely to grow. Migration analyst Fernando Castro recalled to the daily Prensa Libre that over 253,000 Guatemalan citizens in the United States had final deportation orders as of November 2024.
Other News
- A “short read” from Ariel Ruiz Soto at the Migration Policy Institute offered an overview of key border and migration enforcement trends since the Trump administration took office. Among many other data points, it “estimates that ICE conducted about 340,000 deportations in FY 2025, marking a level of activity 25 percent higher than the previous year.” Only 3 percent of detained immigrants are now being released on bond or under parole or supervision, down from 26 percent in October 2024.
- The American Immigration Council produced a report and archive detailing the experience and lessons of the first Trump administration’s family separation policy at the border. It is based on “tens of thousands of additional pages” of documents obtained through FOIA requests since an initial data release in 2020.
- The administration is moving ahead with plans to build the border wall through Laredo, Texas, one of the largest U.S. border cities (if not the largest) without a walled-off riverfront. Four phases of construction are scheduled to begin next year, starting with a 15-mile segment. In a city that had the words “DEFUND THE WALL” painted on the street near City Hall until Texas’s governor forced their removal, the construction would take place despite local authorities’ clear objections. On November 3, Laredo’s City Council voted “to reaffirm its position on supporting border security but not in support of a border wall within its residential areas and/or city limits,” the local network KGNS reported. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee) issued a statement arguing that Laredo’s border is secure enough without a barrier; repeating a phrase he often uses, Cuellar called the border wall “a 14th-century solution to 21st-century problems.”
- First responders in San Diego were called out on October 30 to rescue a woman who got snagged on razor-sharp concertina wire along the border wall while attempting a border crossing. They had to “help create a pulley system to safely extricate the woman,” according to San Diego’s NBC affiliate.
- With less migration at the border right now, Border Patrol is focusing on “building up the workforce, bolstering physical and digital barriers, smartly spending funds from Congress, and codifying select executive actions by Trump,” according to Anna Giaritelli of the Washington Examiner. The agency is able to hire 5,000 more agents and, as of October 15, had received 100,000 applications since Donald Trump’s inauguration.
- Texas has expanded its “287(g) task force” program, which allows local police to help enforce federal immigration law, to include its Department of Public Safety (DPS) state police force. This would allow some officers to effectively operate as ICE agents, Francesca D’Annunzio reported for the Texas Observer. “The decision of these Texas agencies to enter into such agreements will lead to an erosion of safety… in addition to increases in racial profiling and targeting of immigrants,” said Nayna Gupta of the American Immigration Council.
- The Ciudad Juárez daily Norte discussed stepped-up Border Patrol operations, including the U.S. military’s placement of additional soldiers and Stryker combat vehicles, west of El Paso, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. CBP indicated that it was anticipating that this month’s “supermoon”—a full phase when the moon is at its orbit’s closest point to Earth—could facilitate nighttime border crossings.
- The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued an internal warning that Mexican criminal groups are offering $10,000 bounties to those who shoot at U.S. federal agents along the U.S.-Mexico border, especially in south Texas’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, according to the Washington Times. It is the second such warning in two months, and it is unclear how attempting a bounty killing—which would attract an overwhelming U.S. law enforcement focus on the territory where the attempt takes place—might benefit a cartel’s business model.
- The Guardian published a vivid photo gallery by Daniel Ochoa de Olza featuring views of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in remote wilderness areas.
Links: ”mass deportation” and human rights in the U.S. interior
Chicago
Misuse of force allegations, especially tear gas
Alice Yin, Brian Cassella, Gregory Royal Pratt, Jonathan Bullington, Laura Turbay, Rebecca Johnson, Richie Requena, Tess Kenny, On Halloween, ‘State-Sponsored Terror’ in Chicago and the North Suburbs (The Chicago Tribune, Saturday, November 1, 2025) <https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/31/chicag-halloween-immigration-raids-evanston/>.
Despite pleas from Gov. JB Pritzker to pause federal immigration enforcement operations while children celebrate Halloween, Border Patrol agents tore through Chicago and the suburbs
Bellingcat Investigation Team, Tear Gas, Pepper Balls Among Weapons Deployed Against Illinois Protesters (bellingcat, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/10/31/illinois-immigration-protests/>.
A judge recently issued a restraining order on crowd-control tactics by federal agents in the state, including those involved in Operation Midway Blitz
Natasha Korecki, Chicago Residents Say Kids Tear-Gassed Due to Nearby Immigration Enforcement (NBC News, Wednesday, November 5, 2025) <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chicago-immigration-enforcement-children-tear-gas-border-patrol-rcna241629>.
A Chicago mother tells NBC News she and her 2-year-old were hit with a chemical agent. Many residents say the city wasn’t a “war zone”— until immigration agents swept through
Lauren Aratani, Trump’s Immigration Raids Continue Through Halloween in Chicago and Los Angeles (The Guardian (UK), Saturday, November 1, 2025) <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/01/trump-immigration-chicago-los-angeles-halloween>.
In Chicago suburb, protesters confront ICE agents, whom Evanston mayor says ‘assaulted’ residents
Testimony from Chief Bovino
Jon Seidel, Kade Heather, Border Patrol Boss Testifies: Use of Force ‘More Than Exemplary’ in Chicago (The Chicago Sun-Times, Wednesday, November 5, 2025) <https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/11/05/crucial-hearing-over-feds-use-of-force-could-reveal-incredible-bovino-testimony-wednesday>.
Wednesday afternoon, plaintiffs’ lawyers played portions of U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino’s deposition where he claimed “all uses of force have been more than exemplary”
Sophia Tareen, Border Patrol Official Behind Chicago Immigration Crackdown Defends Tactics as Trump Cheers (Associated Press, Associated Press, Tuesday, November 4, 2025) <https://apnews.com/article/immigration-chicago-arrests-police-federal-5c21bcb2cd890fcb086480469c1a3a96>.
The Border Patrol leader who’s behind an aggressive immigration crackdown across the Chicago area is applauding his agents’ use of force and aggressive tactics
Jon Seidel, Bickering Over Bovino: Lawyers Swap Complaints of Obstruction, ‘Sandbagging’ During Deposition (The Chicago Sun-Times, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/11/03/bickering-over-bovino-lawyers-complain-to-judge-of-obstruction-sandbagging-during-deposition>.
A court transcript reveals that questions were posed to U.S. Border Patrol boss Gregory Bovino about his communications with Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem
Jason Meisner, Deposition of Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino Nearly Ground to Halt Last Week, Records Show (The Chicago Tribune, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/border-patrol-gregory-bovino-deposition/>.
The deposition of Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino nearly ground to a halt last week as government lawyers repeatedly objected to questions by plaintiffs’ attorneys, court records show
Josh Kovensky, Feds Drop Case Against Man Accused of Injuring Greg Bovino’s Groin (Talking Points Memo, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/feds-drop-case-against-man-accused-of-injuring-greg-bovinos-groin>.
Other incidents, allegations, and conditions in the city
Arelis R. Hernandez, Armed ICE Officers Chase Teacher Into Preschool in Chicago (The Washington Post, Wednesday, November 5, 2025) <https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/11/05/chicago-preschool-ice-arrest/>.
The incident appears to be one of the first during Trump’s second administration in which immigration officers entered school grounds
Bronagh Tumulty, Marisa Rodriguez, Tahman Bradley, ‘Absolute Terror’: Day Care Teacher Detained by ICE Agents on Chicago’s North Side (WGN (Chicago), Wednesday, November 5, 2025) <https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/video-daycare-teacher-detained-by-ice-agents-on-chicagos-north-side/>.
Jonathan Bullington, Laura Rodriguez Presa, Chicago Woman Dragged Out of Her Car After Colliding With ICE Demands Accountability (The Chicago Tribune, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/chicago-woman-collision-ice-accountability/>.
The arrest of Dayanne Figueroa highlights growing concerns about the use of force against U.S. citizens and due process. She was released after a few hours without charges
Alex Harrison, Hope Perry, Margo Milanowski, Community Members Describe Confrontation With Federal Agents (Evanston RoundTable, Sunday, November 2, 2025) <https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/11/01/evanston-immigration-clash-car-crash/>.
Evanston community clashes with federal immigration authorities after car crash. Residents detained, pepper spray used. Mayor demands review
Anthony Vazquez, Ashlee Rezin, Jon Seidel, Lauren Fitzpatrick, IDs Are Mismatched, Illegible or Still Missing 3 Weeks After Judge’s Order to Immigration Officers (The Chicago Sun-Times, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/31/ice-border-patrol-operation-midway-blitz-ids-gregory-bovino-immigration-enforcement-chicago-arrests-detention>.
In dozens of photographs at four locations, Chicago Sun-Times photojournalists documented federal officers failing to wear the “visible identification” needed to hold individuals accountable during immigration enforcement operations
Lauren Michele Jackson, Chicago, ICE, and the Lie of the American Pastoral (The New Yorker, Saturday, November 1, 2025) <https://www.newyorker.com/culture/critics-notebook/chicago-ice-and-the-lie-of-the-american-pastoral>.
The city has often been spoken about as a war zone in need of saving from itself. But at home, as abroad, America’s enemies are so often of American invention
Laura Rodriguez Presa, Rebecca Johnson, Sam Charles, Operation Midway Blitz Linked to Dip in 911 Calls, Especially in Little Village (The Chicago Tribune, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/911-calls-midway-blitz-little-village/>.
The rate of 911 calls made in Chicago has dropped precipitously in the two months since the start of Operation Midway Blitz, a Tribune review of city data found
Zareen Syed, ICE Pushes Chicago Restaurants in Immigrant Neighborhoods Into Survival Mode: ‘We Are Dying a Slow Death’ (The Chicago Tribune, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/chicago-ice-restaurants/>.
The Tribune spoke to several restaurant owners about the impact of immigration enforcement on their businesses and on diners. The blow to foot traffic is widespread across the city
Greg Sargent, Transcript: Trump ICE Raids Worsen as Dem Gov Drops Bombshell Warning (The New Republic, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://newrepublic.com/article/202509/transcript-trump-ice-raids-worsen-dem-gov-drops-bombshell-warning>.
As Illinois’s Governor warns of worsening fallout from Trump’s assault on Chicago, a political communications expert explains what this saga tells us about the state of our info wars—and how Dems should wage them
Yong-Yu Huang, Illinois Lawmakers Hit Back at ICE With Constitutional Rights and Protections Bill (The Daily Northwestern, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/11/03/city/illinois-lawmakers-hit-back-at-ice-with-constitutional-rights-and-protections-bill/>.
After weeks of heightened federal immigration enforcement in the greater Chicago area, the Illinois General Assembly approved House Bill 1312 on Oct. 31, strengthening immigration enforcement protections
Incidents elsewhere in the U.S. interior
Los Angeles area
Rachel Uranga, U.S. Citizen Shot From Behind as He Warned ICE Agents About Children Gathering at Bus Stop, Lawyers Say (The Los Angeles Times, Sunday, November 2, 2025) <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-11-02/lawyers-say-ice-shot-us-citizen-from-behind-as-he-stopped-to-warn-them-of-childre>.
Lawyers for Carlos Jimenez said he was in fear after an agent threatened him with chemical spray, then pointed a gun at him
Rachel Uranga, 2 California ICE Shootings in Nine Days: Latest Confrontation Leaves Bloody Scene (The Los Angeles Times, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-30/dhs-officers-ontario-shooting>.
Federal authorities are investigating a shooting involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the second in a little more than a week
Orlando Mayorquin, As ICE Raids Upend L.A., Mexican Immigrants Vent, and a Diplomat Listens (The New York Times, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/us/immigration-raids-los-angeles-mexican-diplomat.html>.
Weekly public meetings at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles have become a place where immigrants ask for help with a host of problems, big and small
Aisha Wallace-Palomares, We Asked DHS if Federal Agents Wore Horror Masks on Raids. They Responded ‘Happy Halloween! (L.A. Taco, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://lataco.com/federal-immigration-agents-halloween-masks>.
“They have fun while doing it, which is deeply disturbing. We expect some level of decorum from government officials,” says Phoebe, a member of Harbor Area Peace Patrols, who snapped the photo of the masked agents driving out of San Pedro on Tuesday morning
Rachel Uranga, She Helped Get Her Violent Husband Deported. Then ICE Deported Her — Straight Into His Arms. (The Los Angeles Times, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-11-03/immigrant-crime-victims>.
Nearly 500,000 immigrants await decisions on survivor-based protections; one Los Angeles woman was deported despite having valid work authorization and deferred action
Andrea Castillo, For This Undocumented Activist, Returning to Mexico Wasn’t Exile. It Was Liberation (The Los Angeles Times, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-10-30/repatriation-to-mexico-a-los-angeles-man-gives-up-on-the-u-s>.
Hector Alessandro Negrete was brought to the U.S. from Mexico as an infant. When President Trump began his second term, Negrete decided to leave L.A. for Mexico
New York
Hamed Aleaziz, Luis Ferre-Sadurni, How a Former Trump Golf Club Worker Was Mistakenly Deported to Mexico (The New York Times, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/nyregion/immigrant-wrongly-deported-mexico.html>.
When Alejandro Juarez was returned to his homeland, federal agents told him that they were just following orders. Those orders were wrong
Portland
Tim Dickinson, Why Are the Feds Criminalizing a Clarinetist? (The Contrarian, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://contrarian.substack.com/p/why-are-the-feds-criminalizing-a>.
This mom got roughed up at a protest — and has since been charged with assault
San Diego
Kate Morrissey, San Diego ICE Official Threatens to Pull Gun on Car Following Him (Beyond the Border, Wednesday, November 5, 2025) <https://beyondthebordernews.substack.com/p/san-diego-ice-official-threatens>.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told a 9-1-1 dispatcher that he would hold a driver who had been following him at gun point, according to police records
Texas
Alex Nguyen, Carla Astudillo, Colleen Deguzman, Nicholas Gutteridge, Uriel J. Garcia, Data Shows How Immigration Crackdown Plays Out in Texas (The Texas Tribune, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.texastribune.org/2025/11/03/texas-trump-immigration-crackdown-ice-arrests-deportation/>.
ICE agents are arresting more immigrants on the streets and at routine check-ins than under President Biden. But most of them don’t have criminal convictions despite pledges to pursue “the worst of the worst”
“Kavanaugh stops” of U.S. citizens
Maria Ramirez Uribe, Nick Karmia, Kristi Noem Says No Americans Have Been Detained in ICE Sweeps. That’s False. (Poynter, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2025/has-ice-arrested-american-citizens/>.
Lawsuits, news reports and even DHS statements show that U.S. citizens have been wrongly detained in immigration raids under Trump
J.D. Tuccille, ICE’s Mass Arrests Ensnare U.S. Citizens and Show No Signs of Stopping (Reason, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://reason.com/2025/10/31/ices-mass-arrests-ensnare-u-s-citizens-and-show-no-signs-of-stopping/>.
The case of Leo Garcia Venegas, a U.S. citizen arrested twice by ICE, demonstrates the problem with the government’s current strategy
ICE in immigration courts
Tim Rohn, What I Saw at the Epicenter of Trump’s War on ‘Illegals’ (Politico, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/10/31/migrants-asylum-immigration-court-00622991>.
Migrants thought they were following the rules. Then the rules changed
Alex Krales, Ben Fractenberg, Gwynne Hogan, Five Months of Fear, Fury and Heartbreak at 26 Federal Plaza (The City, Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/03/5-months-immigrants-ice-26-federal-plaza-photos/>.
As masked agents arrested immigrants in and around immigration courts, The City has been there to document what’s happening
Conditions in detention
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia), Sen. Ossoff’s Ongoing Investigation Uncovers Credible Reports of Medical Neglect, Denial of Adequate Food or Water in Immigration Detention (U.S. Senate, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://www.ossoff.senate.gov/press-releases/sen-ossoffs-ongoing-investigation-uncovers-credible-reports-of-medical-neglect-denial-of-adequate-food-or-water-in-immigration-detention/>.
Sen. Ossoff releases 2nd report as part of ongoing investigation into human rights abuses in U.S. immigration detention
Claudia Lauer, Senate Report Details Dozens of Cases of Medical Neglect in Federal Immigration Detention Centers (Associated Press, Associated Press, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://apnews.com/article/immigration-detention-medical-ice-food-ossoff-investigation-e218486607c04040c94561699e1d0054>.
A U.S. Senate investigation has uncovered numerous credible reports of medical neglect and poor conditions in immigration detention centers across the country.
Tonatiuh Guillén López, Morir Bajo Custodia del ICE (UNAM, Proceso (México), Monday, November 3, 2025) <https://www.proceso.com.mx/opinion/2025/11/3/morir-bajo-custodia-del-ice-362012.html>.
Si alguna iniciativa debiera tomar el gobierno de México, es evitar a toda costa los tiempos prolongados de detención, especialmente de las personas que se identifiquen con condiciones de salud más vulnerables
Tracey Ashlee, ICE Accused of Holding People Hidden Inside Field Offices Sites (Inquisitr News, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://www.inquisitr.com/ice-accused-of-holding-migrants-in-black-sites-hidden-inside-u-s-offices>.
ICE faces allegations of detaining people in small, secretive holding rooms for days or weeks, violating their own rules and procedures.
J. Dale Shoemaker, New York’s Largest ICE Prison Dogged by Allegations of Shoddy Medical Care (The Intercept, Thursday, November 6, 2025) <https://theintercept.com/2025/11/06/batavia-ice-medical-care-buffalo/>.
“It’s just freak luck that no one has died in Batavia in the last two years,” one advocate said of medical treatment in the ICE prison
Conditions during deportation
Jason Dearen, Jim Mustian, Citing AP Investigation, Senators Demand Answers on Use of Full-Body Restraints During Deportations (Associated Press, Associated Press, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://apnews.com/article/immigration-deportations-wrap-senators-letter-55acd1dc304ce16c9f560d271819e78e>.
A group of 11 Democratic U.S. senators has raised concerns about the use of full-body restraints on deportation flights
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), Van Hollen, Warren, Colleagues Press for Transparency on Secretive ICE Air Operations, Raise Human Rights Concerns Over Reports of Improper Treatment of Detainees (U.S. Senate, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/news/press-releases/van-hollen-warren-colleagues-press-for-transparency-on-secretive-ice-air-operations-raise-human-rights-concerns-over-reports-of-improper-treatment-of-detainees>.
Dell Cameron, ICE Wants to Build a Shadow Deportation Network in Texas (Wired, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://www.wired.com/story/ice-is-building-a-24-7-shadow-transportation-network-across-texas/>.
A new ICE proposal outlines a 24/7 transport operation run by armed contractors—turning Texas into the logistical backbone of an industrialized deportation machine
Private contractors may act as ICE “bounty hunters”
Sam Biddle, ICE Plans Cash Rewards for Private Bounty Hunters to Locate and Track Immigrants (The Intercept, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://theintercept.com/2025/10/31/ice-plans-cash-rewards-for-private-bounty-hunters-to-locate-and-track-immigrants/>.
Companies hired by ICE would be given bundles of information on 10,000 immigrants at a time to locate — and paid cash bonuses for performance
Facial recognition apps and civil liberties concerns
Joseph Cox, You Can’t Refuse to Be Scanned by ICE’s Facial Recognition App, DHS Document Says (404 Media, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://www.404media.co/you-cant-refuse-to-be-scanned-by-ices-facial-recognition-app-dhs-document-says/>.
Photos captured by Mobile Fortify will be stored for 15 years, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, the document says
Joseph Cox, DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App to Find Immigrants (404 Media, Tuesday, November 4, 2025) <https://www.404media.co/cbp-quietly-launches-face-scanning-app-for-local-cops-to-do-immigration-enforcement/>.
The app, called Mobile Identify and available on the Google Play Store, is specifically for local and regional law enforcement agencies working with ICE on immigration enforcement
Border Patrol and ICE organizational culture and abuse
Jason Houser, The White House’s Sweeping Overhaul of ICE Is Creating a Frankenstein Force (MSNBC, Saturday, November 1, 2025) <https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-ice-raids-bovino-immigration-border-patrol-rcna240795>.
The recent wave of ICE senior official reassignments has a clear motive
Gregory Royal Pratt, Laura Rodriguez Presa, Border Patrol’s Strong-Arm Tactics Are the New Norm in Chicago as Trump Moves to Sideline ICE Leadership (The Chicago Tribune, Sunday, November 2, 2025) <https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/02/border-patrol-chicago-trump-ice/>.
Instead of carefully targeted arrests long practiced by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Trump administration has deployed roving groups of masked Border Patrol agents
Myah Ward, Shake-Up at ICE Will Boost Immigration Numbers — Just Not the Ones That Matter Most to Trump (Politico, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/29/ice-shake-up-will-increase-arrest-numbers-that-doesnt-mean-there-will-be-more-deportations-00628718>.
The dynamic highlights a tension at the center of the president’s second-term immigration agenda
Andrew Prokop, Trump Just Decided ICE Has Been Too Nice (Vox, Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://www.vox.com/politics/466959/trump-ice-border-patrol-purge-leaks-bovino>.
A new purge of ICE leaders and the empowerment of Border Patrol sets the stage for a more extreme crackdown in US cities
Gustavo Arellano, Bodies Are Stacking Up in Trump’s Deportation Deluge. It’s Going to Get Worse (The Los Angeles Times, Thursday, October 30, 2025) <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-30/immigrant-deaths-ice-border-patrol-2025>.
One shudders to think what Bovino thinks is excessive for la migra. With his powers now radically expanded, we’re about to find out
The role of the State Department
Andrew Roth, How Stephen Miller Is Turning the US State Department Into an ‘Anti-Immigration Machine’ (The Guardian (UK), Friday, October 31, 2025) <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/31/stephen-miller-immigration-trump>.
Miller is one of the most powerful officials in Trump’s White House, illustrating how it has sought to overcome a ‘deep state’ of professional diplomats
Public opinion: support for fewer border crossings, opposition to tactics in the U.S. interior
Anthony Salvanto, Fred Backus, Jennifer de Pinto, Kabir Khanna, Trump Deportation Program Divides Americans Along Party Lines, Most Feel ICE Shouldn’t Wear Masks, Poll Finds (CBS News, Sunday, November 2, 2025) <https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-poll-trump-deportation-ice-masks/>.
A majority of Americans think Trump’s policies are bringing migrant crossings at U.S-Mexico border down
Jazmine Ulloa, Jesus Jimenez, Mimi Dwyer, Nick Corasaniti, Shawn Hubler, Tracey Tully, Anger Over ICE Raids Is Driving Some Latino Voters to the Polls (The New York Times, Sunday, November 2, 2025) <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/02/us/politics/elections-latino-turnout-ice-raids.html>.
Democrats are concerned that the immigration crackdown will hurt Latino turnout on Tuesday. Republicans dispute that the raids will play any role in the election
Adam Isacson (he/him), Director for Defense Oversight
WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas (www.wola.org)
Signal adamisacson.98 Mobile/WhatsApp +1 202 329-4985
Mastodon: elefanti.co/@adam BlueSky: @adamisacson.com