By PJ Huffstutter
CHICAGO, Dec 13 (Reuters) – The windowless newsroom of The Phoenix, Loyola University’s Chicago newspaper, feels like an old refrigerator. A pot of coffee rattles in the corner as youngsters Julia Pentasuglio and Ella Daugherty hunch over a shiny laptop, updating a Google map.
Each red pin marks an appearance of federal immigration agents near the campus and surrounding neighborhoods.
Nearby, editor-in-chief Lilli Malone scrolls through reports from Rogers Park, a neighborhood along Chicago’s lakefront where 80 languages mix. There were new pins from seven sightings that day alone – reports of vans driving down side streets, masked immigration officers drawing guns, students watching from dormitory windows on campus as neighbors were taken away.
Young student journalists usually cover dorm room Thanksgiving recipes and local Christmas tree lighting, but they find themselves with a new role under Donald Trump’s presidency: documenting immigration raids. Their goal: counter online rumors with facts and give locals a map of frequently targeted areas as panic spreads in recent months about who might be caught by immigration agents next.
Students and veteran journalists say college newsrooms, independent media and legacy outlets across Chicago are now working together in ways that change decades of cutthroat competition, building tools to track enforcement and collaborating on information.
Since Trump returned to the White House, his administration has ordered aggressive immigration sweeps in cities with large foreign-born communities, including Chicago, to fulfill a campaign promise to deport people living in the United States illegally.
TRANSLATION OF RUMOR INTO FACT
Weeks after Loyola students began classes this fall, the US Department of Homeland Security launched its Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago in early September, deploying Border Patrol agents armed with high-powered weapons and tear gas.
Local officials objected, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called the blitz “illegal and unjustified” and a new state law now allows Illinois residents to sue federal immigration agents if they believe their civil rights have been violated.
DHS said it is targeting violent criminals who put Americans at risk, and has arrested more than 4,300 people as part of the operation.
“Our efforts are ongoing, we are not leaving Chicago,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.
Fear was already building on campus before the operation began. A man from the U.S. Census Bureau broke into a dorm months earlier, Malone and Pentasuglio said, sparking false rumors that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrived. Students flooded The Phoenix staff with questions about whether the rumors were true.
Some had reason to be worried. Loyola has long welcomed immigrants without legal status in the United States, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals students who came to the United States as children, particularly at its medical school — a point of pride at a Jesuit university built on a mission of social justice.
“People were scared, and they needed someone to verify what was real,” Malone said.
Loyola University officials did not respond to requests for comment.
So in early October, Malone and Pentasuglio, the managing editor of The Phoenix, opened a blank Google Map and began dropping pins — each one confirmed through photos, taped videos or multiple witnesses, they said.
The pins gave students and nearby residents a place to check rumors against fact – to see which sightings were verified, and to understand where agents had gathered in recent days so they could better gauge which areas might carry risk.
Notes are attached to each pin – October 12: Multiple armed agents were observed in the 1200 block of West North Shore Avenue at noon. October 21: An arrest was reported at the North Lincoln Avenue Home Depot at 9:58 am
A DHS spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that US Border Patrol conducted enforcement operations and made arrests at these locations on those dates.
At the University of Chicago, deputy editor-in-chief Elena Eisenstadt says the college’s newspaper, The Maroon, built its Datawrapper tracker after reports surfaced on social media outlets like Sidechat, a student app where users can chat anonymously.
“It felt like a wave,” she said. “When everyone is talking about something like that, you have to do something.”
At DePaul University, the managing editor of the DePaulia campus newspaper, Jake Cox, and other staff relied on the social media accounts of students and others for tips when the presence of ICE near its Lincoln Park campus increased.
At the Block Club Chicago nonprofit newsgroup where he is an intern, Cox built an ICE WhatsApp channel — a platform widely used by Chicago’s immigrants — where nearly 3,200 followers receive a steady stream of immigration stories, agent appearances and “Know Your Rights” links.
SOME JOURNALISTS PRIOTIZE COLLABORATION
The students are joining a broader wave of local anti-ICE mobilization across Chicago that has included cyclists walking unmarked vans through alleyways, parents forming checkpoints outside elementary schools and Pilates students yelling at agents pulling people into SUVs while neighbors film.
For months, local reporters covering immigration enforcement in Chicago have also been sharing stories, security tips and source contacts with competitors through encrypted communication systems, said Maira Khwaja, director of public impact strategy at the Invisible Institute, an independent local journalism nonprofit.
The story has become too big, she said, and there are simply too few reporters to cover it. “More of us is better.”
At Phoenix, when staff get a tip outside their coverage area, they said they help get the information to other papers.
At the city’s largest newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, senior editor Erika Slife says she grew up in the old-school culture but that the current journalistic landscape has sometimes led to collaboration between outlets.
For example, after US Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino left Chicago on Nov. 13 for Charlotte, North Carolina, reporters from The Charlotte Observer newspaper contacted Tribune staff the next day for insight and what to expect, Tribune investigative reporter Gregory Royal Pratt said.
Pratt and several colleagues quickly got into a video call with North Carolina reporters, he said, and shared what had worked for them — from tweaking security equipment, to tracking helicopter traffic and verifying government information for accuracy.
“It still feels good to be first,” said Slife, who leads the paper’s immigration coverage. Now she tells her reporters, “it’s more important to be right. We may not always be the first, but we do it the best.”
(Reporting by PJ Huffstutter in Chicago. Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington, DC, editing by Deepa Babington)