Caitlin Dickerson writes:

Since immigration-enforcement agents began their descent on Chicago, acting with seemingly unprecedented speed and ferocity, Evelyn Vargas and her colleagues at Organized Communities Against Deportation have been in a frenzy. They help run an emergency hotline that refers people who have been detained to immigration lawyers and directs their families to support services such as food pantries, emergency housing, and mental-health care. (On a single day last week, it took 800 calls.) And they oversee a team of 35 “rapid responders” who have been sprinting across the city to film arrests, aiming for at least two to arrive on the scene within 10 minutes.

When training volunteers, OCAD instructs them to stay a safe distance from agents and makes clear that their goal is to observe but not intervene or prevent arrests. They share footage with elected officials and lawyers representing those apprehended, but do not post the videos online. And they emphasize that the safety of everyone involved is their top priority. Despite these precautions, Vargas told me that her colleagues, and others doing similar work in Chicago, have been thrown to the ground, pepper-sprayed, and tailed in their cars by officers in an apparent attempt to intimidate them. A few weeks ago, agents temporarily detained some of their members—all of whom are citizens or legal residents—so Vargas and her colleagues quickly removed them from group chats in case their devices were searched.

To protect themselves and their work, they also keep their office location private and have started to ban phones, laptops, and other devices from meetings. No notes are allowed, except those taken by lawyers, about people who could be targeted by ICE. People interested in joining the group require an invitation and may be asked to participate after attending three meetings, but only if their references check out.

Vargas said she worries about what OCAD’s volunteers will face next. “This feels pretty bad,” she told me. “It’s so hard to not know if the tailing is just an incremental thing, and it’s gonna stop there, or keep going.”

Since Donald Trump and his top aides directed a cavalcade of government agencies and tens of billions of dollars toward their effort to deport immigrants en masse, the advocates defending them have become targets, too. Their ranks span levels of experience, funding, and professionalism, from individual lawyers at long-established firms to parent volunteers who walk immigrant children to school. ICE is facing more aggressive challenges to its work than usual, not all of it from groups with clear safety guidelines. But the administration has begun characterizing virtually any opposition as part of a conspiracy to dox, harm, or even kill ICE agents and upend the rule of law, launching an attack that it promises is just beginning.

House Republicans have demanded financial records from nonprofit groups that they accused of fueling illegal border crossings and training immigrants on how to avoid cooperating with ICE. Trump’s Justice Department has sought monetary sanctions against immigration lawyers, and the Department of Education has dangled the possibility of excluding them from public-service loan-forgiveness programs. The Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI are investigating the clashes between officers and activists in the streets, and representatives of the Department of Homeland Security say that, along with the IRS, they are tracking “what NGOs, unions, and other individuals may be funding these violent riots.” For those who are interacting with ICE directly, the threats are often physical. [Continue reading…]