The Weekly: Evanston community vigil, Daily analysis of Border Patrol recording devices, State of the University address

Eliza Martin, Ruby Dowling, Ryan Ottignon, Max Turetzky, Sophia Bateman, Claire Coffey, and Yana Johnson

January 12, 2026

The Daily Northwestern · The Weekly: Evanston community vigil, Daily analysis of Border Patrol recording devices, State of the University address

How did Evanston honor a Minnesota woman who was killed by ICE? Were Border Patrol agents using covert recording devices on December 17? What did Interim President Henry Bienen cover in his State of the University Address? The Daily answers these questions and recaps other top stories from the last week.

ELIZA MARTIN: On today’s episode: Evanston mourns Minnesota woman killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol’s use of smart glasses on December 17, and Interim President Henry Bienen’s State of the University address.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Eliza Martin.

RUBY DOWLING: And I’m Ruby Dowling. This is The Weekly, a breakdown of the top headlines from the past week.

[music]

RUBY DOWLING: First, I talked to Daily reporters Claire Coffey and Max Turetzky about a vigil organized by the Pink Poster Club held at Fountain Square on Wednesday, January 7 following the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

PROTESTER: Enough, no one else dies. No one. Say her name:

CROWD: Renee Nicole Good.

PROTESTER: Thank you.

RUBY DOWLING: Max, what’s the general demographic at these events, and who specifically was there on January 7 for the vigil?

MAX TURETZKY: As far as demographics go, it was mostly the same people who show up to most of these protests. A lot of people with Indivisible Evanston, mostly older people, older white people — That’s mostly who shows up to most of these protests. Most of the people involved in the ICEWatch programs are also older people — they have more time on their hands, I guess.

And the specific people at this protest were the congressional candidates, who are running for the Illinois 9th Congressional District. So, Mayor Dan Biss, Kat Abughazaleh — who’s a content creator and social media influencer — and Mike Simmons, who’s a state senator representing Chicago, all of them showed up, those three candidates. And also, there were some activists involved with the Pink Poster Club who are also engaged in ICEWatch and those kinds of things, who were speaking about the killing of Renee Nicole Good.

RUBY DOWLING: What about the shooting in Minneapolis resonated with the Evanston community so strongly that it prompted this protest?

CLAIRE COFFEY: I think there was just a lot of fear and shock because earlier on Halloween in the Evanston community, there had been an ICE encounter on Oakton and Asbury Street, and it was very similar to what had happened in Minneapolis. One Evanston resident had rear-ended an ICE vehicle, and guns were drawn on protesters. So many people were really motivated to come out today because they had this extra tie to the event, and they were wondering, “what if that was us, that could have been us,” and there was just a lot of fear.

RUBY DOWLING: As previously mentioned, several 9th congressional district candidates were in attendance, including frontrunners Daniel Biss and Kat Abughazaleh. They had sparred a bit on social media relating to the shooting — what was the significance of this dispute?

MAX TURETSKY: After the shooting in Minneapolis, Daniel Biss released a statement on Bluesky that said something along the lines of “ICE and CBP need to get out of Evanston,” and the normal things he says about ICE and CBP. And then he also made a statement along the lines of, “let’s wait for the facts to come out.”

And that seems like it would be innocuous, but Kat Abughazaleh reposted that on Bluesky and criticized him for that statement — “let’s wait for the facts to come out” — because she said that ICE and CBP had repeatedly lied about herself, about Biss, about all the other people they had detained and tried to deport Kilmar Abrego García.

And so she kind of criticized the idea that we should wait for official reports because of the dishonesty that she says has been coming from the U.S. government about these kinds of things.

And this was, I think, a major escalation in the race — pretty sharp criticism from Abughazaleh towards Biss. This comes right on the heels of Jan Schakowsky — the long-serving congresswoman in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District. Her endorsement of Daniel Biss, which has kind of upended the race, and I think puts Biss in striking distance of this seat. So I think that explains maybe why there’s been a bit of an escalation in the rhetoric being used in this race.

[music]

RUBY DOWLING: Thank you so much for joining me on The Weekly, Max and Claire.

MAX TURETZKY: Thank you.

CLAIRE COFFEY: Thank you.

ELIZA MARTIN: Next up, an investigation into Border Patrol’s apparent use of smart glasses on December 17.

ELIZA MARTIN: I’m here with Daily Reporter and Data Visualizations Editor Ryan Ottignon. This week, Ryan investigated how Border Patrol agents may have covertly filmed protesters on December 17 in Evanston. Ryan, can you walk me through the analysis The Daily used to investigate the apparent use of smart glasses by Border Patrol agents?

RYAN OTTIGNON: Yeah. Thank you for having me, Eliza. One of the things that I always do when I’m starting an investigation and when I’m starting any reporting is take a look at the videos and photos available from the scene. And I had some sources that I was talking to, I’m on the live thread team, and they were all recording on their phones from this Home Depot. And I also saw stuff from social media, and I noticed in some of the videos that we saw an agent wearing these glasses that I recognized, and that was the start of my analysis. I ended up looking through dozens of photos and videos from the scene, and ended up also finding other ways that they were recording covertly, including using a potential plainclothes agent. So that was the source of this investigation.

ELIZA MARTIN: And how did Customs and Border Protection respond to The Daily’s inquiries?

RYAN OTTIGNON: Well, they responded twice, and the first response was rather bog standard. It was kind of a measured, lawyered response to our initial queries, and then I pushed them again on some questions they didn’t answer related to this potential plainclothes agent, and they accused me of wanting to dox the agent. So obviously we included that in the article. We had to make sure to clarify that that was not what we asked. That was not anything that we sought to do. So it was a rather stressful time, but we got through.

ELIZA MARTIN: Can you elaborate on the confrontation with the protesters that happened on December 17 that the agents may have been filming?

RYAN OTTIGNON: Yeah. So on December 17, it was the first time in more than five weeks that Border Patrol had appeared in Evanston. You know, since early November, we hadn’t seen them, and suddenly they show up. They are going around the city, and they end up at this Home Depot. And the source who provided the primary video that I cited for this, Liz Myers, 2nd Ward resident, was someone who was pushed by one of these agents. That agent also arrested one person who we believe is still in custody, and there was at least one other person that was detained there, according to Mayor Biss. So a lot of things happened in those 20 minutes or so where they were at that Home Depot.

ELIZA MARTIN: How might the use of smart glasses and other private recording devices affect Evanston residents, and how might they challenge the Evanstonians’ rights to First Amendment protected activities?

RYAN OTTIGNON: Well, this is something I went to privacy and legal experts about. The first person I went to was Kevin Fee, who’s at the ACLU of Illinois. It’s a civil rights organization. And he told me that this is likely against DHS policy, but it affects people more than just being some internal violation. A bunch of watchdog groups and advocacy groups that are anti-surveillance said this covert recording of First Amendment activities is super problematic. It is concerning that the government wants to surveil people, especially because all these agents already have body cameras. So this is something that they’ve been watching out for, and that they’re concerned about what they’re being used for, whether it’s facial tracking, tracking of protesters from location to location and just identifying people.

ELIZA MARTIN: Is there anything else you’d like to add about your work and this story as a whole?

RYAN OTTIGNON: Well, I’d like to thank everyone who sent me videos and sent me photos. A lot of people responded very quickly to my emails, to my DMs on Twitter and Bluesky, and gave me permission and gave me metadata so I could verify these things and use them in the story. So thank you so much.

ELIZA MARTIN: Thank you, Ryan, for your great investigation and for coming on The Weekly.

RYAN OTTIGNON: Thanks, Eliza.

[music]

RUBY DOWLING: Finally, I sat down virtually with Daily reporter Sophia Bateman to discuss Interim President Henry Bienen’s State of the University Address, which he delivered on January 8 in the McCormick Foundation Center Forum.

RUBY DOWLING: Well, firstly, Sophia, was there anything surprising or unexpected in or about Interim President Bienen’s address on Thursday?

SOPHIA BATEMAN: I think just generally what surprised me was how open and willing he was to be so transparent with the audience. He covered such a wide range of issues, and then just the way that the address was also structured — you know, there was a speech that he gave and then there was also a Q&A with some pre-submitted questions, and then also a Q&A where anyone in the audience could come up to a mic and ask a question right there on the spot. And so I thought that that was really telling about how open he was trying to be with the staff.

RUBY DOWLING: What did this address reveal about his approach to the role of interim president, and in particular, how he plans to engage with the federal government?

SOPHIA BATEMAN: Well, that was definitely a main topic of his speech; he sort of opened with it. He was really clear that he didn’t love the deal, and there were certain provisions that he definitely wasn’t a fan of, but that he wouldn’t have signed the deal had he thought that it crossed a red line.

In terms of other policies, he did go over things like his decision to appoint a new provost, even though it is his interim term. Also, he touched on the search for the new president and how he hopes not to be involved with that. And those are some of the main things.

He also touched a bit on, honestly, a lot of different things: the Qatar campus, the switch in healthcare to UnitedHealthcare, and also the recent athletic spending — like the hiring of new coaches. He made it clear that the money for that came from donors and wouldn’t represent a hit to Northwestern’s budget.

RUBY DOWLING: One moment of friction between the University and the federal government that you identified was Bienen’s admission that he was uncomfortable with the language in the deal regarding the transgender community. Given that The Daily reported that students found the language to be highly concerning, what was the significance of him mentioning it in the address?

SOPHIA BATEMAN: I think it’s definitely really important. In a way, it made it more human throughout the entire speech relating to the federal funding deal. He mentioned a lot of things that I wouldn’t expect him to be so open about.

He even made some jokes about how much money he had to pay to the government, which, you know, kind of generated laughter from the entire audience.

But specifically relating to the language relating to the trans community in the deal, I think it’s a good recognition from President Bienen that he is aware that it’s not ideal by any means and that he wishes he could have changed it, but it’s just sort of what he had to do to keep the University going.

[music]

RUBY DOWLING: Thanks for coming on The Weekly, Sophia.

SOPHIA BATEMAN: Thank you for having me.

[music]

ELIZA MARTIN: Here are the other top headlines from the week:

D65 board unanimously approves beginning Kingsley Elementary School closure process

Northwestern aims to bring a splash of color to Ryan Field with new student mural contest

Reel Thoughts: ‘Heated Rivalry’ is proof that taking risks in television still pays off

Men’s Basketball: Wildcats gather resolve in visit to steely Spartans

Moo-ving in: Moo Joe’s serving scoops at new flagship retail on Central Street

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Eliza Martin.

RUBY DOWLING: And I’m Ruby Dowling.

ELIZA MARTIN: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported by Ruby Dowling, Eliza Martin, Sophia Bateman, Claire Coffey, Ryan Ottignon and Max Turetzky, and produced by Ruby Dowling and Eliza Martin. Yana Johnson also contributed reporting.

The Audio Editor is Ruby Dowling. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Femi Horrall, Yong-Yu Huang and Jonah McClure. The Editor in Chief is Emily Lichty.

Our theme music is “Night Owl” by Broke for Free, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

Email: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]