This is One Thing, I'm David Rind, and it's like neighborhood watch, but for federal agents.

How much force they want to use against us here in Chicago is up to them. Again, we don't have the guns. We got whistles.

Stick with us. Do either of you have a whistle handy? I would love to hear the different calls if you don't mind.

Yeah, I will grab one.

It's down there. Okay. Yeah, we have whistles everywhere.

We don't leave home without a whistle. And that's basically ice is here. Like we see them, they're in their cars usually when we see the. Now this one's gonna be long. This is like they're out of their cars, they're coming for somebody.

That's an active adoption.

Yeah, it's loud. Yeah, and imagine 20.

Loretta Capehart and Hector Reyes live in the Westridge neighborhood of Chicago, on the city's north side. They're married, both retired professors. Lorette taught justice studies. And over the past few months, they've been watching as federal immigration agents carry out arrest after arrest on the streets of Chicago. This is what the Trump administration is calling Operation Midway Blitz, and they didn't like what they were seeing.

Tonight, a new escalation in Chicago. The White House announcing President Trump has now authorized 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to protect, quote, federal officers and assets in one of America's biggest cities.

'They raided an apartment complex in the middle of the night and perp walked a group of young children out of the building with their hands zip-tied behind them, separating them from their parents.

Homeland Security says officers shot an armed woman who was part of a group. They say rammed cars into vehicles used by ICE agents.

What the agents are doing. It's just a total violation of all normative rule of law.

So they decided to get involved. About six weeks ago, they attended a training session put on by local activists on how to spot ice in your neighborhood and what to do if you see them. And they were inspired to start up their own resistance network in Westridge. Hector says they have hundreds of volunteers called verifiers. They use the encrypted app Signal to communicate.

And what happens is that school patrols, people or neighbors say, hey, we think we have eyes here. And then I issue a request or some of our coordinators that are on duty. Can someone go and verify to the corner of whatever and whatever. And then a chase starts. We heard recently that they were at the Target, and so we issued a call for everyone to go there. It turned out that they work on the second floor. There is a ramp behind the store that many of us were not aware of. And then dozens of people walking with whistles and masks through the parking lot of eventually the manager went and realized that about five or six vehicles were in there and as they were coming down we were all whistling so loud the whole neighborhood could hear. They were moving out and heading out of there. So we essentially chased them away.

Has there ever been a time where someone spotted something and then you went to check it out and it wasn't? Ice, like what happens when that goes down?

Well, it's, you know, it varies because usually we can, we can tell before too many people come out. Um, like the other day I was whistling because I saw a guy in a weird truck and a thing up over his face. And then he gets out of the truck and I realized, no, he's a worker going to work and I wanted to apologize. I'm sorry. I thought you were ice. He's like, it was okay. Again, the city has become fairly aware of what we're doing and particularly always wear whistles. You know, they know what we are up to. So the ones that, that know what were doing will let us know, hey, not me. I'm not them.

How close are you advising folks to get? Is there actual intervention, or is it just literally stand there, make noise, and eventually they'll move away? And what if they don't move away.

It depends on the training and the comfort of the individual. We don't ever tell people to touch the agents. What we recommend is 10 feet for filming, and at least an arm's length, if you're trying to get a little closer. Now, there are people who have been trained and who will, under the right circumstances, I'm certain, try to pull the person that's being abducted away from the officers. That's bound to happen, because again, if that's your... Child, if that's your spouse, if that's you're literal neighbor next door, I think it's bound to happen that people are going to grab their person and others will help them pull away. I've not personally witnessed that. I've seen any film of that. What's more likely is if you show up in those numbers right now, get loud enough, get a big enough crowd, they will release them and go away because they don't want to deal with what's coming.

Hear me out. Is there a world where if federal agents are trying to carry out their orders and they know they're going to be tailed by citizen groups like the ones you're a part of, or they think people might surround them every time they go to make an arrest, that kind of presence could actually make things worse? And then it's not only people suspected of being here illegally at risk, but then it is also protesters or business owners who have to deal with the fallout of all of this chaos arriving on their doorstep.

That's happening already. Businesses in Chicago are suffering already because people are afraid to go out and do their grocery shopping. The schools are seeing lower attendance from the children because parents are afraid to take their kids. We're hearing from a man at the training this week that his high school daughter is afraid to walk the two blocks from her bus to her house because she's afraid they're going to pick her up. We are already under siege here. And yeah, it certainly could get worse if they decide that, but That's going to be up to then. We're gonna protect our neighbors. How much force they want to use against us here in Chicago is up to them. Again, we don't have the guns. We got whistles. And one of the other things we train people is don't go out alone, right? Just the other day I was in the elevator with one of my neighbors. He's like, well, how do you get involved in that? So he came to our training on Saturday. People just are recognizing the need. Particularly, you know, after the young woman was taken out of the daycare, that has really lit a fire under a lot of people. It's like, who thought we would see that?

We had masked ICE agents.Following a daycare educator into the daycare where there were parents there were children.

'The gathering in north center comes after the morning arrest by federal agents of that female teacher during child drop-off at reito de sol or ray of sunshine where halloween decorations belie the anxiety consuming that community

Now that we've had several days, it's a mixture of fear and anger.

Laura Tober's two children, ages four and a half and 14 months, both go to Reito de Sol. It's a Spanish immersion daycare. And Laura's youngest child is in Diana Santana Galeano's class, the teacher who was arrested.

Federal authorities say they did not specifically target the daycare and that the teacher is in the country illegally, but local officials maintain she has a work permit and a pending asylum case and that agents entered the day care without a warrant.

Santiana Galeano's apprehension has outraged local leaders. They said kids should not have to witness something like that. Now the Department of Homeland Security claims Santiana Galliano was arrested in the vestibule of the building, not the daycare itself. But just like Hector Reyes and Loretta Kephart in Westridge, Laura Tober says her and her fellow parents can't sit by without doing something.

'Whether it's talking to people, getting the word out, creating social media, creating the GoFundMe. We have parent patrol that we're just doing voluntarily on our own to watch out for ICE vehicles. All of us have, you know, full-time jobs and we're shifting things to make it work because it's for our kids. And we want the teachers to feel safe so that they're able to teach our children. The teachers don't feel safe or our children don't feel safe. What's the point?

Diana Santana Galeano's attorney said in a statement that she is currently being held at an ICE facility in Clark County, Indiana. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from transferring her to any jurisdiction outside of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. A hearing in her case is scheduled for November 13th. We got to take a quick break, but when we come back, the man in charge of Operation Midway Blitz, how he got in trouble with a federal judge and where he might be headed next. Stick around. OK, Priscilla Alvarez is here. She covers all things immigration for CNN. And Priscilla, I wanted to talk to you because as I've been talking to residents in Chicago about immigration enforcement, they keep bringing up one name to me over and over again, completely unprompted, Gregory Bovino. So my question to you is, who is Gregory Bovino?

Well, Gregory Bovino is a chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector, which is actually around 2,000 miles from Chicago. He has been at U.S. Border Patrol for nearly three decades in multiple roles, but of course, most recently in this position leading the El Centro Sector. Now, the reason that the Chicagoans know him so well is because he was by the Department of Homeland Security to essentially lead the immigration crackdown in cities. Chicago was actually his second city, the first was Los Angeles. And another reason that many people are familiar with him is because he's very active on social media. He has posted a lot of videos that have sort of a Hollywood style to them. And he's touted a lot his work that way and engaged with a lot people via X, as well as on other platforms. And so that is part of the reason, too, that in addition to his work, a lot of people are familiar with who he is and where he is.

So he's extremely online, but he's also extremely in the streets, right?

'Yeah, so Bovino has been known now for some of his heavy-handed tactics, including some controversial ones. So what does that mean? So say in Los Angeles, for example, there were agents who jumped out of a rental moving truck to arrest people in Home Depot. There has been accusations of racial profiling. Now, this actually did come up in a lawsuit and a federal judge had stopped those stops on based upon ethnicity alone, but the Supreme Court put that order on hold. That's what we call roving patrols. So this has been an ongoing accusation that Bovino has faced that he and his agents are stopping people just based on the way that they look. Does that play into your decision-making of where you're going to be making immigration arrests?

For Priscilla, our immigration enforcement revolves around Title 8, our immigration statutes, and we will conduct to that mission anywhere in the United States as per law 287 of the Immigration Nationality Act says that I can question anyone anywhere in The United States as to their citizenship. Priscilla what's your citizenship? See, I just did it now.

Now I've asked him about this. I interviewed him last month in Chicago and he pushed back.

'It's collaterals oftentimes that we encounter in various locations, and we use those articulable facts, again, well-grounded in law, to question someone. So you deny racial profiling? Yeah, I do. I do deny that.

He said that there are a myriad of factors that will determine who it is that he stops. Now, the other element of this has been the protesters. There have been pretty aggressive clashes between federal agents as well as the protesters, and it's gone both ways. Do you think the protests and the threats against immigration enforcement personnel are an insurrection against the United States?

I would call it chaos, would be a better word. I would it chaos in a near catastrophe.

There have been videos of rocks being thrown or other objects being thrown at federal agents, but federal agents have also responded, including Bovino himself, by throwing tear gas at those protesters. And that has been the crux of yet another lawsuit, which is to say, when can federal agents deploy those types of munitions when there is a clash with protesters?

And what we hear from residents is that there's this federal force in the streets and they're concerned about what happens when they start using pepper spray or flash bangs, that kind of stuff. And that has gotten us to this big court case over the last couple of weeks. So can you explain like what the judge is kind of weighing here?

'Yeah, and this has been a court case that has involved multiple hearings and also testimony from Bovino, from others, as well as a deposition with Bovino. So what this federal judge has been doing is she's been on a bit of a fact-finding mission, which is to say what exactly is happening on the streets because what we typically see are snippets on social media. People will grab video of a confrontation, But What she has been trying to figure out is, what is the entire scenario here? Is there anything that we're missing because we're only watching 30 second clips of something? And so she had Bavino take the stand where she asked him questions, for example, about body camera footage and whether they are all wearing that and then that he should also be wearing that so that again, there's a totality. Of factors that can be weighed and seeing whether or not they are abiding by her order. And her order has been that they cannot use these types of pepper spray, tear gas, et cetera, unless they are under imminent threat. Now, this is something that has been going on for several weeks now. But there was a moment last week where the federal judge said that Bovino had lied about at least one of the confrontations that was had with protesters. It's an image that a lot of people may have seen, which is he is throwing tear gas at protesters. At the time, the Department of Homeland Security said that they were under threat, that there were objects being thrown at them and that a rock had hit him on his head. Now, video does show that the protesters are throwing things. But the moment in which he was hit in the head actually came after he threw the tear gas. So the reason that this was important is because the federal judge sort of cast out on the claims the Department of Homeland Security has made about some of these confrontations. And she said very explicitly that, quote, the video evidence ultimately disproved this. And she also said that the government's portrayal of Chicago is, quote, untrue.

It just seems to me like this is kind of a microcosm of how this whole immigration enforcement has played out in these cities. Residents are seeing these operations and they respond in the way that they see fit, protesting or confronting agents. Agents for their part say, hey, we're feeling unsafe in some of these instances. We don't want our guys getting hurt. And then you have the question of what kind of force is being used. And we see like in this case, when a judge steps in, they want the evidence and the facts of what is actually happening.

Two things can be true here. It is true that some of these confrontations with protesters have become more heated, that federal agents have been under threat. The Department of Homeland Security arrested someone who had put a hit on Bovino. But at the same time, and this is what the federal judge was getting at in these hearings, is that federal agencies also have to show some restraint. But it all goes to show that there has been a more aggressive push on the immigration enforcement front. And as there have been perhaps changes in the way that they are doing that and conducting these arrests, that there has been a reaction. And when you put it all together, it can make for quite a messy and chaotic situation.

Well, so finally, what's next for Chicago and this wider immigration enforcement push that the Trump administration says it's gonna continue making?

We should say first that the Department of Homeland Security likes what they're seeing with Bavino, as does the White House. Now, that means that it doesn't end with Chicago. The idea has been that he will lead this crackdown on cities. Therefore, he will continue on to other cities. When I asked him about this last month, he said that they would determine where they go based on intelligence. What my sources tell me is that the next locations The caveat being that planning is always in flux until finalized, is that he and his agents will go to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then continue to New Orleans. So what this all goes to show is that it's not ending anytime soon. He has the backing of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. And the expectation here is that, he is going to continue to take his agents and approach to the immigration crackdown. To other cities. So Charlotte and New Orleans would mark the third and the fourth city, and then we'll see what happens from there.

Just to be clear, the Department of Homeland Security insists ICE will still continue operating in Chicago, even after Bovino leaves, which Priscilla's reporting suggests could happen as soon as this week. To that point, I asked Hector Reyes, who we heard from earlier, for his reaction to the news of Bovina's pending departure. He said, quote, I don't think it will mean less trouble for us, but I hope to be proven wrong. That's all for us today. We're back here on Sunday. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you later.