CHICAGO (RNS) — At 7:30 a.m. on a chilly November morning, every member of the Luhmann family was already awake. Their cozy home, tucked into a bucolic corner of the Chicago suburbs, was bustling with activity.
Six of the eight children, almost all of them homeschooled, were mostly settled in the dining room. A large, colorful quilt — hand-stitched by Audrey, their mother, to represent various names for Jesus — hung on the wall. Andrew, their father, readied to go to work at Wheaton College, the evangelical Christian school nearby, where he serves as an associate professor of geology.
But Ben, 17, and Sam, 16, donned warm hoodies, said goodbye to their parents and piled into a well-loved sedan. Cranking the engine, they skirted a wild turkey that stalks their yard and headed out to find U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
“I don’t think Jesus would ever ignore people being hurt, especially by the federal government,” said Ben, at the wheel, to a reporter in the back seat. Sam, pounding an energy drink with one hand, scrolled through a lengthy list of group chats with the other, scouring for reports of ICE and other federal immigration agents in their area.
Mornings like this have been typical in recent weeks for the Luhmann family, which has drawn on its conservative Christian faith and a shared compulsion to counter “Operation Midway Blitz,” the mass deportation push in Chicago launched in September. They have joined a coalition of activists, everyday citizens and people of faith — including theologically conservative Christians — who have pooled resources and learned new technologies to mount an effort they say is designed to protect immigrants in their neighborhoods and around the city.
‘Christians should be the first people to fight for this.’
Of all the Luhmanns, Ben and Sam have had the most direct encounters with federal agents — mostly on purpose. They’re part of a complex network of “rapid response” volunteers who monitor the movement and actions of federal agents, with everyday residents crisscrossing the Chicago suburbs daily to keep an eye on unmarked cars typically used by ICE when making arrests.
The idea, Ben said, is to document what federal agents — who often represent a range of agencies, but which activists generally refer to collectively as ICE — are doing and to alert the community. If they come across an ICE vehicle, especially one conducting an arrest, the brothers film what they can, sometimes ask questions of the officers and then blow whistles to alert people nearby about the presence of ICE.
The duo rolled through a series of neighborhood “hot spots” where arrests have happened in recent weeks. It was quieter than normal, they said, likely because U.S. Border Patrol had announced plans that week to pull out of the city and relocate many of its personnel to Charlotte, North Carolina. Several weeks ago, they said, they could have heard about or come across more than a dozen ICE arrests by midmorning.
But federal agents are still active in the city and, per reports, isn’t planning on leaving anytime soon.
Sam Luhmann, 16, shows the batteries for his camera, which he uses during encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He keeps them charged at all times. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins
Religious groups have played a prominent role in pushback to Operation Midway Blitz since it began, and they continue to deliver groceries and other items to immigrants whose lives have been severely disrupted. According to faith leaders who spoke to Religion News Service in early November, the number of immigrant families being helped through such efforts numbered at least 100 — with the actual number likely much higher.
But Ben and Sam’s effort is particularly suited to the young and unordained. The brothers say agents sometimes call them the “TikTok kids,” after footage of the pair tracking ICE went viral on the social media platform. They were also once pulled over and briefly detained by federal agents, who, Sam said, forced him against the car with his hands behind his back before the brothers were eventually released.
Ben explained he and his brother have built up an encyclopedic knowledge of the cars they believe ICE uses. Scrolling through photos on his phone, Ben showed what he claims are license plates that have been used on multiple vehicles used by federal agents — a practice activists argue is illegal.
The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly expressed frustration with volunteers such as Sam and Ben, accusing such networks of “disrupt(ing) ICE operations targeting dangerous criminal illegal aliens.” (Rapid response volunteers insist that documenting law enforcement actions is legal.)
Asked why they would risk arrest or harassment, Ben and Sam offered different answers. Despite the family’s religious roots, Sam said he doesn’t consider himself a Christian but thinks the issue of immigration is a moral one all the same. “All groups need to be caring for people, because everyone should have basic morals that tell you, deep inside, that this is not right,” he said.
“But also I feel like Christians should be the first people to fight for this,” Ben interjected, as Sam nodded. “What have we been taught our entire life? Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked. This is basic, basic stuff. Christians have always been people who are supposed to be there for the marginalized, the people that are being hurt by systems, the people that don’t have a voice.”
Suddenly, Sam’s phone lit up with word of ICE vehicles in a nearby suburb. Ben pulled out of the parking lot, with Sam monitoring chatter over group chats. As they drew close, Sam jumped on a group call with several other ICE monitors, their voices overlapping as they tried to direct one another to the ICE vehicles.
Ben Luhmann, 17, blows a whistle as he and his brother film two apparent federal agents parked nearby. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins
Finally, they spotted them: two black midsized vehicles with tinted windows parked parallel to each other behind a bank. The teens parked and hopped out of their cars, tugging at their hoodies to block the blustery cold. They pulled out phones and circled the vehicles, capturing as much detail as they could, such as make, model and license plates. Eventually, two local police officers pulled up and approached the cars, briefly conferring with what appeared to be masked federal agents inside.
As the police left, Ben and Sam blew their whistles in staccato bursts. A short time later, both of the black vehicles abruptly revved their engines and tore out of the parking lot.
“These are definitely vehicles to distract from where they’re actually at,” Sam said, and some of his fellow ICE monitors appeared to agree. After weeks of wrangling with locals documenting and even heckling agents, ICE has begun deploying decoy vehicles to lead people away from the locations of actual arrests, the brothers claimed.
As far as Sam and Ben are concerned, that’s a win. “If they’re talking to each other and scared of us, they’re not kidnapping people,” Sam said.
‘God willing’
A few minutes and a short drive later, Audrey Luhmann rolled up alongside the boys in a minivan. She explained that her morning had been dedicated to a different but related project: offering direct assistance to an immigrant family impacted by the ongoing deportation raids.
That day, Audrey’s main concern was a woman she called Denisse and her two young daughters. When Denisse’s partner was arrested outside of a west Chicago grocery store in early September and promptly deported, the family was left without its primary breadwinner.
Soon after, Denisse, six months pregnant with her third child, was diagnosed with cervical cancer. In her van, Audrey was now driving to pick Denisse up from a chemo treatment — low-dose for now, to keep from harming her baby — before swinging by to grab her some groceries as well.
“She is now functionally a single mom, expecting and battling cancer by herself,” Audrey said of Denisse.
Her outreach to Denisse is part of a project that bubbled up in Audrey’s church, Christ Our Advocate, shortly after Operation Midway Blitz launched. Members of the church, which is affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America, grew concerned about how the raids were impacting their neighbors and started a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Coordinating winter coat drives and baby-clothes collections, they also organized meal trains and grocery delivery to aid the growing number of families hunkered down in their homes out of fear of being detained and deported. Many immigrants stopped working altogether, as some laborers have been detained at their jobs.
Audrey’s church group, now numbering about 80 members, shares tips and maps showing how to keep track of ICE’s actions, “know your rights” information and even sermons they feel are relevant. The Christ Our Advocate group drew other Wheaton-area locals who, Audrey said, were frustrated that their churches weren’t doing more.
It is not the kind of work that makes headlines, the way the chaotic protests like those outside an ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois, a half-hour drive east, toward Chicago have. There, DHS personnel have shot demonstrators with pepper rounds and arrested protesters pulled from crowds demanding better treatment and pastoral services for the inmates.
Over the past two weeks, ICE agents bore down on Charlotte, North Carolina, in a comparatively brief operation called Charlotte’s Web. Faith leaders there hosted “ICE Watch” trainings inspired by some of the techniques Chicago pastors have used in resisting.
But many churches, in Chicago and Charlotte, have attended to those left behind in the detentions and deportations, and others have helped the cause in their own ways. Andrew Luhmann spoke at a recent panel at Wheaton discussing how Christians should interpret the mass deportation effort and how they could peacefully resist.
Audrey Luhmann, a longtime advocate for survivors of sexual abuse in the Anglican Church in North America, has refocused her organizing skills in recent months to help immigrants at risk of deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins
Audrey isn’t new to advocacy. For years, she has been a key leader in the “ACNAtoo” movement, an effort to combat sex abuse in her small, theologically conservative denomination. She insists the same faith that drove her to organize against sex abuse now compels her to aid immigrants. “In this moment, we have the moral truth and the moral grounding that is needed, and it totally equips Christians and people of other faiths to be able to stand up and call evil by its right name,” Audrey said.
Audrey has also joined several other Signal groups dedicated to helping immigrants, including one called “6,000 moms.” Her phone pings constantly. Asked about the noise, she held up her phone to show the latest message: A mom asking simply, “How can I help?”
All told, she fields 1,200 to 1,300 messages a day, she estimated. Her sons, she said, get far more. “They’re getting over three thousand.”
When Audrey arrived at the medical center, Denisse was standing alone outside. The two greeted each other warmly, embracing before Denisse climbed into the van. The two chatted about the chemo treatments before quickly changing subjects to discuss child-rearing and favorite foods.
The vibe is cheery, although Denisse’s tone briefly dimmed when she was asked about her situation.“I think we’re suffering too much,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “I don’t know where I’m getting the strength to keep going. But thank God, I’ve done it, and I’ll keep doing it.”
She then added: “con el favor de Dios” — or “God willing.”
‘Where were you in 2025?’
The volunteer work has weighed heavily on the Luhmann family, Audrey said. She worries about the relationship between her teenage sons and law enforcement, especially after repeatedly bearing witness to dramatic arrests of immigrants and protesters.
“There have been times where my sons have been in tears,” she said. “I’m having to process in real time with my teenage kids the fact that they are watching absolute lawlessness and brutality and violence and cruelty and no one’s coming to stop it.”
It’s been hard on Audrey, too. She recalled a moment when another one of her children, a 13-year-old, jumped in the car with Sam and Ben to investigate potential ICE activity at a nearby apartment complex, knowing that kids who live there also attend the 13-year-old’s school.
“This advocacy as a family has been intense,” Audrey said. “But I also feel like, someday, my kids are going to grow up and they’re going to have children. And at some point they’re going to say, ‘Grandma, where were you in 2025? Where were my parents in 2025?’ I want to be able to tell them: ‘My family stood up.’”
For Audrey and most of the Luhmann family, the Christian faith doesn’t give them any other choice.
“What would Jesus do if he were seeing and witnessing an arrest?” she said. “What would he do if it were his neighbor taken?”
