Updated December 4, 2025 at 3:58 PM MST
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of the next focus of immigration enforcement: New Orleans. Dubbing the effort "Operation Catahoula Crunch," the crackdown has been expected for several weeks. During that time, communities have been preparing with tactics that grassroots groups used to counter crackdowns in other cities.
In Chicago, where the broad-based resistance movement spurred by two months of heavy enforcement continues, attention has shifted to providing support and lessons learned to others now in the crosshairs of the Trump administration's immigration agenda.
Some of those lessons were developed by one community group called Protect Rogers Park, which started preparing to resist mass deportations in 2017. Eight years ago, says group co-founder Marissa Graciosa, President Trump's first-term "rhetoric around undocumented immigrants was already terrible and we were worried about keeping our neighborhoods safe."
She said the strategy and training that the group built back then ended up not being tested, because the expected surge in enforcement did not materialize. But this fall, they found that the groundwork they had already laid positioned them well to counter aggressive immigration raids. Now, says Gabe Gonzalez, another Protect RP founder, they are sharing their learnings with communities in other cities that the administration is eyeing, including New Orleans.
"What's going to happen is that everyone, if [immigration enforcement] goes into those areas, they're all going to look here and they're going to say, 'What did you do?' Just like we did with D.C. and L.A., when they were there," Gonzalez said. "And that's what we'll do. We'll train other people on what we know."
Costing them "time and money"
On the Monday after Halloween, Gonzalez circled Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood in his car. It was clear that morning, from communications shared over encrypted texting channels, that federal agents were already there and in surrounding areas. Joining him was Protect RP core team member, Jill Garvey.
"I can show you my Signal thread. I checked it 30 seconds ago. It's just bananas," said Garvey, who is also cofounder of a nonprofit called States at the Core (STAC). "Almost all of this is rapid response stuff, either related to a school or neighborhood."
They had received word that a white GMC Denali, which they knew to have been involved in prior deportation arrests, was nearby. Gonzalez headed for the main commercial strip of the neighborhood, calculating that agents in the vehicle would eventually end up on it. Sure enough, as they neared the street, they heard a cacophony of car horns and whistles — a sign that rapid responders had located the vehicle. Laying on his horn, Gonzalez pulled behind another car following the Denali and lowered his window as he approached a cyclist who was also in pursuit.
"Back up, back up," Gonzalez shouted out the window to the biker. "Don't get that close to them. They'll grab you."
On the sidewalk, pedestrians blew whistles as the vehicles made their way down the street, alerting neighbors that immigration enforcement was nearby. Gonzalez watched with alarm as one, a woman, ran into the street and pounded angrily on a window of the agents' car while it was stopped for a red light.
"Come back, come back!" Gonzalez yelled.
When the light changed, Gonzalez and the biker continued behind the agents' car. As it turned west, though, Gonzalez broke off. At that point, the agents were no longer in Rogers Park.
"So that was 15, 20 minutes," Gonzalez said. "I'm sure [the agent driving that car] has no intention of being where he is right now, so it's probably another 10 or 15 for him to get back... That's half an hour that he's not going to grab somebody."
This, Gonzalez said, was always the goal of Protect RP: to make immigration enforcement operations in the neighborhood uncomfortable and inefficient. If they do that well enough, Gonzalez said, maybe enforcement agents would conclude that the cost of doing work in his neighborhood is simply too high.
"Time and money," Gonzalez said. "Time and money."
"A very dangerous escalation of authoritarianism"
Rogers Park is located on the northern border of Chicago, on Lake Michigan. The neighborhood is known for its vibrant racial and international diversity, and as a hotbed of lefty activism. In the spring of 2017, when Protect RP held its first public training, about 60 residents showed up. They were alarmed by President Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and wanted to train to become "rapid responders" to protect their friends and neighbors.
Today, Protect RP conducts the training online. At times, Garvey said, the webinars have drawn over 1,000 registered attendees. She estimates more than 5,000 have joined the sessions this year.
"We really built it out as a training for Rogers Park," said Garvey. "And then we realized that when [STAC] started supporting the trainings [that] people were asking for this from all over the country."
Garvey shares tips on how to identify enforcement activity — from the types of vehicles and plates associated with agents' cars, to what they wear and patches on their uniforms. She outlines how observers should document and communicate key details to be verified and broadcasted more broadly. In the Zoom chat, participants' comments indicate that most were there because they wanted to help immigrant families and friends near them.
But the training also offers Garvey an opportunity to explain that the stakes of this moment are even higher than many may realize.
"Why are immigrant communities in Chicago and other cities — D.C., L.A., Memphis, Portland, lots of places that don't make headlines — why are our communities being targeted so aggressively?" Garvey asked. "It's really because immigrants and other marginalized people are caught in a very dangerous escalation of authoritarianism."
In her role running STAC, Garvey helps local communities deal with what they see as authoritarian threats. The work has taken her to Nashville, where she helped local leaders respond to neo-Nazi parades that were staged downtown. In Ohio, she helped an interfaith coalition deal with fallout after a man borrowed and burned 100 public library books on African American, Jewish and LGBTQ life.
Garvey said those scenarios involved threats from extremist groups or actors. The work that STAC is doing now is notable because it is in response to government activity. Still, Garvey said the context and skills she has developed in countering extremism have been completely applicable.
"We often talk about places being sort of like linchpins for a region," Garvey said. "It could be a very small town that is trying to fend off Christian nationalism, and they may be the thing that is standing in the way of that network or formation gaining more influence in the region. I think Chicago isn't really that different."
Garvey said that when it comes to militarized federal operations in American cities, she believes Chicago is a linchpin for the nation.
"I think that what's happening here is an attempt for the administration to break through and not just normalize, but strengthen, a national police force and occupy a city for a long time, terrorize a city for a long time, and make it normal so they can go and do that in a lot of other places," she said.
Adapting to a new enforcement regime
When Protect RP first began preparing for an onslaught of immigration raids, its focus was on the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Gonzalez studied hundreds of hours of ICE arrests and concluded that they followed a process that ultimately afforded rapid responders roughly 30 minutes to assemble on scene. But since Trump took office in January, this has changed.
For the first time, Chicago is considered by federal authorities to be border territory. It put Operation Midway Blitz under the command of Gregory Bovino, a U.S. Border Patrol chief. Hundreds of border patrol officers were deployed to Illinois. Their operational practices have differed from ICE's.
"Our members have been threatened by Border Patrol. [Agents] have drawn their guns out. [Agents] have said that they will shoot them. [Agents] have approached their vehicles and said, 'If you follow us, we will arrest you,' " Gonzalez said. "And almost always — I don't think every time — but most of the time that was Border Patrol."
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Border Patrol, responded to questions about agents' alleged aggression with a written statement to NPR. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said agents experienced an "increase in assaults" and "vehicle rammings" while conducting operations.
Some Chicagoans have fought against what they believe to be overly aggressive enforcement tactics through court cases. In one case, concerning agents' use of force, federal judge Sara Ellis issued an order finding it likely that plaintiffs would be able to show that agents "engaged in gratuitous uses of force untethered to any legitimate law enforcement purposes."
"For example, repeatedly shooting pepper balls or pepper spray at clergy members shocks the conscience," Ellis wrote. "Tear gassing expectant mothers, children, and babies shocks the conscience… Shooting a pepper ball at a protester from about five feet away shocks the conscience… Pointing a gun at someone for exercising their First Amendment rights shocks the conscience…"
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Ellis' order that restricted use of force, finding it "overbroad."
Additionally, Border Patrol has not conducted arrests in a targeted way. Typically, agents have cruised through neighborhoods and arrested people based on little more than their appearance. The detentions happen without warrants and without knowledge of the person's identity, residency or citizenship status. As a result, they have sometimes arrested citizens and lawful residents.
In a statement to NPR, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Operation Midway Blitz resulted in more than 4,200 arrests and that it "is targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago." Federal records filed in court, however, have supplied detailed data on some of the arrests; less than 3 percent of them involved individuals with criminal records.
Nurturing a "non-permissive environment"
Gonzalez said Protect RP has adapted to changes in enforcement by proactively patrolling the neighborhood and by identifying and plugging "gaps" in their defensive patchwork. The switch has been made easier by a swell of volunteers stepping forward. Gonzalez attributes the interest, in large part, to how aggressive agents have been in the places where Chicagoans live.
"Their incursions, their violations of people's sense of place, is probably one of the best recruiting and organizing tools that we have," Gonzalez said.
While Gonzalez and Garvey said that Protect RP never encourages violence, the work they do is intended to make Rogers Park as hostile to federal agents as possible. As one moves through the neighborhood, it is commonplace to see people standing on street corners and near schools with whistles around their necks, looking at license plates and scrutinizing drivers' faces. Businesses prominently post signs in their windows declaring that civil immigration operations are not permitted on their premises.
Gonzalez is also always figuring out other gaps that need to be patched. The week after Halloween, he heard that a nanny was almost arrested while watching kids at a playground. Later that day, agents were recorded using a public park's parking lot for staging. Calls were made to the Chicago Park District.
"We need all the sort of infrastructure that we used to take for granted, like schools and churches and other houses of worship and fraternal associations and all of that, to stand up — and parks — and say, Not here, not now, not ever," Gonzalez explained.
Protect RP's hyperlocal efforts layer onto other factors that have, at times, frustrated immigration enforcement efforts in Illinois.
"It's certainly a non-permissive environment," Bovino said during a Fox and Friends appearance in September. He was describing the opposition that Operation Midway Blitz faced from Democratic officials in the state like Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
As Bovino and enforcement efforts have turned to Charlotte, N.C., and, now, New Orleans, Gonzalez, Garvey and others at Protect RP hope they can help. They believe the community defense model they have built can be replicated almost anywhere else. And they are convinced that as more Americans witness, firsthand, how these immigration operations are carried out, they will join efforts to counter them.
"They have radicalized a set of people through their own actions," Gonzalez said, "and that'll be a generation before that goes away."
This story was made possible in part by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
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