Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: A federal judge ruled that during a deposition, Border Patrol boss Gregory Bovino can be asked how — not why — the feds are enforcing the law and whether they’re violating protesters’ constitutional rights.
🗞️ Plus: Chicagoans are blowing the whistle on ICE, a workshop for Mexican immigrants interested in self-deportation and more news you need to know.
🧩 After you’re caught up: We’ve got a new Chicago-style crossword puzzle for you. This week’s theme: Concert venues.
📧 Subscribe: Get this newsletter delivered to your inbox weekday mornings.
⏱️: A 9-minute read
TODAY’S WEATHER 🌤️
Mostly sunny with a chance of showers and a high near 56.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
Judge permits questioning of Border Patrol boss in lawsuit over treatment of protesters in Chicago
By Jon Seidel, Tom Schuba, Sophie Sherry, Chip Mitchell and Frank Main
Questioning Bovino: In a lawsuit over the feds’ treatment of protesters during the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign in Chicago, U.S. Border Patrol Commander-At-Large Gregory Bovino will have to sit for a deposition — which a federal judge on Monday limited to “how” officers are enforcing immigration law, not “why.”
Key context: Bovino is the public face of the administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, as well as the earlier “Operation At Large” in Los Angeles. The latter led to a controversial U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that allowed federal agents to continue stopping people based on race, language and other factors.
‘How they look’: The Supreme Court majority did not explain itself in that case. Bovino later told a WBEZ reporter that agents in Chicago were stopping people based partly on “how they look.“
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To stand up to ICE agents, some Chicagoans are arming themselves with whistles
By Anna Savchenko
Warning system: Across the city, the Trump administration’s “Midway Blitz” deportation campaign has been accompanied by an unexpected soundtrack: High-pitched whistling noises. Whistles have become a tool in a growing effort to warn vulnerable neighbors when federal immigration agents are in their area — and to call for people to document ICE activity.
Organizers’ take: For many Chicagoans, it’s a way to fight back against what they see as overly aggressive immigration arrests, as people are picked up outside of schools, churches and courthouses. Organizers say use of the whistles has led ICE agents to limit their time in a community or decrease their aggressiveness.
LA origins: Teresa Magaña, co-founder of the Pilsen Arts & Community House, got the idea of handing out whistles from an activist in Los Angeles and has helped to distribute hundreds in Chicago.
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Chicago sues, challenging Trump’s anti-diversity requirements in federal anti-terrorism grants
By Fran Spielman
Trump sued: Chicago is joining forces with eight other cities in challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to use tens of millions of dollars in federal anti-terrorism and public safety grants as leverage in his battle against what he calls “wokeness.”
The filing: The target of the new lawsuit, filed Monday in Chicago federal court, is Trump’s decision to condition U.S. Department of Homeland Security grants on a city’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring and contracting.
Use of money: The federal funds hanging in the balance are used to help cities “train first responders, modernize emergency … centers, build public alert systems and purchase hazmat suits” and other “life-saving equipment” used by bomb squads, according to Chicago city officials.
MORE ON IMMIGRATION ✶
- Self-deportation workshop: Some Mexican immigrants are making plans to leave Chicago before ICE deports them. A workshop helping them navigate the bureaucracy and the stress is in high demand.
- Hearing set: A judge ordered a Nov. 6 hearing for the Border Patrol agent who shot a woman in Brighton Park. Her defense attorneys said evidence in the case may be spoiled after the agent drove his car back to Maine and a mechanic was ordered to fix the damage.
- Billboards for Guard: A progressive anti-war group has paid for billboards that question the deployment of National Guard troops and provide a link to legal resources for service members who might want to opt out.
EDUCATION 🍎
- CPS’ CEO search: Chicago Public Schools is asking students and parents to help pick its next CEO/superintendent via a community interview panel. The district will interview finalists next month.
- Tech tracking: CPS wants to pay one of its biggest tech device suppliers up to $60 million over four years to automatically track the district’s tablets, laptops and other technology, Chalkbeat Chicago reports.
- UIC hiring shift: The University of Illinois Chicago is reportedly eliminating the consideration of race, color, national origin, sex and gender from financial aid and from hiring, promotion and tenure decisions, to align with a new University of Illinois System policy and “current legal standards.”
- NU discipline: A federal judge declined Monday to block Northwestern University from disciplining students who refused to complete online anti-bias training, which graduate student plaintiffs say characterizes criticism of Israel as antisemitic.
MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️
- Checkout check-in: Grocery operator Yellow Banana completed renovating and rehabbing six Save A Lot stores on the South and West sides — 2.5 years after signing a $26 million redevelopment agreement. It had to pay more than $70,000 in penalties.
- Husband sentenced: A Michigan judge sentenced Adam Beckerink to two years of probation and 93 days in jail in a domestic violence case. His wife, Caitlin Tracey, was found dead in October 2024 at the bottom of a 20-story stairwell outside her husband’s South Loop condo.
- Waukegan priest removed: The Rev. Xamie Reyes of Little Flower Parish was removed from pastoral duties amid accusations of grooming and sexual misconduct involving adult seminarians, the Archdiocese of Chicago said.
- Coors cuts: Molson Coors Beverage Co. plans to cut 400 positions across the Americas by the end of December. The layoffs will eliminate about 9% of Molson Coors’ Americas workforce, but the impact the restructuring will have on its Chicago headquarters is unclear.
- Top gambling tax generator: The Illinois Lottery has been supplanted as the state’s top source of gambling tax revenue, but industry leaders say it was still the top nationwide performer during a tough year for lotteries.
BUDGET PROPOSAL 💸
Mayor’s proposed social media tax could face uphill legal battle
By Fran Spielman and Mitchell Armentrout
Budget battle: Mayor Brandon Johnson may want to find a $31 million budget fallback for his proposed tax on big social media companies. One constitutional expert predicts it’ll end up “a complete loser” when it’s inevitably challenged in court by opponents in the industry.
Mayor’s stance: But Johnson’s office contends it’s a legal “amusement tax” that they’d be slapping on Meta, TikTok and other sites that many experts say can harm the mental health of young people.
Key context: The mayor last week proposed taxing social media companies to help close a $1.15 billion shortfall, dinging at a rate of 50 cents per user after the first 100,000 users, similar to tax structures that have been floated — but not approved — in Minnesota and Washington state.
WATCH: BUDGET PITCH ANALYSIS ▶️
WBEZ’s Mariah Woelfel breaks down Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2026 budget proposal. | WBEZ/Sun-Times
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏈🏒🏀
- Getting defensive: The Bears’ defenders are “turnover monsters,” as slot cornerback Kyler Gordon put it, but how long can the team rely on them?
- Nick Foligno returns: The Blackhawks captain is back on the squad, saying his 12-year-old daughter is home and recovering from emergency heart surgery she underwent Thursday in Boston.
- White out: The Bulls will be without guard Coby White to start their regular season Wednesday.
GAMES AND CROSSWORDS 🧩
This week’s Chicago-style crossword theme is: Concert venues!
Here’s your clue:
15A: Concert venue that occupies the former Morton factory
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
Hopleaf owner seeks new home for two 125-pound vintage cash registers
By Casey He
Michael Roper started working at bars in the 1970s, and for the first 40 years of his career, across 15 taverns, he rang up each drink on mechanical registers.
So when Roper, 71, opened Hopleaf in Andersonville in 1992, he purchased two of these machines for $120 apiece, he said.
These gear- and motor-powered “bangers,” as they were called, now sit quietly in Hopleaf’s storage room. But with the touch of a few buttons, the click-clack from within returns, followed by the familiar cha-ching.
“It’s like music to my ears,” Roper said. “The new registers just don’t have that.”
Roper recently moved both machines to have them cleaned, with the plan to put one on display in his store and to possibly give the other to an all-cash bar.
DAILY QUESTION ☕️
In yesterday’s newsletter, we asked you: Where in Chicago do you feel most connected to your neighbors or other Chicagoans?
“At Wrigley Field with fellow diehard fans, especially when we’re singing ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’ or ‘Go, Cubs, Go.’ We’re having a ball … united in our support of the team and its historic ballpark!”— Paul Lockwood
“L trains and platforms because they hold a cross section of Chicagoans.”— Craig Barner
“In our neighborhood. We know all of our neighbors; we have block parties twice a year … Most of the teachers at my daughter’s elementary school live in the neighborhood.”— Karyn Pedraza
“Music Box Theater — always a pleasure to watch a great movie with an audience that knows great movies.”— Michael Sewall
“On the salsa dance floor; so many people of various backgrounds and ages come together and speak the same language: Dancing!”— Martinez Galindo
Thanks for reading the Sun-Times Morning Edition!
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Written and curated by: Matt Moore
Editor: Eydie Cubarrubia