The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is dismissing a new lawsuit over workplace immigration raids as “race-baiting opportunism,” saying its officers act only on “reasonable suspicion” and not based on race or ethnicity.
“DHS law enforcement uses ‘reasonable suspicion’ to make arrests,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to The Associated Press. “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”
Why It Matters
The lawsuit alleges that immigration agents routinely target workplaces without warrants and that U.S. citizens with Latino-sounding names have been among those swept up. The suit seeks to block what The Institute for Justice described as “unconstitutional enforcement tactics.”
What To Know
The lawsuit was filed in federal court by Alabama construction worker Leo Garcia Venegas with The Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm. Venegas, who was born in the United States, says he was detained by immigration agents on two separate occasions in recent months despite presenting his Alabama-issued REAL ID driver’s license.
Video taken by a coworker shows Venegas being forced to the ground by agents as he protested that he was a citizen. He was released after about an hour, according to the complaint. Less than a month later, he was detained again at a different job site before being released after about 20 minutes.
The case comes shortly after the Supreme Court lifted a restraining order that had prevented immigration agents in Los Angeles from stopping people solely on the basis of race, language, or workplace. The court has allowed a number of Trump administration immigration policies to remain in effect while leaving room for legal challenges to proceed.
The Trump administration is moving forward with what it describes as the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, implementing the Republican Party’s hardline approach to mass immigration enforcement. The White House has maintained that migrants living in the U.S. without legal status are considered to be criminals by the incumbent administration.
Jaba Tsitsuashvili , an attorney at The Institute for Justice, said in a statement to the AP: “Immigration officers are not above the law. Leo is a hardworking American citizen standing up for everyone’s right to work without being detained merely for the way they look or the job that they do.”
Leo Garcia Venegassaid in a statement released by the law firm: “It feels like there is nothing I can do to stop immigration agents from arresting me whenever they want. I just want to work in peace. The Constitution protects my ability to do that.”
What Happens Next
Immigration enforcement operations will continue across the nation as the lawsuit moves forward in court.
As the U.S. headed for a government shutdown, Republicans repeatedly accused Democrats of forcing the closure because they want to give health care access to immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
“Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of healthcare benefits to illegal aliens,” Vice President JD Vance said Sept. 28 on “Fox News Sunday.”
President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican members of Congress have repeated this line.
It’s wrong.
Democrats have refused to vote for Republicans’ resolution to extend the federal spending deadline, and their position does, in part, hinge on health care spending. Democrats want to extend pandemic-era Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year and roll back Medicaid cuts in the tax and spending bill that Trump signed into law this summer.
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The Democrats’ proposal wouldn’t give health care to immigrants illegally in the U.S. — they are already largely ineligible for federally funded health care. Instead, the proposal would restore access to certain health care programs for legal immigrants who will lose access under the Republican law.
The White House did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment for this fact-check. Vance addressed criticism of his talking point in another interview by saying it was included in the Democrats’ spending proposal; it’s not.
A White House X account followed up with screenshots of the Democratic proposal repealing a section of the Republican law labeled “alien Medicaid eligibility.” It’s important to know that these changes would not give Medicaid access to immigrants illegally in the U.S.
IMAGE 1: Straight from Democrat proposal
IMAGE 2: OBBB Table of Contents (Title VII, Subsection B repealed in Democrat proposal)
Vance defended his statement again in an Oct. 1 White House press conference, saying former President Joe Biden “waived away illegal immigration status” that helped migrants access federal assistance. It’s important to note that many people granted lawful status through humanitarian parole or Temporary Protected Status programs don’t automatically qualify for Medicaid; TPS recipients aren’t eligible, and many people who entered the U.S. on humanitarian parole are required to wait five years before accessing it.
The Trump administration has ended humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status for many people, rendering them ineligible for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
We did not find evidence that Democrats want to spend “hundreds of billions” in costs for insuring migrants with unlawful presence.
Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are ineligible for federally funded health care
The vast majority of federal health care dollars cannot be spent on health care for people in the U.S. illegally. They cannot enroll in Medicaid or Medicare, and they are ineligible to purchase health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. A small Medicaid program reimburses hospitals for uninsured emergency care, which can include immigrants in the country illegally but is not exclusive to them.
Some states including California and Illinois expanded Medicaid coverage for people regardless of their immigration status, and the states pay for that. Federal law already banned states from using federal money for these programs. An earlier version of the Republican spending law would have penalized such states by withholding funding, but that provision didn’t last.
People in the country illegally might receive some federally funded health care in emergency cases; in those situations, hospitals must provide care even if a person is uninsured or in the country illegally. Emergency Medicaid covers hospital care for immigrants who would be eligible for Medicaid if not for their immigration status. The Republican tax and spending law reduced the amount hospitals can receive for emergency immigrant care.
Most of the Emergency Medicaid spending is used on childbirth. In all, it represented less than 1% of total Medicaid spending in fiscal year 2023, according to KFF, a health think tank.
Republican law limited health care access for immigrants with legal status
The Republican tax and spending law made several changes to health care eligibility for immigrants in the country with legal permission. An estimated 1.4 million legal immigrants are expected to lose their health insurance, according to KFF’s analysis of Congressional Budget Office projections.
Starting October 2026, the law will restrict eligibility for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program to lawfully permanent residents, people from the Marshall Islands, Micronesia or Palau who lawfully reside in the U.S. under an international agreement, and certain Cubans and Haitians.
Previously, a broad group described as “qualified noncitizens” were eligible for Medicaid and CHIP, including refugees and people granted asylum.
Some immigrants who are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP, such as lawful permanent residents, are required to wait five years before accessing the benefits.
The law also limited Affordable Care Act marketplace eligibility to the same group eligible for Medicaid and CHIP beginning Jan. 1, 2027. Previously, people who were described as “lawfully present” were eligible. That group included the “qualified noncitizens” eligible for Medicaid and people with short-term statuses, such as Temporary Protected Status or international students.
Beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, for immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children were previously eligible for Affordable Care Act coverage and its subsidies. They are ineligible after an August Trump administration rule.
Democrats’ proposal would restore legal immigrants’ access to federally funded health care
The Democrats’ Sept. 17 budget proposal would, in part, permanently extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies and roll back billions in Republican cuts to Medicaid and other health programs.
The change would make Medicaid, CHIP and Affordable Care Act coverage available to all legal immigrants who were previously eligible for it, such as refugees and people granted asylum.
The Democratic proposal would not broaden eligibility to federally funded health care programs to immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
Vance said the Democratic policies would “give hundreds of billions of dollars of health care benefits to illegal aliens,” and the White House did not offer its source for that figure. When Johnson was pressed to support a similar talking point, he referenced the Congressional Budget Office. An August KFF analysis of CBO estimates found that the Republican law’s provisions related to legal immigrants would reduce federal spending by $131 billion; this projection did not include an estimate for people without legal status.
Our ruling
Vance said, “Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government because they want to give hundreds of billions of dollars of health care benefits to illegal aliens.”
Immigrants in the U.S. illegally are largely ineligible for federally funded health care programs Medicare and Medicaid, and they cannot seek coverage in the Affordable Care Act marketplace or apply for subsidies.
The Democrats’ budget proposal would not change that.
The Democrats want to restore access to certain health care programs to legal immigrants who will lose access under the Republican tax and spending law — among other measures aimed at making Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurance plans easier to keep.
Their proposal would not grant federally supported health care benefits to people in the U.S. illegally, because they did not have access to them in the first place. The small amount of funding designated for Emergency Medicaid reimburses hospitals that provide emergency care to immigrants who would be eligible for Medicaid if not for their immigration status. Finally, we did not find evidence for Vance’s assertion that Democrats want “hundreds of billions” in health benefits for migrants in the country illegally.
While I had my usual skepticism about what that number represents, I wasn’t surprised by the sentiment. Of course newcomers fear making financial mistakes. Would it be any less noteworthy if the number were 65% instead? Probably not. The point remains: newcomers are worried, and rightly so.
When you’ve just arrived in a country and you’re trying to make sense of systems that are unfamiliar, the fear of getting something wrong isn’t just rational, it’s expected. The Canadian financial system, for many, doesn’t feel like a place to build confidence; it feels like a labyrinth. For those still learning the language(s), navigating new jobs, figuring out where to live, and understanding cultural norms, the financial part can feel like one stress too many.
But something else in the report stood out to me and it subtly shifts the conversation. The data showed that 38% of newcomers reported little to no understanding of the Canadian banking system. That’s high. But 25% of the general Canadian population said the same thing. Similarly, 51% of newcomers said they didn’t understand how to invest money in Canada, compared to 35% of the broader population. The gaps are there, but what these numbers quietly suggest is that while newcomers may struggle more, many Canadians are struggling too.
This isn’t just a newcomer problem. It’s a Canadian problem.
Earning, saving and spending in Canada: A guide for new immigrants
Everyone’s staring at the same dishwasher
Understanding Canada’s financial system—especially through the eyes of a newcomer—often feels like trying to operate a dishwasher for the first time without knowing what it is or how it’s supposed to work. You know it’s meant to make life easier, but the buttons don’t make much sense, you’re unsure whether you’ve added the detergent correctly, and every unfamiliar sound makes you wonder if something’s gone wrong. After a while, it starts to feel safer to wash the dishes by hand—slower and less efficient, but at least familiar.
That’s how many of us approach banking, investing, taxes, insurance, and credit. These tools are designed to help us, yet figuring out how to use them—and, more importantly, how to trust that we’re using them correctly—can feel risky. The fear of getting it wrong often keeps people from even getting started.
I’ve lived in Canada for over six years and I work in the financial services industry, supporting organizations and spending a good deal of time thinking about how these systems function. Still, familiarity doesn’t always translate into confidence. Every year, I find myself hesitating over a relatively minor investing decision: what to do with the government match on my daughter’s registered education savings plan (RESP). It’s one small part of a much bigger plan for her education… a decision I’ve made before, but it still ties me up in knots. What should be simple ends up feeling complicated. I overthink it. I question what I know, and I hesitate.
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In those moments, despite all the exposure and experience I’ve had, I still feel like I’m standing in front of that same dishwasher, unsure which button to press and worried that one wrong choice might set something off I can’t undo.
When trust disappears without warning
Not long ago, I got a call from my financial advisor—someone I’d built a relationship with over several years. She let me know, somewhat casually, that she’d moved branches and would be handing off my account to someone new.
I understand that people change roles and businesses reorganize, but this wasn’t just a logistical update—it meant losing the one person in the Canadian financial system I trusted. She’d taken the time to understand how I think, how I approach decisions, and how I sometimes spiral before settling on a choice. Now I was expected to trust someone new, just like that.
It felt like having your surgeon swapped the night before a procedure—not because the new person isn’t capable, but because trust doesn’t transfer. In something as emotional as money, especially when the system already feels overwhelming, trust matters.
That’s the part no survey captures. It’s not just about how much someone understands. It’s about how supported they feel, and whether they believe someone is walking the path with them instead of standing off in the distance, pointing them in a vague direction.
The bigger issue isn’t knowledge, it’s confidence
At the heart of it, what the TD survey is really saying—and what many of us feel but don’t always articulate—is that people fear making financial decisions because they don’t trust that they’ll get it right. And when you don’t feel confident, every step forward feels like a risk.
This fear is real for newcomers, but it’s also real for the person who’s lived in Canada their whole life and still feels anxious at tax time. It’s real for the couple trying to figure out if they’re saving enough. It’s real for the entrepreneur who feels like banking is something you endure, not engage with.
Speaking of entrepreneurs, another finding from the report stood out. Half of all newcomers said they’re interested in starting a business, but 62% reported not knowing enough about the financial products available to help them. That struck a chord.
As federal agents hurled tear gas and pepper spray through the night sky at protesters outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview, the Rev. Quincy Worthington threw his arms out and used his body to shield those around him. Breathing through his own gas mask, the north suburban Presbyterian minister, who was wearing a clerical collar, hugged whoever he could and dragged them away from the fray.
His forearms burning from the pepper spray bullets, Worthington secured medical help, located water and, for the most part, listened to those protesting the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the area.
“People just need to know that somebody’s there for them,” he said.
With escalating federal immigration enforcement operations across Chicago and its suburbs, and President Donald Trump’s threats of sending the National Guard to quell crime, tension and fear have gripped those opposed to his administration and its “Operation Midway Blitz,” which officials say has resulted in more than 550 immigration arrests in the Chicago area this month.
Trump’s actions have prompted everyday citizens to confront immigration agents during arrests, activists to hold weekly news conferences and dozens of demonstrations and rallies to spring up on street corners and plazas, with the protest outside the ICE Broadview facility a flashpoint in a weekly standoff against federal agents, who fired baton rounds and tear gas at protesters for the third Friday in a row last week.
Faith leaders are on the front lines with demonstrators. They are not only attending rallies and protests, they’re providing resources and offering safe spaces for people to gather, worship and counsel one another — that support felt nowhere more so than in the Latino community, which has borne the brunt of Trump’s enforcement operations.
‘Missionaries of hope’
The Rev. Carmelo Mendez walked shoulder to shoulder with congregants Wednesday night in a procession for migrants through the city. For nearly 3 miles, Mendez — pastor of St. Oscar Romero Catholic Church — and about 50 mostly Latino parishioners strode along narrow sidewalks and through quiet street corners as they made their way from St. Michael the Archangel Church in Back of the Yards to St. Rita of Cascia in Chicago Lawn.
Each step, Mendez said as he walked, moved them closer toward their goal: hope.
“(Our) main role is just to accompany them,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do to change their status. But we give them support. … As a pastor, as a shepherd, that’s (the message I’d) really like to convey.”
Around him, congregants sang hymns, their voices playing over the hum of cars driving by and the crunch of gravel beneath sneakers. Some parishioners clutched rosary beads, reciting prayers in low tones to themselves.
Jaqueline Estrada, from left, her mother, Angelica Perez, and father, David Estrada, kneel while praying for migrants at Mary Mother of Mercy Parish in the West Lawn neighborhood as part of an observance of National Migration Week by the Archdiocese of Chicago, Sept. 24, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
People walk in a procession for migrants from St. Oscar Romero in the New City neighborhood to St. Rita of Cascia in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood as part of an observance of National Migration Week by the Archdiocese of Chicago on Sept. 24, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
People pray at St. Rita of Cascia in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood after walking in a procession for migrants from St. Oscar Romero in the New City neighborhood during an observance of National Migration Week by the Archdiocese of Chicago on Sept. 24, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
People walk in a procession for migrants from St. Oscar Romero in the New City neighborhood to St. Rita of Cascia in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood as part of an observance of National Migration Week by the Archdiocese of Chicago on Sept. 24, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
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Jaqueline Estrada, from left, her mother, Angelica Perez, and father, David Estrada, kneel while praying for migrants at Mary Mother of Mercy Parish in the West Lawn neighborhood as part of an observance of National Migration Week by the Archdiocese of Chicago, Sept. 24, 2025. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Jose Trejo walked arm in arm with his mother and father. Together, they teetered between optimism and unease.
“As you might see, the majority of the people here are Hispanic. … So I feel like a lot of us are walking with hope to continue moving forward but also with a little bit of fear,” the 28-year-old Back of the Yards resident said. But making the trek with his family — and carrying on a religious tradition despite the anxieties — is empowering, he said.
Over the past few weeks, Jacqueline Ramirez has leaned on her faith. Ramirez, who just started her freshman year at DePaul University, took part in the procession with her mom. She has always considered herself close to God, the 18-year-old said, but especially at this time, she’s relied on “having that belief that nothing bad is going to happen and just praying for my people.”
Ramirez said she was thankful for the chance to be with her community in a different way. For Mendez, he said it was humbling and an honor to be there.
After all, he’s an immigrant himself.
The Wednesday procession was part of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s observance of National Migrant Week — which the U.S. Catholic Church has celebrated for 45 years — that culminates Sunday with a 5:15 p.m. Mass in nine languages at Holy Name Cathedral downtown.
The archdiocese’s immigration ministry and parishes have been offering services like Mass, rosary prayer and holy hour, and free resources like legal immigration consultations, as well as labor rights, mental health and “Know Your Rights” workshops.
The weeklong celebration events have shared the theme of the Vatican’s upcoming World Day of Migrants and Refugees, “Migrants, missionaries of hope,” which Chicago’s own Pope Leo XIV says reflects “their courage and tenacity” that “bear heroic testimony” to their faith.
“Our migrant brothers and sisters are not strangers; they are family in Christ,” said Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, in a Monday news release highlighting National Migrant Week. “They enrich our Church and serve as a reminder that the gospel knows no borders and that God’s love is for all people.”
Bishop Tim O’Malley of the archdiocese, based in Lake County and pastor at Most Blessed Trinity Parish in Waukegan, said he still writes letters in support of community members seeking residency or citizenship, and the parish continues offering a food pantry for groceries and hot meals at their soup kitchen every week, as well as counseling to spiritually “walk with them.”
He has been at the parish since 2018, he said. “I have not seen so much concern over immigration issues until now,” he added, from U.S. citizens and undocumented migrants alike.
On Sept. 20, a morning after federal agents violently clashed with protesters in Broadview, hundreds marched from downtown North Chicago to the entrance of the Naval Station Great Lakes base, which the Trump administration asked for support on immigration operations.
Representatives from seven congregations of multiple faiths — including the rabbi of a Reform Jewish synagogue, a Catholic priest from Chicago, and reverends of a suburban Unitarian Church and a Presbyterian Church — offered prayers outside the station.
Rabbi Ike Serotta of Makom Solel Lakeside in Highland Park said a vast majority of Americans came to the United States seeking refuge in some form, and he sees those being arrested as refugees, like members of his family once were.
“My ancestors were refugees,” Serotta said. “Unfortunately, some did not come soon enough and were killed in the Holocaust. The people I encounter are seeking asylum. They are going through the legal process.”
Rabbi Ike Serotta, of Makom Solel Lakeside in Highland Park, blows a shofar during a peaceful protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and federal actions against immigrants at Great Lakes Naval Station on Sept. 20, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Being present
At a peaceful rally in suburban Melrose Park earlier this month, Roberto Moreno, pastor of the First United Methodist Church in nearby Franklin Park — where an ICE agent fatally shot an undocumented father, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, after a traffic stop Sept. 12 — carried a sign with a big red heart and the words “No human being is illegal.” A child had drawn cherubs holding ribbons asking for “Más amor” — more love.
“There has been a rush of fear over the whole community,” Moreno told the Tribune in Spanish. There are fewer congregants in attendance, he said, as residents “feel a lot of dread about simply going outside.”
Moreno came to the United States in 2007 from a small town near Comayagua in Honduras, fleeing cartel violence after one of his brothers was murdered. Like many immigrants, he said, he crossed the southern border. It then took him years to go through the long process of obtaining documents.
“I’ve faced the same challenges: the language, the culture — all those challenges fellow migrants experience and live,” he said. “Eso lo conozco en carne propia. I know that in my own flesh.”
After a vigil following Villegas-Gonzalez’s death, Moreno heard a knock on the church’s door, followed by footsteps. He poked his head out from his office to welcome the visitor. It was one of the schoolteachers who taught Villegas-Gonzalez’s son.
She started crying, he recalled.
“Thanks for coming out,” Moreno said the elderly teacher told him. “I came here to this church because I was at the vigil, and I left feeling so affected because I breathed in love, I breathed in hope, I breathed in the grace of God. Now the teachers at school want to offer our help to your church, to support you in everything you’re doing.”
Roberto Moreno, pastor at Franklin Park United Methodist Church, marches during a walk protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement organized by P.A.S.O West Suburban Action Project and other community organizations, Sept. 16, 2025, in Melrose Park. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
The suburban United Methodist Church is part of the area’s rapid response team, which deploys when there are sightings of federal immigration operations to be present and support the people being affected. Some congregants in the church are also helping families by taking their children to and from school.
“The only way for us to be the church of Christ, in these times, is letting the world know that we are here,” Moreno said. “I firmly believe that the church and faith leaders today, more than ever, have to be present where there is a need.”
Earlier this month, on a Monday morning, calls for “faith over fear” echoed across Daley Plaza as some 50 people gathered to protest heightened immigration operations in a rally led by leaders from the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, or IMAN, New Life Centers and Live Free Illinois. Other Chicago clergy and religious figures spoke to the crowd that day, including the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham.
Tariq El-Amin, a resident imam at the Masjid Al Taqwa mosque on Chicago’s Southeast Side, spoke at the Sept. 8 rally downtown.
“We’re not going to be overwhelmed by what we see, what we think to be overwhelming odds,” El-Amin said. “We’ll remind ourselves that we’re not alone.”
Their presence is powerful, says Jessica Darrow.
For the past month, Darrow, a professor at the University of Chicago who lives in Logan Square, has traveled to Broadview to protest. Darrow, 54, considers herself a longtime activist, between advocating in the pro-immigrant space to campus organizing. But nothing could have prepared her for “what it would be like to come face to face with these ICE agents,” she said.
She’s been grateful, though, to have faith leaders beside her.
“To see clergy with their collars, to see rabbis coming dressed in identifiable clothing just so that the people around them can have courage and feel their support and love … I’ve just found that to be incredibly moving,” she said. “And brave.”
Ana Nikolic has been a consistent presence outside Broadview, not to protest, but to support families with loved ones detained inside the facility.
An independent chaplain for a decade now, Nikolic’s mission, she said, is just to help people. These days, that has entailed knocking on the doors of the detention facility seeking insight for families of detainees, she said.
But it has also involved advocating for peace as protests persist outside the building. Heightened tensions, Nikolic says, have made it more difficult to work with federal agents and get loved ones the information they need.
“We’re pretty much the bridge (connecting) them,” she said.
Worthington, the Presbyterian minister who has tried to shield protesters, said what he has seen in Broadview has been both devastating and heartbreaking. But he’s tried to stand his ground as a calming presence through the disquiet.
A few years ago, Worthington was part of a group of ministers that traveled to Texas and Mexico to see how U.S. immigration policies were being implemented in real-time. Since then, and since he’s taken on a ministry in the north suburbs’ large immigrant community, he’s developed an intimate understanding of “what (their) everyday life looks like and the struggles they go through.”
Through the latest immigration crackdown, he’s spent a lot of time praying, he said, and looking for guidance.
“What is the right response?” he said. “Where do I need to be?”
Chicago Tribune’s Cam’ron Hardy and Lake County News-Sun freelancer Steve Sadin contributed.
The Philadelphia region’s immigrant population has increased over the last decade, spurring economic growth and social prosperity, a new report says.
The report from The Welcoming Center says this influx of immigrants has allowed the region to stave off population decline and coincided with increases in household income and educational attainments, and a decrease in poverty.
The report, which covers Philadelphia and its four collar counties, concluded that immigration contributes positively to the region’s economy and the well-being of the population, but that opportunity gaps still exist for foreign-born people.
Anuj Gupta, president of The Welcoming Center, a Philly organization that promotes economic opportunities for immigrants, said he hopes the report’s findings can reshape the way people view immigration in the region and inform thoughtful policies.
“What we’re seeing is the story of collective prosperity while immigration has accelerated in the region, which kind of defies everything that’s being said about immigration right now,” Gupta said.
“In the suburbs, there is an opportunity deficit that’s not being met. There are immigrants that are highly skilled, highly trained, possibly with bachelor’s or graduate-level education that are underemployed.”
For Gupta, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, one of the most surprising regional trends was the decline of native-born populations against steadily increasing foreign-born populations.
Philadelphia’s foreign-born population rate grew from 12.69% in 2013 to 15.09% in 2023, the report shows, citing U.S. Census Bureau data. Similarly, the foreign-born population rate in the suburban counties grew from 9.09% to 10.66%. This growth allowed the region’s population to marginally grow over that same span despite native populations declining due to lower birth rates and moving elsewhere, the report says.
Additionally, as the native population has grown older, immigrants have made up a larger percentage of the region’s working-age population — those ages 25-54. The percentage of foreign-born workers in the region rose slightly from 2013 to 2023 as the percentage of native-born workers fell by 2 percentage points, the report shows.
“If not for the relatively recent uptick in immigration to all four of the collar counties, you would be talking about a region in decline, population loss and bigger workforce gaps than we already have,” Gupta said.
The report also shows that the region’s poverty rate has fallen as median household incomes and educational attainment levels have risen.
The average median incomes of foreign-born households surpassed that of native-born households in 2022. As of 2023, the average median income of foreign-born households was $101,321, slightly above the $99,114 made by native-born households, the report shows.
In Philadelphia, the poverty rates for foreign-born and native populations each decreased by about 4 percentage points from 2013 to 2023. The poverty rates in the suburbs fell slightly, but immigrants remain more likely to be impoverished — a deficit that Gupta said speaks to a “fundamental lack of understanding” of the economic opportunities that immigrants can provide.
“While immigrants are spread across a wide range of industries, they are also often working in jobs that do not fully match their skills and qualifications and highlights the need for policies that better match skills with opportunity,” the report reads. “Addressing these gaps is critical to fully leveraging the skills and supporting community resilience.”
The report shows that the region’s foreign-born population has long been more likely to hold at least a bachelor’s degree, though that gap has narrowed in recent years.
As the federal government cracks down on immigration, Gupta said he hopes the report’s data can be used for productive dialogue at the local level.
“We put the real information out, so if people want to make policy choices that still run contrary to the contributions that immigrants are making … it will not just damage individuals and families and our social fabric, but our economy,” he said. “I do believe that at the local level we can change the direction of thinking and discussion.”
She got to the base’s main gate at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, dressed in her Army boots and a red and black dress adorned with embroidered flowers, one of two identical dresses she and her daughter received from her aunt on a family trip to Guadalajara.
The boots, she said, were for confidence, the dress to symbolize her Mexican heritage.
Lina Alvarez spearheaded a protest outside Naval Station Great Lakes on Sept. 6 that drew hundreds of people opposed to its use as a base of operations for President Donald Trump’s planned immigration “blitz” on Chicago.
Four days later, the 42-year-old retired U.S. Army sergeant first class returned to the North Chicago base alone, carrying two flags — American and Mexican — bound together as one and a poster board on which she wrote in green marker:
IMAGINE 4 deployments IEDs Small arms fire Indirect fire Soldier’s suicide PTSD But I must prove I’m American when they ask?
“I came here to be a voice for people who are too scared to come out here,” Alvarez said. “I came here to try to make the world a little bit safer for my daughter. I came here because last Saturday was the first time I felt a little bit of hope.”
While the Trump administration has singled out Chicago for immigration sweeps this month — dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz” — and a possible National Guard deployment aimed, he’s said, at curbing the city’s endemic crime, those threats have stirred considerable pushback from residents and leaders across the suburbs who have organized protests and publicly condemned the spectre of federal incursions.
Tensions over immigration enforcement were heightened Friday after the agency reported that one of its agents shot and killed a man who struck and dragged the officer during a traffic stop in west suburban Franklin Park. The agent suffered severe injuries, the agency reported.
But suburban protests had mounted even before the shooting. In Downers Grove a few hundred people rallied Sunday outside a hotel after immigration advocates spotted Department of Homeland Security vehicles in the parking lot and suspected federal agents were staying there.
A day earlier, a similar-sized crowd gathered near a Wheaton grocery store to protest federal immigration raids, some carrying signs that read: ICE is not welcome here. And on Friday, dozens protested outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview.
A protester yells at federal agents as the officers attempt to clear a path for their vehicles to enter and exit the ICE facility in Broadview on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
A protester yells “Shame!” at federal agents during a protest at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
A federal agent watches from the roof while demonstrators scream during a protest at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Federal agents emerge from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview to push back protesters to allow vehicles to enter the facility on Sept. 12, 2025. One agent fired a nonlethal pepper ball into the crowd. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Vehicles with federal agents drive close to protesters attempting to block their path to the Broadview ICE processing facility on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Federal agents head back into to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview after they cleared a path for vehicles to enter and exit the facility on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists shout down federal agents while vans enter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Protesters stand face to face with federal agents at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Protesters yell at federal agents while they clear a path for vehicles to enter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists shout down federal agents while vans enter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview to protest on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists shout down federal agents while vans enter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview to protest on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Sandy Roelofs, general manager of New to You Upscale Resale in Broadview, delivers blankets to a federal agent at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 9, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
A federal agent escorts a detainee into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 9, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Federal agents clean off markings left by protesters on signs at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Federal agents clean markings left by protesters off of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
A detainee is brought into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 9, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists sit in front of a federal agent’s car to prevent it from entering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists sing and chant with a drum circle while protesting outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists join hands and sing “We Shall Overcome” outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
A federal agent drives off after being blocked by protesters while trying to enter the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists sit in front of a gate to prevent vehicles from entering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists sit and join hands in front of a federal agent’s car to prevent it from entering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Protesters and activists sit and join hands in front of a federal agent’s car to prevent it from entering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Broadview police watch and ask protestors to move as protesters and activists sit and join hands in front of a federal agent’s car to prevent it from entering the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
A federal agent enters an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview while protesters and activists shout on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
A protester, who declined to be named, leads others in a chant outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 5, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Joaquín Martínez of Des Plaines flies an “Our Lady of Guadalupe” flag after praying the rosary with a prayer group that met during a protest on Sept. 5, 2025, at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview. The group has been meeting at the facility every Friday since 2006 and praying for the immigrants that are held inside. Martínez has been attending for 18 years. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
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A protester yells at federal agents as the officers attempt to clear a path for their vehicles to enter and exit the ICE facility in Broadview on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
More rallies have been scheduled in Broadview and in other communities in the coming days, as suburbs that were once Republican strongholds have turned reliably Democrat-blue in the past decade. The demonstrations reflect both the disdain for Trump among an increasingly less conservative electorate and a significant suburban immigrant population that surpasses that of the city itself.
“It’s been historic,” said Cristobal Cavazos, co-founder of Immigrant Solidarity DuPage and Casa DuPage Workers Center. “I’m just so proud of our level of activity. When I first got into activism, the suburbs were seen as a land of conservative white folks. But that’s changing.”
Suburban mayors speak out
As ICE activity has ramped up, some suburban mayors have spoken out against the raids.
“We have communicated in partnership with the county that uninvited, unwanted and unjustified (presence) from ICE is unwelcomed,” Maywood Mayor Nathanial George Booker said in a statement. “Together, we will ensure that no show of force is stronger than a united community.”
Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss has joined protesters opposing ICE actions, going online to describe the situation as an emergency in which “we are under attack.” He has gotten rapid response training and gone to Pilsen to warn residents to know their rights in case of ICE detention, saying it’s “unacceptable” for masked federal agents without any identification to “snatch” people off the street.
In North Chicago, where DHS and ICE have a temporary office at Great Lakes Naval Station, Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. joined a news conference with Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, who spoke out against ICE.
“If people have broken the law, they should be detained and brought to justice,” Rockingham later told the Tribune. “But we have a 40% Latino community, and the majority of them are hardworking, they have homes, they pay property taxes, and they’re living to raise a family. They shouldn’t have to live in fear. That’s not right.”
From left, U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider and North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. hold a news conference in North Chicago on Sept. 5, 2025, to discuss President Donald Trump’s plan to use Naval Station Great Lakes as a hub for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Both Rockingham and Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham emphasized that their police departments won’t cooperate with ICE on immigration enforcement, a policy which is set by state law.
In west suburban Broadview, protesters have repeatedly marched and prayed outside an ICE facility there that Mayor Katrina Thompson said would be used as a primary processing center for detainees for about 45 days.
Thompson didn’t criticize the operation, but issued a statement that the village police would work with state and Cook County law enforcement to maintain safety and order as ICE operations unfold.
“Additionally, because Broadview respects the rule of law, we will defend the constitutionally protected right to peaceful protest and will accept no interference with that right,” Thompson said. “Simultaneously, we will reject any illegal behavior that puts Broadview police officers’ safety or the safety of local businesses and residents at risk.”
While the suburbs are home to a sizable immigrant population, the municipalities have not always been welcoming.
When Texas sent busloads of immigrants to the region in 2023 and 2024, most affected suburbs immediately sent the arrivals to Chicago, which officials said was better equipped to handle them as a sanctuary city. Several suburbs, citing a lack of resources for immigrants, passed ordinances restricting the buses or preventing migrants from being housed in their communities.
Earlier this month, a group of 50 people — some holding signs with messages like “stop illegal voting” — gathered in southwest suburban Orland Park for a tea party bus tour in support of a proposal to require documented proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
‘The strategy is working’
While the Trump administration appears to be walking back threats to deploy National Guard troops, Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday urged residents to remain vigilant in the face of what he expects will be increased ICE activity.
“They clearly have not gone out full force yet here with seemingly the number of people from ICE that they intended to have on the ground,” Pritzker said. “I haven’t seen all of those folks yet, but I anticipate that we will.”
Looming immigration raids have already caused the cancellation or postponement of Mexican Independence Day events slated for this weekend in Chicago, Waukegan and Wauconda.
It’s unclear how many people have thus far been swept up in the immigration blitz. At least three people were reportedly arrested along Archer Avenue on Chicago’s Southwest Side earlier in the week, while unconfirmed ICE sightings have been reported in Cicero, Elgin, Arlington Heights and Des Plaines.
Evanston’s mayor warned of ICE agents possibly descending on the north suburb, telling local news site Evanston Now that he’d been told a DHS helicopter was spotted flying along the lakefront Monday afternoon.
The mayor, who is running for Congress to succeed U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, told the Tribune that ICE was in Evanston Wednesday and on Thursday detained someone, but he did not have further details.
Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss stands face to face with federal agents during a protest outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Sept. 12, 2025. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)
Biss confirmed that a city worker unknowingly ticketed an unmarked Homeland Security vehicle Wednesday, but the ticket was to be rescinded because the city does not ticket law enforcement vehicles being used for work.
“ICE is deliberately keeping us guessing to not only harm some people but terrify many more,” he said. “It has nothing to do with public safety or even with immigration. It’s about targeting people based on race and ethnicity.”
Homeland Security officials said Wednesday that federal agents “arrested several dangerous criminal illegal aliens in the sanctuary city of Chicago.” The release named about a dozen arrestees.
A previous Tribune analysis of ICE data suggested that many people previously arrested by the agency had no known criminal record.
Immigrant rights advocates saw a surge in hotline call volume this week, according to one of the leading groups — at one point fielding five times as many calls in a single day than they typically received in an entire month prior to Trump’s inauguration.
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights family support hotline received 500 calls on Tuesday alone, with the “vast majority” reporting ICE sightings, Lawrence Benito, executive director at ICIRR, told reporters Thursday morning at a news conference in Brighton Park.
Before the start of the Trump administration, the hotline received about 100 calls per month, he said.
The coalition did not have an estimate for the number of people detained this week, but it thinks the total is higher than initial federal reports because it knows of individuals who have been arrested but not included among the names publicly posted by the administration, ICIRR spokesperson Brandon Lee said.
Cavazos, the DuPage County immigration advocate, said volunteer patrols across the city and suburbs have been able to educate the public on their rights and thwart ICE activity.
“A lot of these raids and operations are failing because people are not opening the door, they’re not talking, they’re not signing anything,” he said. “ICE is going away empty-handed. … I think that the strategy is working.”
Outside the Downers Grove hotel that has been the site of repeated protests over possible federal agents staying as guests, Lombard resident Bernadette Young admitted she’s questioned if the protests or rallies she’s attended over the last nine years make a difference. But she remained hopeful the demonstrations help raise awareness.
“It brings attention to the cause and it lets people know that we’re paying attention,” the York Township Democrat said.
A small group protests on Sept. 9, 2025, against federal immigration agents outside a Hampton Inn hotel in Downers Grove where agents are reportedly staying. From left, Emily Ellsworth, of Wheaton, her sister Penny Ellsworth, of Glen Ellyn, and Katie Scott, of Naperville, were among the eight people protesting. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Naperville resident Katie Scott agreed.
“It’s important to be out here,” said Scott, one of eight people protesting at the hotel Tuesday afternoon. “We want ICE to know that we’re watching what they’re doing.”
‘What did I come home to?’
Lina Alvarez is not a community activist. She doesn’t think of herself as being affiliated with much.
“I feel like I’m just a mom and someone who loves my community,” she said. “But it’s hard to live under this administration.”
A North Chicago native, she joined the Army National Guard at 17 in search of a way to pay for college.
She became an active-duty Army soldier after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and spent two decades in the military, driving tactical convoys and later, overseeing logistics. She was deployed to South Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan before her retirement in 2023, military records show..
In that time, she said, she had to stay silent through the racial rhetoric of her then-commander in chief and some fellow soldiers.
“We’ve got to build a wall,” she remembered one soldier telling her during Trump’s first term. “And you’re in charge of it.”
Back home in North Chicago looking for ways to give back to her community, she started substitute teaching at the local school district.
“I wanted to decompress,” she joked.
One day this past July, she answered a phone call from her sister who, in a shaky voice, told Alvarez her 14-year-old nephew had been surrounded by four suspected ICE agents in a gas station parking lot near his home. They wore tactical gear, the teen reported to his mom, and questioned if he spoke English, if he was Mexican.
The gas station attendant, who recognized the teen from his frequent patronage, rushed to his aid, Alvarez recalled being told. He yelled at the agents to leave the boy alone, that he was an American citizen. In the commotion, Alvarez said, her nephew was able to slip away and run home.
The news left Alvarez enraged and scared. Some of her relatives, she said, are undocumented immigrants.
“We live in fear,” she said. “And it hurts. … We don’t know if they’ll be here.”
After the incident, Alvarez said the family downloaded a location-sharing app. She prohibited her daughter, 11, from riding her bicycle “unless she’s with, and it sounds horrible, but unless she’s with a group of friends who are not only Spanish.”
Lina Alvarez, a retired U.S. Army sergeant first class, carries Mexican and American flags as she makes her way to protest in front of the main gate at the Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago on Sept. 10, 2025. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)Lina Alvarez, a retired U.S. Army sergeant first class, wears her Army boots underneath a traditional Mexican dress as she protests in front of the Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago on Sept. 10, 2025. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Then, last week, her brother called Alvarez with a request. He and his son work as outside contractors at the naval base. And despite both being American citizens, they were scared to go to work with ICE agents amassing there. He asked if Alvarez could shuttle them to their respective shifts, hopeful that the sight of her license plate identifying her as a military veteran would provide safe cover.
She asked herself: “What did I come home to?”
Then she started to form a plan to stage a protest at the naval base on Saturday.
Alvarez contacted local advocacy organizations and asked them to help spread the word. She and her daughter canvassed retail stores, stopping strangers to ask them to join, or to drive by and honk their horns in solidarity.
At the least, she figured, there would be six people protesting: She and her daughter and four other relatives who pledged to attend. Instead, hundreds came. Some estimates put the total at 600; Alvarez said the crowd near her looked the same size as her former military company: 200 people.
The moment filled her with love and pride for her community. And it meant even more to have her daughter there, she said, joking that she “got to look like a cool mom.”
When Alvarez was growing up, she said her stepfather discouraged them from speaking Spanish, preferring instead for the children to focus on their English. He didn’t want them to be thought of as being Mexican, with whatever negative connotation could be thrust upon that label.
“I understand my parents had their reasoning and they survived their circumstances, but I want the opposite for my daughter,” she said. “I want her to be a proud Mexican and an American. And if she has to stand up to people who don’t want her here, I want her to have that strength early on.”
That’s one of the reasons why Alvarez returned to the naval base Wednesday and why she plans to be out there again, as long as she feels it’s helping, even if she’s the only one.
Chicago Tribune’s Stacey Wescott, Olivia Olander, Richard Requena and freelance reporter Alicia Fabbre contributed.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem touted the results of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, saying more than 1 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally chose to leave the country.
“According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, we have 1.6 million illegal aliens that have gone home voluntarily,” Noem told reporters during an Aug. 19 visit to the U.S. southern border. “They have left the United States, returned to their countries at the encouragement of President (Donald) Trump and his policies so that they have an opportunity to come back to America the right way.”
Noem repeated the statistic at an Aug. 26 cabinet meeting.
The Department of Homeland Security told PolitiFact that tens of thousands of immigrants had used a government app to voluntarily leave the country, and that 1.6 million immigrants who were in the country illegally had left the U.S. since Jan. 20, when Trump took office. But it didn’t specify how Noem reached that number.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics did not present this data as Noem described.
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An Aug. 14 press release announcing that 1.6 million immigrants had left the U.S. showed one possible source for Noem’s data; the press release included a chart from the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors low immigration levels.
On Aug. 12, the organization published a report analyzing survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey.
“We preliminarily estimate that the number of illegal immigrants has fallen by 1.6 million in just the last six months,” the report said.
Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies and one of the report’s authors, told PolitiFact the “overwhelming majority” of the 1.6 million would have left on their own.
But the number also includes immigrants who, for example, were deported, died, left voluntarily and those whose status changed such as by getting asylum. DHS previously told PolitiFact that it had deported 239,000 people as of June 30.
The Center for Immigration Studies number is an estimate. And the group’s report pointed to several data limitations, including a lack of official government data and possible reluctance by immigrants to complete a government survey because of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“There is always some uncertainty in research of this kind, which we point out in our report,” Camarota told PolitiFact, adding that he would refer to the number as an estimate “based on the best data available.”
The U.S. Census Bureau has cautioned against using the Current Population Survey to estimate the number of foreign-born people in the country. It said the Current Population Survey’s sample size of 60,000 households makes it less reliable than data from the bureau’s American Community Survey, which has a sample size of 3.5 million households.
Using the Current Population Survey, the Pew Research Center estimated that the U.S. foreign born population had dropped by 1.4 million people from January to June. However, it did not specify how many of those people were in the U.S. illegally and it also noted that part of the drop could be attributed to decreased survey responses.
Other researchers who study immigrant populations also said the Current Population Survey points to a drop in the number of people in the U.S. illegally. However, they said it’s too soon to know by how much.
Surveys used to estimate the number of immigrants illegally in the U.S. have limitations
The Department of Homeland Security and severalresearchgroups typically publish annual estimates of how many immigrants are in the U.S. illegally. Every group has its own methodology, but collectively, the groups rely on Census Bureau data.
Researchers generally rely on the bureau’s more robust American Community Survey. That’s because the Current Population Survey’s sample size has a large margin of error, said Robert Warren, a demographer and senior visiting fellow at the Center for Migration Studies of New York, one of the groups that estimates the immigrant population.
In July 2025 the Current Population Survey reported an adult foreign born population of 48.5 million people with a margin of error of plus or minus 830,000 people, Jed Kolko, an economist who served as under secretary of commerce for economic affairs during the Biden Administration, told PolitiFact. By comparison, the 2023 American Community Survey reported an adult foreign born population of 45.5 million with a margin of error of plus or minus 162,000.
The Current Population Survey is published monthly compared with the American Community Survey, which is published once a year and its data is from the year prior. The American Community Survey’s time lag makes it useless in measuring the most recent, month-by-month changes in the nation’s foreign born population, Warren said.
Group questions whether respondents were reluctant survey participants
The Center for Immigration Studies’ report acknowledged that immigrants in the U.S. illegally might be more reluctant to complete the government’s Current Population Survey or identify themselves as foreign-born. The Trump administration has given immigration officials access to other federaldata to help identify and potentially deport people.
“If (fewer people are responding), then our estimate of illegal immigrants based on the survey may be overstating the decline in their actual numbers,” the Center for Immigration Studies report said.
Camarota, the report’s co-author, has since questioned the report’s suggestion that immigrants may have been reluctant to participate, calling it nothing more than a possibility: “There is as yet no evidence of this,” Camarota wrote in an Aug. 20 blog post.
The group’s report also acknowledged that administrative data needed to estimate the unauthorized immigrant population is unavailable, further increasing the “uncertainty of our estimate.”
To estimate the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Camarota told PolitiFact, he first needs to estimate the number of people in the country legally. DHS and State Department data on people who have legally entered the country hasn’t been updated since May 2025, he said.
What we know about the current unauthorized population in the U.S.
Multiple immigration experts said they believe the Current Population Survey data points to signs of a decrease, but it’s not conclusive enough to say how much with certainty.
For example, the Pew Research Center’s estimate that the foreign born population had dropped by 1.4 million people didn’t include how many of those people were in the U.S. illegally. The center’s estimates of the unauthorized population rely on the 2023 American Community Survey.
The Current Population Survey “may offer an early sign that immigrants, unauthorized and legal alike, are leaving the country in some number, though not to the extent suggested by DHS or others,” Michelle Mittelstadt, communications director for the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that also estimates the number of unauthorized people in the U.S., said.
“We think more likely at this point that lower survey response rates among immigrants and the small sample size of the survey are driving much of the estimated change,” Mittelstadt said, adding that a drop of 1.6 million people “would be far outside trends the U.S. has seen before, even during economic recessions and prior periods of high immigration enforcement.”
Warren said the Current Population Survey “provides strong evidence of a decline.”
Even though the 1.6 million figure in six months would be “unprecedented,” he said there have been drops in the foreign population. From 2016 to 2019, an average of 1.3 million people left the foreign-born population each year, according to Warren’s analyses of the American Community Survey.
Mark Hugo Lopez, director of race and ethnicity at Pew Research Center, said the drop in the unauthorized immigrant population is in part because of a decrease in the number of people illegally entering the U.S. and the administration’s stepped up enforcement. That could include people who voluntarily left the country.
“More data is needed though to assess this. As it becomes available, we’ll know more,” he said.
Our ruling
Noem said, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics statistics show, “We have 1.6 million illegal aliens that have gone home voluntarily.”
The number Noem presented as a statement of fact appears to be based on an estimate from an immigration think tank’s analysis of data from a Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Census survey. It has a small sample size and large margin of error.
The figure represents not only people who might have voluntarily left the U.S., but also people who were deported, died or whose status changed such as by receiving asylum.
Other researchers said the preliminary government data shows there has likely been a decrease in the unauthorized immigrant population but it’s too soon to know how large it is. One research group estimated that the foreign born population had dropped by 1.4 million people between January and June. However, it didn’t estimate how many of those people were in the U.S. illegally.
That group and other immigrant population researchers added that immigrant participation in the government survey might have declined, which could inflate the drop.
The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True.
The landscape around immigration is shifting again under the Trump administration.Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a memo bringing back “neighborhood investigations,” a method once used to evaluate an immigrant’s moral character. The practice dates back to the 1980s and was discontinued in 1991.See the report in the video aboveNow, immigration attorneys are working to understand what its return could mean for their clients.”It’s not well-defined, like, what the discretion is,” said Brian Blackford, an immigration attorney in Omaha, Nebraska. “Even with this policy memo, we don’t exactly know all the considerations.”According to the USCIS memo, investigators are permitted to talk with people living near an applicant’s residence and place of employment. Blackford said that raises concerns.”Is that going to result in them being denied citizenship because a neighbor doesn’t like them? We don’t know, like, what this entails,” Blackford said.The memo states the practice is meant to improve background checks during citizenship applications. Blackford said it is something he has never seen in his decades-long career.”They would do that to make sure there’s no marriage fraud, but that would be the extent of USCIS investigators looking into somebody that has a pending application before the agency,” he said.The agency memo said neighborhood investigations began in 1981 to better determine a person’s moral character and eligibility for citizenship. The practice stopped in 1991.”They just made the decision to stop doing that and to instead just go off of people’s biometrics, and run their background that way to make the process more streamlined,” Blackford said.Blackford said reinstating the practice could discourage immigrants from applying.”This can have some really chilling effects on speech and on applying for citizenship altogether,” he said.He added that the policy is impacting immigrants seeking status through legal means.”These are people that have been lawful permanent residents for either 3 or 5 years minimum,” Blackford said. In a statement to KETV, USCIS said the agency is ensuring “aliens are being properly vetted” and added the directive will “enhance these statutorily required investigations.”
The landscape around immigration is shifting again under the Trump administration.
Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a memo bringing back “neighborhood investigations,” a method once used to evaluate an immigrant’s moral character. The practice dates back to the 1980s and was discontinued in 1991.
See the report in the video above
Now, immigration attorneys are working to understand what its return could mean for their clients.
“It’s not well-defined, like, what the discretion is,” said Brian Blackford, an immigration attorney in Omaha, Nebraska. “Even with this policy memo, we don’t exactly know all the considerations.”
According to the USCIS memo, investigators are permitted to talk with people living near an applicant’s residence and place of employment. Blackford said that raises concerns.
“Is that going to result in them being denied citizenship because a neighbor doesn’t like them? We don’t know, like, what this entails,” Blackford said.
The memo states the practice is meant to improve background checks during citizenship applications. Blackford said it is something he has never seen in his decades-long career.
“They would do that to make sure there’s no marriage fraud, but that would be the extent of USCIS investigators looking into somebody that has a pending application before the agency,” he said.
The agency memo said neighborhood investigations began in 1981 to better determine a person’s moral character and eligibility for citizenship. The practice stopped in 1991.
“They just made the decision to stop doing that and to instead just go off of people’s biometrics, and run their background that way to make the process more streamlined,” Blackford said.
Blackford said reinstating the practice could discourage immigrants from applying.
“This can have some really chilling effects on speech and on applying for citizenship altogether,” he said.
He added that the policy is impacting immigrants seeking status through legal means.
“These are people that have been lawful permanent residents for either 3 or 5 years minimum,” Blackford said.
In a statement to KETV, USCIS said the agency is ensuring “aliens are being properly vetted” and added the directive will “enhance these statutorily required investigations.”
According to a 2025 TD survey, 92% of newcomers understood the importance of building credit before arriving in Canada. Yet 82% of those who applied for credit faced immediate barriers. For many, these challenges go beyond inconvenience. They directly affect immigrants’ ability to secure housing, buy a car, start a business, and simply build a life in Canada.
This isn’t just about money. It’s about inclusion. And if Canada sees immigration as important to its future, then removing systemic financial barriers must be part of the national conversation.
A cultural shift, and a credit wake-up call
Like many immigrants, I arrived in Canada financially stable. But the Canadian financial system didn’t recognize that.
I grew up in India and the Middle East with a simple rule: never buy what you can’t afford. Credit cards weren’t necessary, loans weren’t encouraged, and financial independence meant living within your means. That worldview shaped my early adult life—until I met my wife, who was born and raised in Ottawa.
I remember one of our early conversations while we were still living abroad. She was confused about why I booked flights through a travel agent. The answer was simple: I didn’t have a credit card. And I didn’t feel like I needed one. To her, this was strange; in Canada, a credit card is a default tool for everything from booking travel to building rewards points. For me, it felt like a way to buy things I couldn’t afford. We weren’t arguing, just coming at the problem from different cultural angles.
Eventually, I applied for a credit card and, like many people who didn’t grow up using credit, I abused it at first. It felt like free money, but that illusion wore off quickly. Over time, I developed a healthy relationship with credit: using it for convenience, managing payments responsibly, and collecting points for purchases I would have made anyway. When we eventually moved to Canada, all of that learning felt like it didn’t matter anymore.
Earning, saving and spending in Canada: A guide for new immigrants
Credit history doesn’t travel
Here’s a truth most newcomers know, but few are prepared for: your financial history doesn’t follow you.
Despite arriving with a strong financial foundation, I couldn’t qualify for a meaningful credit limit. My first Canadian credit card had a limit of $200, barely enough for half a Costco run. It wasn’t that I had a bad credit score. I didn’t have one at all. And building one from scratch took years.
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This wasn’t just a minor inconvenience. It affected every part of our lives.
We couldn’t get a mortgage, not because of our income or how much we had saved for a down payment, but because of a lack of credit history. When we finally did qualify, we had been in the country for years and had done everything right: on-time payments, healthy credit utilization, excellent scores in the 800s. But still, I wasn’t seen the same way the system viewed my wife, who had been born and raised here.
Even now, after more than six years in Canada, my access to credit remains restricted. I don’t get offers for balance transfers, lines of credit, or automatic credit increases like she does. Why? Because she has decades of history, and I don’t. The system rewards longevity, not responsibility.
Harder than it should be
The TD survey confirms what I experienced. Among newcomers:
31% qualified only for credit limits too low to meet basic needs
27% struggled to secure housing
24% couldn’t save or invest for future goals
66% worried about their Canadian credit history
79% found it difficult to start building credit at all
That last stat is crucial. Building credit isn’t just hard, it’s systemically difficult for immigrants. And that’s the problem.
Even though 92% of newcomers say building credit is important, they’re often left without the tools to do it effectively.
Yes, the financial services industry is beginning to acknowledge the unique needs of newcomers, but acknowledgment isn’t enough. It’s like going to a doctor who finally understands your symptoms but doesn’t have a treatment. Empathy without action is still inaction.
If Canada wants newcomers to succeed, we need more than empathy. We need solutions.
A judge’s temporary restraining order preventing a large number of immigrants from being held in ICE detention on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan has been extended, but advocates and elected officials fear what will happen when the ruling finally expires.
The order was due to sunset on Aug. 26, but has since been extended through Tuesday, Sept. 9. The arrests went on Wednesday, Aug. 27, as amNewYork observed two apprehensions in immigration court on the 12th floor.
In one incident, an ICE agent confiscated a woman’s paperwork as she left a courtroom in order to prevent her from leaving the building. She said she just needed to use the bathroom; however, she snatched the paperback and returned to court.
“I guess she changed her mind,” the agent said.
In another incident, a man leaving his hearing later that afternoon was ambushed by several masked men and pulled away into a stairwell.
A man is taken by ICE at court.Photo by Dean MosesA woman is led away by ICE. Photo by Dean Moses
City Comptroller Brad Lander, who has made visits to immigration court almost on a weekly basis, says that it appears that the Department of Homeland Security is abiding by the judge’s order while also stating that even one detainment is too many.
“The numbers have been more like three or four in recent days — three or four too many, but thankfully down from the numbers that we were seeing earlier,” Lander said. “We were worried before today that the temporary restraining order was not going to be extended. So, it’s extended until Sept. 9, that is a good thing.”
With the order expiring next month, some say they are concerned about the wide-ranging effects on the immigrant community. In an interview with amNewYork, Co-Director of Health Justice New York Lawyers for the Public Interest Karina Albistegui Adler said the medical well-being of detainees in custody is one of her biggest concerns.
She claims people in ICE detention are not receiving urgent medical care.
”We’ve seen cases where people are detained who have very serious conditions, like a history of a recent open-heart surgery, and long-term care for HIV that they’ve been receiving. They’re detained at their court hearing without those medications,” Adler said. “Because they are being moved around, family members don’t know where they are, don’t know how to advocate for them to get their medication. Sometimes they themselves don’t know that they have the right to continue to receive care.”
The 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza was widely criticized for its cramped and unhygienic conditions, which led to several filings seeking to prevent overcrowding. Yet while the in-court detentions have slightly slowed, Adler railed that anyone detained is not given medical attention once they are taken.
“That exacerbates their health just being detained. There’s no way to be healthy when you’re in immigration custody, frankly. And what we’re seeing with not just in the past three months with 26 Federal Plaza, but really, since January, is an overall increase in the need for health care advocacy,” Adler said.
An ICE agent stands in front of an American flag in 26 Federal Plaza.Photo by Dean Moses
The Hope Community Center and the Immigrants Are Welcome Here Coalition want change and action after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appeared near an Orange County school during a traffic stop.That traffic stop happened outside Apopka High School on August 15 and ended with five people in ICE custody, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.The school went on a “secure hold” during the incident, but speakers at an Orange County Public Schools meeting Tuesday night said it took too long for people to be told about what happened.”Many families were left terrified without any clear communications or support, our schools should be a place for learning not a place of fear,” said Hope Community Center Executive Director Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet.Miguel Torres, a student at Apopka High School, said, “racial comments against the Latino community started going around on social media, which made the situation even worse.”School board chair Teresa Jacobs said there was some miscommunication and that the district has protocols, but they are limited in what they can do.Jacobs said that when ICE is actually on an OCPS campus, the district has more that it can do. “We immediately ask if we can reach out to the parents. If they say yes, great, we contact the parents. If they say no, we make them fill out a form saying that we’ve asked and they’ve declined.” she said.Aaron Kuen with Immigrants Are Welcome Here said, “I think madame chair was very clear that we do have an advocate. I definitely think that actions speak louder than words, so hopefully what she’s saying really does happen where there’s more accountability.”Speakers at the meeting said that many teachers don’t know what to do when ICE shows up.”Maybe we want to get some workshops for teachers to know exactly what to do for ICE when they do pop up,” said America Castillo.Renee Gomez with the Farmworkers Association of Florida said, “We’re looking for change, we’re looking for action. We want them to improve their policies. So, it was great, but we need more.” He continued, “We got promises that they’re going to do better. They said they dropped the ball and that they understand communication can be improved, and they promise to do that. So, we’re hoping this is a start of change.”
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —
The Hope Community Center and the Immigrants Are Welcome Here Coalition want change and action after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appeared near an Orange County school during a traffic stop.
That traffic stop happened outside Apopka High School on August 15 and ended with five people in ICE custody, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
The school went on a “secure hold” during the incident, but speakers at an Orange County Public Schools meeting Tuesday night said it took too long for people to be told about what happened.
“Many families were left terrified without any clear communications or support, our schools should be a place for learning not a place of fear,” said Hope Community Center Executive Director Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet.
Miguel Torres, a student at Apopka High School, said, “racial comments against the Latino community started going around on social media, which made the situation even worse.”
School board chair Teresa Jacobs said there was some miscommunication and that the district has protocols, but they are limited in what they can do.
Jacobs said that when ICE is actually on an OCPS campus, the district has more that it can do. “We immediately ask if we can reach out to the parents. If they say yes, great, we contact the parents. If they say no, we make them fill out a form saying that we’ve asked and they’ve declined.” she said.
Aaron Kuen with Immigrants Are Welcome Here said, “I think madame chair was very clear that we do have an advocate. I definitely think that actions speak louder than words, so hopefully what she’s saying really does happen where there’s more accountability.”
Speakers at the meeting said that many teachers don’t know what to do when ICE shows up.
“Maybe we want to get some workshops for teachers to know exactly what to do for ICE when they do pop up,” said America Castillo.
Renee Gomez with the Farmworkers Association of Florida said, “We’re looking for change, we’re looking for action. We want them to improve their policies. So, it was great, but we need more.” He continued, “We got promises that they’re going to do better. They said they dropped the ball and that they understand communication can be improved, and they promise to do that. So, we’re hoping this is a start of change.”
A group of doctors rallied in front of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan on Monday afternoon, demanding that ICE provide detained immigrants the medical care they need.
Photo by Dean Moses
A group of doctors rallied in front of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan on Monday afternoon, demanding that ICE provide detained immigrants the medical care they need.
On July 15, amNewYork observed an ICE detainee appear to suffer a medical episode as he was whisked from his legally mandated court hearing by masked federal agents and into a nearby stairwell. The sound of screaming and coughing echoed down the hallway, and a glimpse of his handcuffed body could be seen through an open door.
According to those in the medical field, this is not uncommon. Doctor Sonni Mun — a physician, immigrant, and American citizen who went through the naturalization process at 26 Federal Plaza — said she has seen medical emergencies like these firsthand.
“I recently started volunteering inside the immigration court. And the first day that I showed up to volunteer as an immigration court observer escort, there was a medical emergency in the lobby, and it was appalling how it was handled,” Mun said.
Mun recalled that she attempted to offer her expertise after a man had fainted, but alleges DHS staff met her with hostility and demanded that she show a medical license while also refusing to call for EMS.
A group of doctors rallied in front of Immigration Court in Lower Manhattan on Monday afternoon with the demand that those in ICE detention receive medical care.Photo by Dean Moses
“I have stepped up on airplanes, at festivals, at road races, at marathons. I’ve never been asked to prove that I’m a doctor,” Mun said. “This is how they treat somebody who’s having a medical emergency in the lobby, this is how they treat other colleagues. How do you think they are treating the immigrants that they have up there?”
Anti-immigrant counterprotesters show up
During the rally that was jointly held by the New York Doctors Coalition, the New York Immigration Coalition, and others, several fringe, anti-immigrant protesters attempted to disrupt the rally by hurling obscenities and attempting to intimidate attendees. Several medical professionals attempted to block the disrupters.
In one instance, Mun stood in defiance, looking up at the hulking figure and refusing to budge.
Meanwhile, another doctor, Steve Auerbach, said that he used to work in 26 Federal Plaza, but since ICE began detaining families attending their legally mandated court hearings, the facility has a very different meaning now.
“It’s all the more painful that now 26 Federal Plaza is being illegally, illegitimately used as one of the many sites around the country to illegally warehouse and harm refugees and immigrants,” Auerbach said. “DHS refused to speak to us, just as they cover themselves up in their masks and they cover up the name tags they know they are doing wrong.”
In one instance, Mun stood in defiance, looking up at the hulking figure and refusing to budge.Photo by Dean Moses
City Comptroller Brad Lander also attended the rally, thanking the physicians for trying to shed light on the most basic of human needs: health care.
“I think we’re really getting down to the most elemental level of it all, which is that human beings are being kept in this building, which is not designed as a facility for anyone to sleep in, and they are being denied even basic medical care. And so I mostly came today just to say thank you to the doctors and health professionals here who took an oath to observe and to take care of people’s health,” Lander said.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander also attended the rally, thanking the physicians for trying to shed light on the most basic of human needs: health care.Photo by Dean Moses
On the afternoon of August 15, 2024, Leonid Melekhin, a thirty-three-year-old small-business owner from Perm, a Russian city near the Ural Mountains, approached the U.S. border in Calexico, California. The previous winter, he had flown to Mexico, leaving behind his wife and their two small children. He spent the next eight months waiting for a notification in CBP One, an app that the Biden Administration launched in 2023 as an authorized portal to file asylum claims. Now, the app told Melekhin, he had an appointment to present himself to U.S. immigration officers. Wearing a backpack and a black baseball cap, he took a selfie in front of a sign that read “Entrada USA.”
Melekhin sent the photo to Yury Bobrov, an activist and political refugee who was also from Perm, on the messaging app Telegram. The two men had been in regular contact. Earlier, Melekhin had sent Bobrov another photo, of a small yellow poster hanging from a concrete bridge. Putin, the poster’s text reads, is a “killer, fascist, usurper.” Melekhin said that, on his last night in Russia, he had gone to Perm’s Kommunalny Bridge and attached the poster to the railing. “I couldn’t resist,” he told Bobrov. He had asked Bobrov to “post it somewhere,” because “it would be a shame if no one sees it.”
Bobrov shared it on Telegram alongside the photo of Melekhin crossing the border. “I felt that he might have wanted to strengthen his asylum case but also that he genuinely didn’t want to leave Russia in total silence,” Bobrov told me. “Was it a strategic move or an impulse of the soul? I don’t know, but I have no reason to doubt his motives.”
Less than a year later, a journalist in Perm published a story about a local court hearing: Melekhin had been arrested in Russia and charged with justifying terrorism, a crime that carries a potential five-year prison sentence. It was a rare instance of such a case being publicized, in which a Russian was deported from the U.S. to face a prison sentence back home. But little else was known of how he’d ended up there.
From the border, Melekhin was brought to the Imperial Regional Detention Facility, a holding center in Calexico run by a private company called the Management and Training Corporation. He was placed in a housing unit with dozens of other asylum seekers, including a number of Russians, and waited for his hearing with a judge. Melekhin thought he had a fairly strong case: for years, he had attended protests and volunteered with the Perm field office of Alexei Navalny’s political organization, which is now banned in Russia. “Everyone knows Russia’s problems,” a relative of Melekhin’s, who is still in Russia, told me. “Corruption is rampant. Fair elections are nonexistent.” The relative said, of Melekhin, “If he wasn’t happy about something, he always stood his ground.”
Even in a midsize city such as Perm, Melekhin wasn’t a recognizable activist. Bobrov called him an “ordinary, average, homespun guy who took an interest in the fate of his country.” When I reached Sergei Ukhov, the former head of the Navalny field office in Perm, who now lives abroad, he didn’t remember Melekhin. But, when he searched his photo archive, he found a picture of Melekhin at a protest in Perm, in 2017. Natalia Vavilova, another former coördinator for the field office, said, of Melekhin, “I can’t say he was a particularly active volunteer or regular presence in our headquarters.” But she, too, had found traces of him: a text exchange from 2018, in which he discussed his plans to volunteer as an independent election monitor during that year’s Presidential race. “That’s definitely civic activism,” Vavilova said. “No doubt about it.”
In 2021, Melekhin was arrested at a pro-Navalny protest in Perm. Investigators attempted to pressure him to give testimony against others in Navalny’s political organization, but he refused. In 2023, the year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when nearly all protest activity was banned, he went to the center of Perm holding a sign that read “Freedom to Navalny.” He was almost immediately detained. At the station, one officer held his hands behind his back while another punched him in the stomach. Later, the police threatened him with forced conscription into the Russian Army. “He became seized by the idea of moving to the U.S.,” Melekhin’s relative said.
Melekhin started to study English and to follow the stories of other Russians who had made the journey, including Bobrov. He decided to travel alone. His youngest child was only a year old at the time. “No one knew how long it would take or what conditions he’d be living in along the way,” the relative said. The plan was that Melekhin would secure legal status for himself and then find a way to reunite with his family in the U.S.
I spoke with a number of Russians who had met Melekhin in the Imperial detention center, none of whom are named out of concerns for their safety. “He was in a positive mood,” one of them, a citizen journalist from central Russia, said. He had launched self-funded investigations into malfeasance by local police and municipal officials, and was detained and questioned multiple times before he decided to seek asylum in the U.S. He and Melekhin met in the exercise yard. They were both optimistic about their cases. “We finally made it, at least this far,” the other asylum seeker recalled them saying. “Surely, they will listen to us, and at the end we will be offered help. All we have to do is wait.”
Melekhin’s hearing was in December, 2024, four months into his detention at Imperial, and a year after he left his family in Russia. His case was assigned to a judge named Anne Kristina Perry, who was appointed as an immigration judge in 2018. “She is very kind, calm, professional, diligent,” Raisa Stepanova, an immigration attorney in California who has represented several Russian asylum seekers, but not Melekhin, told me. “But her judicial reasoning doesn’t always display a knowledge of how Russian police and law enforcement actually function.” The citizen journalist from central Russia, whose case was also adjudicated by Perry, said, “She acts like a prosecutor more than a judge. She questioned me for three hours; it was a real interrogation.” (I wrote to Perry to ask about Melekhin’s case but received only a general reply from the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the Department of Justice.)
Melekhin presented his case pro se—that is, without a lawyer. He spoke of his past participation in protests and how, after Bobrov posted the image of his Putin poster, police in Perm had searched his family’s apartment. I obtained a transcript of Perry’s oral decision. She considered Melekhin a “credible witness” and called the evidence that he had managed to gather “plausible, consistent, and detailed.” But she decided that his case did not meet a long-established legal standard, that there was at least a ten-per-cent chance he would face persecution in his country of origin—a benchmark for determining “objectively reasonable well-founded fear.” Melekhin’s previous activism, Perry said, was “quite limited,” and the “description of his participation is vague and lacks specifics.” Melekhin was “not entitled to relief,” Perry ruled. “The Respondent is ordered removed to Russia.”
“Leonid was angry and frustrated,” another Russian asylum seeker at Imperial said. “In detention, you constantly see people with far less serious cases being granted asylum.” But Melekhin planned to appeal and was confident in his chances. “I tried to offer moral support,” Bobrov told me. He suggested that Melekhin hire a lawyer and launched a fund-raising drive on his Telegram channel to help Melekhin pay for one.
With millions of Americans already voting, and just over a week until Election Day, here’s a snapshot of what Rogan and Trump covered on Friday:
Rogan Says Trump Has Been Attacked More Than Anyone In History
Rogan started the interview by talking about Trump’s appearance on The View when running for president for the first time. Back then, the crowd cheered as Trump received a warm welcome on the show.
“They all loved you,” Rogan began. “And then you actually started winning in the polls and then the machine started working towards you—there’s probably no one in history that I’ve ever seen that’s been attacked the way you’ve been attacked.”
Trump responded by discussing his work on The Apprentice, later denigrating the all-female cast of The View, “I was very popular, and all those people loved me. I mean this, some of these women, they’re so, they’re so stupid.”
Election Denialism
Throughout the entire interview, Trump continued to bring up the 2020 election, reiterating his Big Lie—that he won despite an alleged coordinated effort against him. At one point, Rogan bemoans that people always “cut off” Trump when he talks about how he won four years ago—something he wouldn’t do.
“I did great the second time. I did much better. I don’t want to get you in any disputes, but I won that second election so easy,” Trump said. The two also discussed how supposed censorship against Trump on social media and Hunter Biden’s laptop led to election interference.
“I won by like, I lost by like—I didn’t lose,” Trump said later. Rogan laughed again.
The host also compared questioning the election results and being labeled an election denier to questioning Covid-19 vaccinations and being branded anti-vax.
In 2022, Rogan was “criticized for spreading what was widely seen as misinformation about the coronavirus,” the New York Timesreported.
Trump Again Goes After Harris’s Intelligence
“Can you imagine Kamala doing this show?” Trump asked.
“She was supposed to do it, and she might do it, and I hope she does. I will talk to her like a human being,” Rogan responded.
Vice President Kamala Harris had been in talks to do a spot with Rogan, but it “didn’t pan out,” according to NBC News. Campaign spokesperson Ian Sams told MSNBC on Thursday that they “talked with Rogan and his team about the podcast, unfortunately, it isn’t going to work out right now because of the scheduling of this period of the campaign.”
Well, you apply. But make sure you’re applying for the right card and that you have a high chance of being approved. You see, the credit card company will check your credit history, and that can affect your current credit score. So, don’t apply for a bunch and hope for the best, as that could make it look like you are at risk for having access to too much credit. The good news: There are many types of credit cards in Canada, including those for newcomers to Canada, students and even those with bad or no credit. Check out our rankings for the best credit cards in Canada for your situation.
Once you have a credit card you will want to maintain good credit habits, like paying it off on time and paying more than the required minimum payment. Here are some other articles that will help you navigating your first credit card in Canada.
Read:
Why is credit history important?
Say you want to rent an apartment. Your credit history is vital because most landlords will want to see your credit score and credit report to judge whether you’ll pay your rent on time. If you get the apartment, you’ll want an internet connection—and for this, too, the large providers will query your credit score.
If you need to buy or lease a car, your credit history will not only determine whether you’re approved for a loan, but also what interest rate you’re offered: the higher your credit score, the lower the interest rate. Insurance companies may check your credit history before providing coverage. And finally, if you want to buy a home, your credit history is key to qualifying for a mortgage, as well as what mortgage interest rates lenders will offer. A lower rate could save you tens of thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage.
Read:
How to build a good credit history when you have no credit history
Credit history is usually built organically as people start using credit. In Canada, young people who have reached the age of majority (18 or 19, depending on where they live) can apply for a credit card and start building a history of borrowing and repayment.
If you’re a newcomer to Canada, or if you’re a student, recent grad or young adult who doesn’t have much of a credit history, your credit score may be low—which is a hurdle in getting approved for credit. It’s a frustrating cycle—you need credit history to access credit, and you need credit to build that history. So, what’s the solution? Here are a few steps anybody can take to build their credit history:
The Edge at Lowry and Whispering Pines are the latest CBZ properties in Aurora to face closure over habitability concerns and crime.
Jeraldine Mazo, a resident of Aurora’s Edge at Lowry apartment complex, speaks during a press conference to “set the record straight” on an alleged “gang takeover” of the property. Sept. 4, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain threatened to shut down The Edge at Lowry and other apartment buildings where new immigrants are living.
Chamberlain says the goal is to make the landlord create safe, healthy living conditions.
But at a Thursday press conference, Edge at Lowry renters said they fear they’ll be left homeless by the city action.
The Edge made international news when a security video from Aug. 18 went viral, showing six men with guns entering an apartment. Shortly after the video was captured, a gunfight erupted outside the building and 25-year-old Oswaldo Jose Dabion Araujo was killed.
Former President Donald Trump and multiple media outlets have claimed the building has been taken over by the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, a claim residents and Aurora police have denied. (He’s also falsely claimed the gang controls the whole city.)
Aurora want to close the apartments for both habitability and crime concerns
On Sept. 20, the police department notified the owner, CBZ Management, that the properties were a criminal nuisance.
Chamberlain outlined a string of crimes committed around the apartments over the past few years. Those included carjacking, home invasion, aggravated assault with a firearm, murder and other gun crimes.
The Edge at Lowry apartment complex, on Dallas Street in Aurora. Sept. 14, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
“Property owners are excepted to be vigilant in preventing or deterring crime on or in their property and will be held responsible for the use of their property by tenants, guests and occupants,” Chamberlain wrote. “APD is aware that there is no property management company present at this property and ownership has no plans to replace on-site property management services.”
Beyond criminal issues, Chamberlain cited a series of habitability concerns: “trash accumulation, leaking pipes, broken windows, unlawful vehicles and other public safety concerns.”
Chamberlain said it amounts to a significant public safety concern.
“If your property continues as a specified crime property despite this notice, I will authorize a civil proceeding seeking closure of the structure as well as the imposition of civil penalties against you, as the owner of the property,” Chamberlain wrote.
The chief gave the landlord 10 days to respond.
The Aurora apartment residents have been speaking out about conditions
Residents of the Edge at Lowry have been rallying for weeks, asking the city to get the property owner to bring their apartments up to compliance.
The city earlier closed another CBZ property, the Fitzsimons Apartments at 1568 Nome St. Hundreds of people were kicked out of their homes by Aurora police, and the Edge at Lowry residents fear the same fate.
Aurora Police officers march into the recently closed Fitzsimons Place apartments in Aurora to make sure people move out. Aug. 13, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The renters held their Thursday press conference at another CBZ property, Whispering Pines, where Edge at Lowry resident Moises Didenot described a rental nightmare.
His family has dealt with mold, broken appliances and rodents. All of that’s bad, but it’s not as bad as homelessness, he said. He begged the city not to kick the tenants out.
“How is it that right now, when it’s starting to get cold and winter’s coming,” Didenot said. “They’re going to throw us out onto the streets.”
The neighborhood in Aurora, on the border with Denver between Colfax Avenue and 6th Avenue, has the same problems as many neglected urban areas: trash piles, reckless drivers, poor lighting, vandalism, syringes, fireworks and bullet casings.
Oldtimers and newcomers differ on what they think the neighborhood’s future should be. But most people Denverite has spoken to agree: Neither cops, politicians, nor journalists have seemed to pay much attention.
That changed in late August. A camera captured armed men entering an apartment in a half-century-old apartment complex, The Edge at Lowry, at 12th Avenue and Dallas Street.
Minutes after the men entered the apartment, where many Venezuelan immigrants live, gunfire erupted outside the complex, and 25-year-old Oswaldo Jose Dabion Araujo was shot dead.
“We had been used to gunshots, obviously,” says Madeleine Schaffner, who lives a few blocks away. “But for a lot of us, I think that felt like the breaking point. That’s too close. We can’t be having shootouts in the street.”
The incident didn’t just shake the neighborhood. The video of the armed men spread internationally and put this area at the center of the United States’ debate over immigration.
As the story blanketed national media, TV crews pointed their cameras toward the renters. Reporters from New York rushed to the building. They aimed microphones at neighbors and scribbled down anonymous quotes.
The Edge at Lowry apartment complex, near Aurora’s border with Denver. Sept. 18, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Then, the Colorado Republican Party and former President Donald Trump pointed to the video as proof that the “sanctuary city” of Denver had dumped the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua in the “quiet suburb” of Aurora. Overnight, Delmar Parkway became a symbol of election-year fears about a supposed foreign takeover, not just of an apartment building but, falsely, of an entire city.
Armed vigilantes have threatened to confront the apartment residents; a white supremacist spewed hate speech at a city council meeting; and a billboard at the state border has mocked the situation.
“You may never see me again, but that’s OK,” Trump said at a political rally in New York on Sept. 18. “Got to do what I got to do.”
And yet many of the people living in this national spotlight feel totally ignored.
Around the neighborhood, new immigrants worry the media is misrepresenting the story and that racist rhetoric is putting them at risk — just as they’re trying to build new lives.
Other residents from across the political spectrum are banding together, looking for a way forward.
“We want to be safe here,” Schaffner says. “We don’t really care who’s doing it. We just don’t want people to shoot guns here.”
She and other neighbors are trying to sort truth from fiction. They’re trying to be seen.
“No one’s ever come and talked to us,” says another resident, electrician David Bottoms. “Really. No one.”
David Bottoms sits in his backyard, on the Aurora block where he’s lived for his entire life. Sept. 14, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The story of a neighborhood
Wearing a National Rifle Association t-shirt, Bottoms cools down from a hot day of pulling bindweed. His dogs dart around the yard. Far away, police sirens whine.
Not one bullet zips through the air — not on this Saturday night in September. Bottoms treasures quiet evenings like this one. He says they’ve been all too rare.
Like countless people nationwide, Bottoms has watched the stories about his neighborhood on TV, from the home he shares with his father. It’s been in their family for decades. And the family has been in Aurora since the late 1800s, when the town was still called Fletcher.
Bottoms remembers his childhood spent playing soccer at Del Mar Park and swimming in the Highline Canal.
“We had a rope swing,” he says. “We’d go up there and catch crawdads. We’d build stupid little rafts and stuff like that.”
His grandparents farmed dryland wheat. They were there before Fitzsimons Army Hospital and Lowry Air Force Base brought the city new life — and also after the military left, gutting Aurora’s economy.
His family was there when nearby Colfax Avenue thrived, and they saw what happened after I-70 took traffic elsewhere and Aurora sprawled onto the plains, taking Old Aurora’s economic energy and the middle class with it.
A shuttered commercial space on East Colfax Avenue’s main stretch through Aurora. Sept. 14, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
In the 1970s, Colfax began to turn from a thriving business corridor to an open civic wound, with crime and desperation bleeding into the Delmar Parkway neighborhood.
In the ‘80s, a new chapter began with the arrival of Mexican immigrants.
Over the years, those immigrants started businesses. Spanish became the neighborhood’s second language. The bakery Panaderia el Paisa Bakery, the candy shop Dulcería El Pachangon, the ice cream shop Nevería La Mexicana and the church Iglesia Liberación y Poder de Dios opened blocks away.
And now, new Venezuelan immigrants are redefining the community again.
Hundreds of new immigrants have arrived
In recent years, millions of immigrants have left Venezuela for countries around the world. They’re fleeing gangs, crime, corrupt police and an economic crisis.
Over the past two years, more than 42,000 new immigrants, most from Venezuela, have arrived from the border to Denver, many bused here by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Some of those immigrants were looking for cheaper housing. With help from the City of Denver and nonprofits, some moved into Delmar Parkway — many at the Edge apartments. ( Denver does not have information on where individual immigrants were placed by nonprofits and cannot say how many new immigrants moved into the Edge specifically.)
The arrival of hundreds of new people, many of whom have nothing, has meant changes for the neighborhood. There are new faces, new music and new people contributing to the culture of the community.
There’s also been a steady ramp up in reports of crime and complaints from residents. And the new arrivals have often been left to live in squalor, with the city accusing landlord CBZ Management of running the Edge and other apartments as a “slumlord.”
Inside an apartment at Aurora’s Edge at Lowry complex, where residents are protesting their landlords’ alleged negligence of the property. Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Since 2021, 54 complaints have been filed with the City of Aurora, including about broken heating, flooding, black mold, exposed wiring and other problems at the Edge. Repeatedly, the complaints noted, the landlord would not respond.
Local elected officials, especially Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky and Mayor Mike Coffman, described the situation in increasingly alarming terms, with both saying that the Edge and two other CBZ apartments had “fallen” to or been “taken over” by Tren de Aragua. Police have repeatedly pushed back on that claim, though they say that men connected with the gang have carried out a string of violent crimes around the buildings.
In a joint statement, Coffman and Jurinsky clarified a gang had not taken over Aurora and that police were responding to the situation in the apartments. Coffman now says Tren de Aragua is not in charge of the apartments at all.
But it was too late. The video of the armed men lit a combustible situation, bringing national attention.
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain leads a press conference about the alleged “gang takeover” in the city, at Aurora’s municipal building, as screenshots from the viral video that started this frenzy sit behind him on an easel. Sept. 20, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Residents are trying to make sense of claims about crime.
Michael Davis listens to the blues and watches a kid zip her scooter over chalk drawings on the sidewalk. Originally from Denver’s East Side, Davis has lived in his Delmar Parkway house for 12 years.
By the time he moved in, the neighborhood had been struggling, in ways, for decades. Government offices and facilities had moved elsewhere. And there was little investment in Old Aurora.
So, Davis found a deal on a house much cheaper than anything he could find in Denver. He bought his home for around $75,000. Now, it would cost around $400,000.
Sure, there are gunshots, he says, but it’s not as bad as the East Side was in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Back then, the Bloods and Crips warred across Colorado Boulevard.
Michael Davis. Sept. 15, 2024.Kyle Harris/Denverite
“My auntie got murdered on the East Side,” Davis says. “It was much rougher back then.”
And crime in Delmar Parkway, he says, is nothing new.
After the video of armed men went viral, friends and family started checking in on Davis.
Like many residents, he felt the reality on his block didn’t match the overblown national claims.
“Nobody’s taking over,” he says. “I walk my dog every day by [the apartments]. And, I mean, it is a rough apartment complex over there. It’s been rough.”
The intersection of 13th Avenue and Dayton Street in Aurora’s Ward I, on the city’s border with Denver. Sept. 18, 2024.
Others say it has been far from normal.
Every time a shot goes off, Denise Taylor’s 10-year-old grandson dives to the floor.
“Grandma,” he asks. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Baby, I don’t know,” she replies. “It’s just out of control.”
Taylor grew up in Gary, Indiana. She left after violence swept her community and looked for a fresh start in Colorado. She’s lived a block from the Edge for the past 12 years, with her three grandchildren.
Over the past year, she says she’s heard more gunfire than ever before, sometimes daily.
“You’ll never know when the shots are going to blast out,” Taylor says. “The bullets don’t have no names.”
Crime data supports the idea that the area has seen changes in crime recently, compared to the rest of Aurora.
Data Source: Aurora Police Department
Citywide, felony and misdemeanor crimes dropped after peaking in the pandemic, according to Aurora police records of crimes reported between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 for each year since 2019. But for the blocks around the Edge and other CBZ-owned apartments, crime either stayed at high levels or rose slightly.
The data also show crime isn’t new in these areas. The neighborhoods around CBZ’s buildings — and around Colfax Avenue — generally saw more felonies than the rest of the city since 2019.
Data Source: Aurora Police Department
David Pyrooz, a University of Colorado Boulder sociology professor who studies crime statistics, and Catherine Durso, a University of Denver computer science and statistics professor, reviewed Denverite’s data analysis. Both say these trends suggest something has changed in the areas surrounding these apartment complexes.
But this data does not address what changed, they stressed.
“COVID-era peaks” are the highest levels of crimes per block group, logged between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, from 2019 to 2023.Data Source: Aurora Police Department
Separately, officers arrested one man and are seeking several others who they say appeared in the viral August video, and also recovered a rifle from a nearby apartment. Police haven’t confirmed any connections to the gang among those people.
Data Source: Aurora Police Department
And yet even as the violence near the apartments has frightened people like Taylor, her family also has formed connections with the Venezuelan immigrants who live there.
Taylor’s grandson has Venezuelan friends. She lets them play together at the Edge, trusting his new friends’ parents, but she checks in with him frequently.
By dark, he must return home.
Girls sit in the shade as their parents participate in a press conference at Aurora’s Edge at Lowry apartment complex to “set the record straight” on an alleged “gang takeover” of the property. Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The view from the Edge
After the August shooting, city officials threatened to close the Edge, in part because of longstanding habitability issues.
Denverite reporters saw rodents, mold, broken appliances and clogged drains at the apartments. The three CBZ apartments have totaled 30 fire code violations since 2020. The city is suing the company over the alleged unlivable state of some of its apartments, while the landlord has blamed the city for failing to respond to the alleged gang activity. The city is pressuring CBZ to sell one of its other buildings.
CBZ has declined to respond to Denverite’s requests for comment.
Around the apartments, many new immigrants feel they’ve been caught in the middle — abandoned by the city and landlord, scapegoated by the media and politicians.
“I don’t know what happened, whether it’s true, whether it’s a lie,” says Cris Guzmán, raising the possibility that the video of the armed men was fabricated.
Cris Guzmán sits with his pals on the sidewalk across the street from The Edge apartment complex in Aurora. Sept. 14, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
We meet Guzmán relaxing with friends on the sidewalk across from the Edge, long into the night. Some neighbors, like David Bottoms, think the men are an intimidating sight — but to Guzmán, it’s more like an outdoor living room. Even near midnight, he is quick to offer a white plastic chair or a cooler for strangers to sit.
“It’s a perfect night,” he says.
He’s trying to learn English, but that takes time. He’s finding work, but not enough of it. He misses his wife and child he took from Venezuela to Mexico City. He left them to journey across the border, into the United States, looking for better jobs.
And he’s exhausted by how his home has been invaded by reporters who are spinning stories he doesn’t trust.
“I’ve never seen anyone with a gun here,” he says.
As he tells it, the news stations and social media users have been pushing lies. It’s not residents committing most of the crimes, he says, but people from outside taking advantage of them. He doesn’t trust that journalists are getting the story right. They don’t spend enough time in the community to understand it.
That’s a common feeling around the apartments. As the uproar grew, renters at the building held a rally for the press in August. They wanted to put the focus on the condition of the apartments and the landlord’s failure to help. No gang runs the Edge, they insisted.
“They’re trying to say that here there are delinquents, that here there are criminals. Here there are moms, there are families, there are fathers. To me … the only criminal here is the owner of the building,” resident Moises Didenot told reporters at the time.
Moises Didenot holds up documents that show he’s been paying his rent at Aurora’s Edge at Lowry apartment complex, despite that his landlord has rarely worked to fix his place, during a press conference to “set the record straight” on an alleged “gang takeover” of the property. Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
A press conference at Aurora’s Edge at Lowry apartment complex to “set the record straight” on an alleged “gang takeover” of the property. Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Taylor and her grandson stopped by the apartments to see what was happening during the press conference. The 10-year-old joined the rally, demanding justice for his friends who lived there. Taylor, on the other hand, had doubts about the idea that there was no gang presence in the building.
An alleged Tren de Aragua member is facing domestic violence charges after being accused of threatening a woman with a gun at the Edge, according to an affidavit. In a separate incident, police say the man broke into an apartment where two people were sleeping and threatened them with a gun. Five more men, according to police documents, entered the same apartment, saying “they run this place.”
“I ain’t gonna say they got a gang over there,” Taylor says. “But it just feels like there’s no peace.”
Venezuelan immigrants live throughout the neighborhood — and they’re scared.
Jhon Harrinson, who came to Aurora two years ago, stands in front of his house a few blocks from the Edge. He lives here with his family, including his newborn daughter, who is a U.S. citizen.
He says he’s embarrassed when Venezuelans commit crimes. And he fears the blowback.
When he first came to the neighborhood, things were quiet. And he liked it that way. There weren’t so many car thefts and nightly gunshots.
“The safety issues started to be heard more since the Venezuelans started renting in the buildings,” he says. “We’ve been living here for two years now, in this same house, and it was only then that this started.”
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman watches as his new police chief leads a press conference about the alleged “gang takeover” in their city, at Aurora’s municipal building. Sept. 20, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Mayor Mike Coffman says it’s a mistake to collectively blame the residents of the apartments for crime.
“There’s a criminal element that preys upon the Venezuelan migrant community,” Coffman told Denverite. “And when you have a concentration, like at those apartment buildings, I think that criminal element will superimpose themselves on top of that community and exploit them.”
Still, Harrinson worries about how people from the United States interpret the news. He hopes they don’t assume all Venezuelans, or all Spanish speakers, are the problem.
“It affects us because the majority of people in the neighborhood are Hispanic,” he says. “Others look at us distrustfully, thinking that we are doing something wrong. And that is not the case.”
Some new immigrants are working to keep the community safe.
Nanci Angulo wears a bulletproof vest that reads “SECURITY.”
Her military garb looks out of place at El Paisa Panaderia on Colfax Avenue, a few blocks from the Edge. Smells of cinnamon and yeast waft from the shelves. Working men fill round metal trays with stacks of sweet pastries.
Angulo has lived in Denver for a year and has worked at the panaderia for most of that time. She misses the police work she did back in Venezuela, and she’s happy to be keeping the shop safe.
“I thank God for being here, having the job I have and being part of a better economy here in this country,” she says.
Before she started working security, people living outside on Colfax would steal bread and soda from the store, and money from customers. That mostly stopped after she started.
But beyond the store’s doors, she sees society’s ills on Colfax Avenue. People are homeless and desperate, she says. They have smashed the store’s windows. They’ve robbed workers walking to their cars at night. These kinds of crimes have been going on for years. In some cases, impoverished new immigrants have been absorbed into the poverty that has racked the area for decades.
She’s not alone in seeing it. A store manager told Coffman about a 12-year-old girl who was caught stealing food to sell on Colfax to support her family.
“It’s sad that it’s part of a desperation,” Coffman said. “What, food? Stealing food? …The craziness of all this is [many new immigrants] cannot apply for a work permit until they’re here for 150 days.”
Colfax Avenue’s main stretch through Aurora, on a Saturday night. Sept. 14, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Tired of the shootings, and the national narrative, neighbors have organized.
When she was in her late 20s, a year and a half ago, Madeleine Schaffner moved from a rental in Denver’s upscale Highlands neighborhood to a home built in 1911 in Delmar Parkway, where she could afford to buy. She fell in love with the community, with its helpful neighbors and nearby cultural amenities.
“I feel like when I first moved here, it was actually pretty chill,” Schaffner says. “It wasn’t too crazy. I didn’t really hear gunshots for the first few months of living here, which was nice.”
But gunfire started blasting almost nightly a few months after she moved in. Bullets nearly grazed her home, she says. And drivebys and gun fights between people on foot ramped up.
On Aug. 18, when rapid fire erupted at the Edge, she assumed she had heard a mass shooting.
“Obviously it’s very justified to feel scared right now,” she says.
Schaffner started looking for community organizations to join. Nothing focused on safety seemed to exist, outside of the social media site Nextdoor. So, she and her friends on her block called a community meeting.
They knocked on doors, posted on Nextdoor and eventually brought together a small group from the neighborhood to Denver’s Schlessman Library on a Saturday morning.
Shannon Peterson opens a meeting of Denver and Aurora residents concerned about crime in their neighborhood, partially related to The Edge at Lowry apartment complex, at Denver’s Schlessman Family Branch Library. Sept. 8, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The group talked about the need for traffic-calming infrastructure to slow down the cars zipping around the community. Others complained about the lack of lighting, sluggish police response and an absentee city government.
They decided they could help each other out.
“If there’s a shooting, we can let each other know,” she said. “We can see if anyone has videos, kind of collect evidence, and then hopefully also have that power in numbers to contact our representatives.”
Though the neighbors all want greater safety, there’s a lot they don’t agree on.
Bottoms, the NRA member, blames people, not guns for the shootings. He wants the feds to close the southern border to the United States and Denver to stop funding handouts to new immigrants.
David Bottoms sits in his backyard, on the Aurora block where he’s lived for his entire life. Sept. 14, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
If that happened, he believes maybe the gunshots would stop. Maybe his dad’s truck wouldn’t have been stolen. Perhaps the fights in front of his home would cease, and he wouldn’t find so many diapers in his trash bin.
Meanwhile, Schaffner wants to avoid talking about crime in the context of immigration. Doing so, she fears, puts innocent people in the crosshairs.
“There’s people coming and targeting innocent people at that apartment and threatening them and saying, ‘We’re going to take back our neighborhood,’” Schaffner says. “It’s just inviting more violence into the area, which nobody wants.”
The whole political conversation in the United States is odd to Baiyu Hua, who attended the recent neighborhood meeting.
Baiyu and Miranda Hua in their home in Aurora, which stands around the corner from The Edge apartment Complex. Sept. 14, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Growing up in China, he never heard gunshots. In Aurora, he often hears them nightly.
“I understand the unique history of this country and the choices of the people,” he says. “And that’s why people have chosen the right to bear arms. And I respect that very much.”
But the cost of that choice is high, he explains.
“It’s a really bloody price, in my point of view,” Hua says. “I think we all know as Americans, we’re paying the price every single day.”
And it’s not just the shootings. Other crime in the neighborhood goes unaddressed. When Baiyu and his wife Miranda Hua walk Colfax Avenue at night, they see drug deals, sex trade, graffiti and broken windows.
“For one reason or another, certain parts of the city were ignored,” Baiyu says. “It was allowed to decay to a certain point of where you can no longer ignore it.”
Around the world, people view the United States as a “shining city on the hill,” Baiyu says. Then they arrive and experience urban decay, something far worse than they saw back home.
“It should be a rude awakening to any authorities in the U.S., from the city to the federal level,” Baiyu says.
Aurora’s Edge at Lowry apartment complex. Sept. 4, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
When the community group recently met, they mostly avoided fighting over immigration, neighborhood divisions and gun control. Unlike national politicians, they came together, rather than pushing each other away.
“I was proud of our group for staying very respectful,” Schaffner says.
“Politics need to stay out of it,” Bottoms says. “It has to stay out of it for any part of this to work.”
Denverite reporters Kevin Beaty and Rebecca Tauber and CPR reporter Molly Cruse contributed to this story.
The building at 1568 Nome St. is one of several that are getting national attention about the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Items left in Aurora’s Fitzsimons Place apartments after a recent closure forced residents to hastily move out. Aug. 13, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The city of Aurora has reached a legal agreement with the owners of 1568 Nome St., an apartment complex at the center of speculation about the presence of Venezuelan gangmembers in the city, according to documents released by the city.
In the documents, the building’s owner agrees to list the property for sale and pay abatement costs in order to avoid prosecution for a raft of legal violations. The agreement is dated Aug. 12, 2024, the day before the city closed the complex, leaving more than 300 people scrambling for housing. Residents complained of mold, animals, trash and crime.
At the time, city officials said the closure was necessary after years of unsafe conditions that went unaddressed by property owner Zev Baumgarten, who is represented in documents as both Nome Partners LLC and CBZ Management
The correspondence outlined in the documents was between city attorneys and Walter Slatkin, a Denver-based lawyer representing Nome Partners LLC. In it, Nome Partners LLC agreed to pay the city up to $60,000 for abatement costs associated with the closure and trash removal at the property. The company also agreed to actively market the property for sale within six months of the abatement’s completion.
The agreement, signed by Slatkin on Aug. 8, 2024, also waived Baumgarten’s right to a speedy trial in the case. This resulted in the delay of his jury trial for dozens of building code violations, which was originally going to happen on Aug. 27.
The case is now set for trial on Feb. 14, 2025, although he could avoid trial altogether if Nome Partners LLC holds up its end of the legal agreement with city attorneys.
Michael Brannen, a spokesperson for the city, said if Nome Partners LLC pays the city back for costs accrued during the abatement and lists the property for sale before his trial date, Aurora will file a motion to dismiss with prejudice all pending claims, actions, summons, and suits against Baumgarten and his business entities. That means the case would be closed and could not be brought back to court.
The city says this particular agreement is only for the property on Nome St. and is not tied to other properties managed or owned by Baumgarten, Nome Partners LLC, or CBZ Management. Two other complexes, Whispering Pines and The Edge at Lowry, have both been featured in coverage spanning the globe following speculation about their ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.
The attorney who signed the agreement with the city has not yet responded to Denverite’s request for comment.
Senator JD Vancecontinued to peddle unfounded claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, on Sunday and said he didn’t “like” far-right activistLaura Loomer’s racist social media post about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
When NBC’s Meet the PressKristen Welker asked Vance about Loomer’s comments, he alleged that he’d only read them this morning, because “I knew that you’d ask me about it.”
“Look, Kristen,” Vance began, “I make a mean chicken curry, I don’t think that it’s insulting for anybody to talk about their dietary preferences or what they want to do in the White House.”
“Do I agree with what Laura Loomer said about Kamala Harris? No, I don’t. I also don’t think that this is actually an issue of national import. Is Laura Loomer running for president? No,” he continued. “Kamala Harris is running for president, and whether you’re eating curry at your dinner table or fried chicken, things have gotten more expensive thanks to her policies.”
In addition to her comments about Harris, Loomer has been in the news this month for her increasing influence on Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency. Loomer was among those Trump took on his private plane en route to Philadelphia for ABC’s presidential debate last week. When asked about this, Trump responded that “a lot” of people fly with him because “it’s a very big plane.” Trump said Loomer is a “free spirit” and “supporter.”
Trump was also alongside Loomer at official September 11 memorials in New York and Pennsylvania this week. Loomer has promoted the conspiracy that 9/11 was an “inside job” and recently said in a CNN interview that, “I’ve never denied the fact that Islamic terrorists carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In fact, the media calls me anti Muslim precisely for the reason that I spend so much time focusing on talking about the threats of Islamic terrorism in America.”
On Sunday, Welker pressed Vance on Loomer’s comments and how they relate to his Indian-American wife and potential second lady, Usha Vance.
“Senator, were you and your wife offended, and do you disavow those comments that even some Trump allies say are blatantly racist?” Welker asked. “Kristen, I just told you, I don’t like those comments,” Vance replied. “I also don’t look at the internet for every single thing to get offended by.”
Loomer saw Vance on Meet The Press—and lauded the VP hopeful’s responses.
“Vance,” Loomer wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “has done a fantastic job as an Ohio Senator, and he has given a voice to the forgotten men and women who want to talk about real issues.”
“Donald Trump and JD Vance are giving those people a voice to tell the TRUTH about how they are being replaced by Kamala Harris’s invaders,” she posted, adding, “PS: I hope I can try the Senator’s chicken curry one of these days.”
Minutes before in the interview, Vance again doubled down on the unfounded claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are harming and eating household pets and geese.
“Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio,” Vance posted on X earlier this week.
“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”
So far, the xenophobic rumors have been spouted by Vance, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of Turning Point USA, and Trump himself—to name a few.
On the debate stage in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, Trump said without any proof, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Earlier in the week, Vance spread the claim on X, writing, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” In an interview following the debate, CNN’s Kaitlan Collinspressed the Ohio senator about the false claims, asking him, “why push something that’s not true?” Vance doubled down, responding, “First of all, city officials have not said it’s not true, they’ve said they don’t have all the evidence.… We’ve heard from a number of constituents on the ground, Kaitlan, who—both firsthand and secondhand reports—saying this stuff is happening, so they very clearly…think that it is happening. And I think that it’s important for journalists to actually get on the ground and uncover this for themselves when you have a lot of people saying, ‘my pets are being abducted’ or ‘geese at the city pond are being abducted and slaughtered right in front of us.’”
As The Washington Postnotes, “Members of the Haitian community in Springfield were granted temporary protected status in the United States after fleeing profound unrest and violence in their home country.” Since Trump, Vance, and others have spread the pets story, the rhetoric has escalated, and numerous buildings in Springfield—including its City Hall and an elementary school—were evacuated Thursday due to a bomb threat that included “hateful language” about the city’s immigrant population.
California is so awful that he…owns property there
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