The horns and whistles work

In a residential neighborhood in Kenner, Louisiana, two vehicles full of Border Patrol agents speed down the street. Their goal is to work quickly, before the protesters show up and start blowing whistles and honking horns to alert potential targets to hide inside. Border Patrol might spend hours waiting to detain an immigrant, only to be thwarted by a united neighborhood effort. Here in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, it looks like the feds might succeed. But as the agents round a corner, a Mercedes-Benz SUV comes out of nowhere, wedging itself between their vehicles, laying on the horn, whistles shrieking.

It’s a scene that has played out across Chicago, Charlotte, and now New Orleans, where the Trump administration launched what it calls “Operation Catahoula Crunch.” When Customs and Border Protection and Commander Gregory Bovino move into town, so does Whistlemania. Activists create and distribute thousands of 3D-printed whistles, and their piercing cries are used to signal that immigration agents are nearby. Caravans of protesters follow agents around, raising the alarm as they drive through the streets.

Hours after the chase in Kenner, Bovino and his team held a photo op for press. As they walked out of a store and back to their vehicles, video journalist Ford Fischer asked Bovino if the whistles and horns had impeded the raids.

“No, it actually helps us,” Bovino claimed. “Oftentimes that helps. We incorporate that into our strategy.”

When asked for clarification, Bovino explained, “Sometimes it alerts them, we’re able to look at a reaction from the horn, and gather info and intel from that.” He quickly walked away.

CBP didn’t answers my follow-up questions about the raid I saw that day. But based on my own experience observing Border Patrol and ICE across the country, I found it hard to believe they actually wanted protesters to warn neighbors about their presence. And that certainly wasn’t what I witnessed in Louisiana.

Alongside the masked federal agents and the 3D-printed whistles, a group of journalists—mostly photographers and videographers—rolls into town. The team of press is small enough that we nearly all know each other by face, if not by name. In Louisiana, even members of the Border Patrol affixed to Bovino remembered some of us from Broadview or Charlotte, leading to masked, seemingly interchangeable agents greeting journalists with an unsettling one-sided familiarity. 

In each city, activists have an uphill battle learning what to do as they try to follow the federal agents around. But after months in Chicago, the journalists have a proficiency that comes with accepting you’ll spend 12 hours a day in the car and, if you’re lucky, get five minutes of footage.

That is how I found myself standing in front of a gas station, watching an SUV with out-of-state plates hide in a carwash, ready to tell a half dozen other members of the press the second the vehicle was on the move. Earlier, a photographer and I had driven by two vehicles full of federal agents and quickly U-turned to follow them. In an attempt to shake us, they blew past “do not enter” signs, drove double the speed limit, and split up. When we found them one neighborhood over, we held up our press badges, hoping they wouldn’t try to lose us again. Once they parked, we did too. We were definitely in the right spot: The neighborhood was crawling with feds.

When the SUV peeled out of the carwash, the other unmarked Border Patrol vehicles throughout the neighborhood followed it—and so did our press colleagues. We started to join them, but then it dawned on us that the feds would likely come back—clearly, there was someone in the area that they were looking for. So we returned to the spot where we had first run back into the feds after they tried to lose us. Sure enough, the SUVs and trucks quickly returned. 

This time, a vehicle with four agents inside pulled up directly next to us. The unmasked driver rolled down his window, confirmed we were media, and motioned for us to follow him, before driving off. 

“He’s fucking with us?” the photographer asked as we tailed them.

“I don’t think so.” 

“They never put their windows down,” he mused.

They never put their masks down, either. In months of following Border Patrol around, I had never before seen masked agents reveal their bare faces. 

I was still in disbelief when we backed into a spot next to the agents and rolled our windows down. Just three months ago, I was being shot at with pepper balls by Border Patrol as I tried to film arrests of protesters outside of the Broadview ICE facility; now, I appeared to have their blessing to film a possible raid? Surreal.  

The guys in the vehicle leaned towards the open window to chat with us. They mentioned the people in this neighborhood seemed particularly observant, making things harder for the feds. Curious how we were able to keep track of them, they asked if someone had given us information about their location. I said no, we just try to think like them.

One of the agents told us that sometimes the press, or perhaps protesters posing as press, will follow them around and tell them to kill themselves. The photographer assured them we were just there to document what happened. 

In some ways, the agents seemed as interested in us as we were in them. They wanted to know how we came to be on the Border Patrol beat, and how we were paid. They complained about being followed and the threat of doxing, and they talked about the murder of detainees by a shooter outside a Dallas ICE facility in September. Suddenly, they stopped talking and pulled their masks up. 

“Stay loose,” they told us as they started to drive. “This may get a little sideways.”

Off we went, staying as close as we could. Suddenly, a Mercedes SUV pulled out between the team we were following and the unmarked vehicle in front of them, laying on the horn. In the distance, we could hear whistles. Already unsure of exactly what was supposed to go down, we were disoriented by the whistles and honking. Was the Mercedes with the feds? Surely not, but they were so close! Did the whistles mean the raid had already started, with at least two vehicles of feds still on the way? 

The rear unmarked vehicle overtook the Mercedes and blocked it in an intersection, allowing the front vehicle to make a turn and drive off. Eventually, the Mercedes reversed, almost into us, and drove off. Still hearing whistles, but not seeing any immigration officers outside of their vehicles, we followed the feds back to their staging area and parked nearby. As they drove past us, the agents indicated we should stay put. After a few minutes conferring with each other out of their vehicles, they got back into their caravan. 

Pausing by us, one driver swiped his fingers across his neck, shaking his head. “We’re done for the day.”

After the caravan of feds left, we went back to the neighborhood and circled near the intersection where the Mercedes had been boxed out. A young man who was clearly on neighborhood watch still stood in one of the yards, staring suspiciously at our SUV. But the agents were gone, and apparently no one had been detained.

The community had won its battle against the Border Patrol—at least for today.