Machine

The impact of Machine Learning (ML) on the global Foreign Exchange (Forex) is growing day by day. This results in a profound transformation of the algorithmic landscape, leading to a decrease in the dominance of human intuition, quantitative models, and macroeconomic analysis. These changes impact the growth of market efficiency, shift risk management patterns, and affect the very nature of global currency flow.

The ML-Driven Revolution in Forex Trading

Machine Learning, as an essential subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI), helps computer systems learn from extended datasets, identify sophisticated models, and make predictions without any pre-programmed patterns. Human traders simply cannot match the edge ML provides because the very environment of the currency market is getting faster and more data-rich.

Enhancing Predictive Analysis

ML models process vast volumes of market data pretty successfully. Their performance ranges from simple tick-by-tick price movements and trading volumes to social media responses and global news feeds. That is why forecasting with unprecedented accuracy becomes a reality. All this deals with the following:

1. Real-time data synthesis. The algorithms analyze time-series data, learn from historical market volatility, and immediately adapt to new information. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) are especially efficient for that.
2. Sentiment analysis. ML systems use Natural Language Processing (NLP). That allows them to scan thousands of new articles, economic reports, and political statements. Therefore, they never miss leading indicators based on market sentiment towards a specific currency.
3. Pattern recognition. ML can detect and observe subtle, non-linear relationships between disparate currency pairs and timeframes. In that way, they analyze all possible opportunities. 

Automation and Execution Speed

The most obvious impact of ML is observed in spreading algorithmic trading. Trades executed by automated systems are based on ML-driven insights. So, they are speedy, precise, and independent of human emotional bias.

Such automation is clearly observed in Expert Advisors (EAs), or trading bots. They can operate autonomously on various platforms, for example, on MetaTrader. The industry needs and is continuously introducing new top-rated Forex EAs. Their algorithms have already demonstrated perfect performance and resilience. These ML-powered EAs can manage such strategies as:

• High-Frequency Trading (HFT), processing thousands of trades per second;
• Adaptable trend following, used for adjusting stop-loss and take-profit levels to the shifts in real-time market schedules;
• Risk mitigation strategies, implemented through changes in hedging positions and reducing leverage according to predicted spikes in volatility.

Strategic Implications for Global Finance

ML integration into the Forex environment has far-reaching consequences. It affects international capital flows and requires enhanced risk management for financial institutions and states.

Redefining Currency Risk Management

ML provides high-quality tools for hedging and managing currency exposure. It is vital for multinational corporations and central banks. The significantly improved forecasting accuracy is crucial for optimizing forward contract planning and international payment strategies.

ML models can ensure dynamic hedging by continuous reassessment of risk-return profiles. They are capable of recommending dynamic adjustments to hedging ratios due to changing geopolitical or economic situations.

Moreover, advanced AI models can detect unusual trading patterns. That can diminish market abuse, like front-running or spoofing, much faster than conventional surveillance systems can. So, market integrity becomes better managed and more sustainable.

Geopolitical and Regulatory Challenges

So, we have examined the obvious benefits of the strategic deployment of ML. However, what about drawbacks? There are certain challenges here that require regulatory foresight and diplomatic engagement. They involve the following:

1. Algorithmic bias. An ML model may be trained on biased or incomplete historical data. That can cause systemic flaws and market instabilities, especially during unforeseen global events.
2. Concentration of power. Large hedge funds and financial institutions can concentrate large power in their hands. That may happen because the resources needed to develop, deploy, and maintain advanced ML infrastructure are hardly available beyond their authority. The need for specialized hardware and proprietary datasets may result in a systemic risk to market decentralization.
3. Need for explainability. All regulators require transparency. Complex neural networks cannot provide that due to their ‘black box’ nature. It creates a compliance hurdle that must be overcome with the help of explainable AI (XAI) frameworks.

Conclusion: A New Era of Algorithmic Diplomacy

We need to understand and accept that Machine Learning is not an additional helping tool but a superior new operating system for global currency exchange. It strategically impacts everything related to international trading. Its ability to extract the most actionable intelligence from gigantic data volumes can result in hyper-efficient, instantaneous, and emotionless trade operations.

The rise of complex algorithmic systems, including top-rated Forex EAs, requires a new form of ‘algorithmic diplomacy.’ That is why global financial institutions and regulators must keep in touch, and their collaboration should be aimed at ethical frameworks and technical standards development. That can help them enhance the stability, transparency, and fairness of the international trading market for the benefit of the entire global economy.

The Lakers (11-4) accomplished plenty without James during their first 14 games. Luka Doncic jump-started his most valuable player campaign and rose to the top of the NBA scoring leaderboard. Austin Reaves is averaging career highs nearly across the board. Some wondered how much the team would really benefit from James’ return when it started 10-4 already.

Then the Lakers scored a season-high 140 points, shot a season-best 59.5% from the field and locked down on defense to allow just 32 points in the first 21 minutes of the second half before the benches cleared.

“I can fit in with anybody,” James said. “I don’t even understand why that was a question.”

Doncic continued his scoring spree with 37 points and 10 assists, but with eight turnovers. Reaves had 26 points.

The Lakers lauded their early season chemistry, and coach JJ Redick praised his players for leading themselves through difficult times. He purposely restructured timeouts to give players time to discuss alone before the coaches would join them, hoping that the opportunities for player-to-player communication would prompt stronger team connection. Adding James’ voice to the conversation was an easy transition.

“Us as a young team, I’m glad we got hold of accountability before LeBron got out there,” Ayton said. “I’m glad we went through some tough games and a little of hardships and ups and downs and adversity. And it made us prepare for times like this where he says one thing and we get it done right away.”

The Jazz (5-9) knocked the Lakers back with guard Keyonte George making five threes in the first half and 23 points on nine for 15 shooting. Utah jumped out to a 11-point lead in the first half, but the Lakers tied it with 18.8 seconds left in the second quarter and went into halftime down by four, prepared to make a push.

“I think the word we were using as a coaching staff was our poise as a group,” Redick said. “Not overreacting, not pulling apart, problem solving, all that stuff, in real time. Just continuing to play. That, at times, was missing last year, and for us to get that on the first night [fully healthy] was really good.”

When millions of European immigrants came to the United States in the 19th century only to be scorned by mainstream society, it was the Catholic Church that embraced them, taught that keeping the customs of one’s native lands was not bad and created systems of mutual aid and education for the newcomers that didn’t rely on the government.

The 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, an Irish American Catholic, showed that the U.S. was ready to expand its definition of who could become president. Labor organizers like Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day and Mother Jones pushed for the dignity of workers while frequently citing the woke words of Jesus — the Sermon of the Mount and the Beatitudes among the wokest — as the fuel for their spiritual fire.

Catholicism is the faith I was baptized in, the one I embraced as a teen and that’s the bedrock for my moral code of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. My work desk covered with statues and devotional cards of Jesus, Mary and the saints is a physical testament to this.

But I’m also one of the 72% of U.S. Catholics that a Pew Research Center survey from earlier this year. found don’t attend weekly Mass, which we’re obligated to do.

I stopped going early on in my adulthood because the Church became something I didn’t recognize.

The bishops and cardinals who preached we should follow Jesus’ admonition we should tend to the least among us presided over a child sex abuse scandal in the 1990s and 2000s that cost parishioners billions of dollars in legal settlements and their ethical high ground. The obsession that too many of those same church leaders had over abortion and homosexuality — which Christ never talked about — over social justice matters during the Obama administration left me disappointed. Their continual condemnation of pro-choice Catholic Democratic politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for taking Communion while staying silent about Donald Trump’s constant violations of the Ten Commandments was rank hypocrisy.

The Pew Research Center found 55% of my fellow faithful voted for Trump. Key Catholics have blessed Trump’s uglier tendencies: A majority of them rules over our revanchist Supreme Court while the president’s team features a vice president who’s a convert and a rogue’s gallery of influential insiders that bear surnames from previous generations of Catholic diasporas — Kennedy, Rubio, Bovino, Homan among the worst of the worst.

Yet I remain a Catholic because you shouldn’t turn your back so easily on institutions that formed you and you don’t cede your identity to heretics. The election of Pope Leo XIV, the first American to head the Holy See, to succeed Pope Francis stirred in me the sense that things might change for the better as our country worsens.

Now, without naming him, the U.S. Catholic hierarchy has rebuked Trump on his signature issue and one close to my heart in a way that shows my hope hasn’t been in vain.

Clergy attend the 2021 Fall General Assembly meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, Md.

(Julio Cortez/Associated Press)

This week the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a so-called “special message” to blast Trump’s deportation Leviathan, decrying its “vilification of immigrants” “the, indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and how hundreds of thousands of residents have “arbitrarily lost their legal status.” Citing passages from across the Bible — the Gospel, the Old Testament, the Letters of Paul — to argue for the human worth of the undocumented and the holy mandate that we must care about them, it was the first time since 2013 that American bishops collectively authored such a statement.

Even as a majority of U.S. Catholics have gone MAGA, support for the special message was overwhelming: 216 bishops voted in favor, 5 against, and there were 3 abstentions. Their missive even concluded with a shout-out to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the brown, pregnant apparition of the Virgin Mary who’s the patroness of the Americas for Catholics.

Talk about someone who would get deported if la migra saw Her on the street.

The cruelty this administration has shown throughout its deportation campaign — families torn apart as easily as the Constitution; U.S. citizens detained; wanton federal violence that a federal judge in Chicago described as “shock[ing] the conscience” — has become one of the most pressing moral issues of our times. The call by Catholic bishops to oppose this wrong is important — so like a voice crying in the wilderness, the church must set an example for the rest of the country to follow.

This example already is being set in parishes across Southern California.

Priests and deacons have marched at rallies and prayed for those detained and deported from Orange County to downtown L.A. and beyond. Dolores Mission in Boyle Heights has let local activists stage know-your-rights workshops since Trump won last November. While L.A archbishop José H. Gomez and Diocese of Orange bishop Kevin Vann, the two most senior Catholic prelates in the region, have spoken out forcefully against immigration raids, some of their local brother bishops have pushed harder.

Diocese of San Bernardino Bishop Alberto Rojas has allowed Catholics who are afraid of la migra to skip Mass since July after immigration agents detained migrants on church property, arguing “such fear constitutes a grave inconvenience” for his flock. In San Diego, Bishop Michael Pham — who’s been in his seat for only four months — helped launch a program encouraging religious leaders to accompany migrants to immigration court to bear witness to the injustices inside and has participated himself.

Expect to hear gnashing of the teeth from the conservative side of church pews about how everyone should respect the rule of law and to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s as if there ever was a Pope Donald. Already, Trump border czar Tom Homan has cried that the bishops are “wrong” for issuing their pro-immigrant letter and suggested they focus on “fixing the Catholic Church.”

But Homan’s dismissal and that of his fellow travelers doesn’t make the bishop’s admonition against Trump’s policies any more prophetic. The president’s immigration dictates are out of Herod — no less an authority than Pope Leo described them in October as “inhuman,” told a delegation of American bishops that “the church cannot remain silent” on those outrages and stated in a separate speech that such abuse was “not the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather grave crimes committed or tolerated by the state.”

The Catholic Church never will be as progressive as some want it to be. Even as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released its message, the group elected as its next president Diocese of Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley, whose public politics have so far mostly aligned with those of his deep-red state. But on the issue of dignity for immigrants during the Trump era, U.S. bishops have been on the right side of history — and God. They criticized Trump’s Muslim ban and his move to separate undocumented parents from their children during his first administration and have kept a watch on his attempt to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows some people who came to this country as children to legally remain in the U.S.

We’re about to enter the Christmas season, a holiday based on the story of a poor family seeking shelter in an era when their kind was rejected by the powers that be and ultimately had to flee home. It’s the story of the United States as well, one too many Americans have forsaken and that Trump wants all of us to forget.

May Catholics remind their fellow Americans anew of how powerful and righteous standing up for the stranger is.

In September, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, depicted as Lt. Col. Kilgore, the gung-ho warmonger memorably played by Robert Duvall in Francis Ford Coppola’s messy masterpiece, “Apocalypse Now” — except the graphic bore the title “Chipocalypse Now.”

Trump sent out the message as his scorched-earth immigration enforcement campaign descended on the Windy City after doing its cruelty calisthenics in Southern California over the summer. Two months later, the campaign — nicknamed “Operation Midway Blitz” — shows no sign of slowing down.

La migra has been so out of control that a federal judge issued an injunction against their use of force, saying what they’ve done “shocks the conscience.” Among other outrages, agents shot and killed an immigrant trying to drive away from them, ran into a daycare facility and dragged out a teacher and tear-gassed a street that was about to host a Halloween kiddie parade.

I had a chance to witness the mayhem it has caused last week — and how Chicagoans have fought back.

The University of Chicago brought me to do talks with students and the community for a couple of days, including with members of the Maroon, the school’s newspaper. Earlier in the week, Fox News put them on blast because they had created a database of places around campus where la migra had been spotted.

Good job, young scribes!

In Little Village, pocket Patton meets his match

After my speech at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, I noticed someone had hung whistles around the neck of a bronze bust. Whistles have become the unlikely tool of resistance in the city, I wrote in a columna — something that I argued Latinos nationwide had also employed metaphorically with their election night clapback at Republicans.

When I woke up Thursday morning at my tony hotel, the Chicago Tribune’s front page screamed “Use of Force Under Fire” and focused on the actions of commander-at-large Gregory Bovino. You remember him, Angelenos: he’s the pocket Patton who oversaw the pointless invasion of MacArthur Park in July and seemed to spend as much time in front of cameras as doing his actual job.

Bovino has continued the buffoonery in Chicago, where he admitted under oath to lying about why he had tossed a tear gas canister at residents in Little Village, the city’s most famous Mexican American neighborhood, in October (Bovino originally said someone hit him with a rock).

I Ubered to Little Village to meet with community activist Baltazar Enriquez so we could eat at one of his neighborhood’s famous Mexican restaurants and talk about what has happened.

I instead walked right into a cacophony of whistles, honks and screams: Bovino and his goons were cruising around Little Village and surrounding neighborhoods that morning just for the hell of it.

From L.A. to the rest of the country, and back

“Every time Trump or la migra lose in something, they pull something like this,” a business owner told me as she looked out on 26th Street, Little Village’s main thoroughfare. Customers were hiding inside her store. Over four hours, I followed Enriquez as he and other activists drove through Little Village’s streets to warn their neighbors what was happening.

The scene played out again in Little Village on Saturday shortly after I filed my columna, with Bovino holding a tear gas canister in his hand and threatening to toss it at residents, openly mocking the federal judge’s injunction prohibiting him from such reckless terrorizing (Monday, the Department of Homeland Security claimed agents had weathered gun shots, bricks, paint cans and rammed vehicles). And to top it off, he had his officers pose in front of Chicago’s infamous stainless steel bean for a photo, just like they did in front of the Hollywood sign (Block Club Chicago reported the funboys shouted “Little Village” for giggles).

Given ICE just received billions of dollars in funds to hire more agents and construct detention camps across the country, expect more scenes like this to continue in Chicago, boomerang back to Southern California and cut through the heart of Latino USA in the weeks, months and years to come. But I nevertheless left Chicagoland with hope — and a whistle.

Time for us to start wearing them, Los Angeles.

Today’s top stories

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) currently faces the lowest approval ratings of any national leader in Washington.

(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

The government shutdown

• Senators approved a deal that could end the shutdown on a 60-40 vote, a day after Senate Republicans reached a deal with eight senators who caucus with Democrats.
• Democrats in the House vowed to keep fighting for insurance subsidies.
• Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is facing pressure to step down as Senate Democratic leader after failing to prevent members of his caucus from breaking ranks.
• States are caught in Trump’s legal battle to revoke SNAP benefits after a federal judge ordered full funding.

A brief bout of summer weather

Courts protect LGBTQ+ rights

More big stories

Commentary and opinions

• California columnist Anita Chabria argues that Democrats crumbled like cookies in the shutdown fight.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom is still writing his path to the presidency. Columnist George Skelton points to Zohran Mamdani for inspiration.
• President Trump’s effort to rename Veterans Day flopped — and for good reason, argues guest contributor Joanna Davidson.

This morning’s must reads

Other great reads

For your downtime

(Andrew Rae / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

Question of the day: What’s one special dish your family makes for Thanksgiving?

Judi Farkas said: “An old Russian recipe that has descended through 5 generations of our family, Carrot Tzimmis was traditionally served as part of the Passover meal. It’s perfect with a Thanksgiving turkey. Tzimmis is sweet, as are so many of the Thanksgiving dishes, so I pair it with a Jalapeño Cornbread dressing and a robust salad vinaigrette so that no one gets overwhelmed. It connects me to my family’s heritage, but repurposed for the holidays we celebrate now.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … the photo of the day

A person surfs at Salt Creek Beach on Sunday in Dana Point.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Juliana Yamada of a surfer at Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martin, assistant editor
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
June Hsu, editorial fellow
Andrew Campa, weekend reporter
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

LITTLE VILLAGE, Il. — The moment I got out of my Uber ride in this West Side Chicago neighborhood, the noise was everywhere.

Honks. Cursing. Screeching tires. Revving engines. Whistles. So many whistles.

Immigration authorities were sweeping through — again. And people weren’t having it.

Old, young, Latino, Black and white, folks shouted warnings from cars and from businesses like a game of Telephone across 26th Street, the heart of this historic Latino community. One of them was Eric Vandeford, who glanced in every direction for any sign of la migra.

“We all surrounded them earlier trying to get someone and they just left,” the 32-year-old said. He looked down 26th. “I gotta go,” he snapped and jogged off.

I arrived at 9:30 in the morning hoping to grab breakfast before interviewing Baltazar Enriquez. He’s president of the Little Village Community Council, a long-standing nonprofit that has added to its mission of organizing food drives and fighting against environmental racism to face off against Trump’s deportation machine.

Instead, I found myself in a chase to keep up with immigration agents.

Residents watch federal agents as they make a stop in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago. Federal agents participating in Operation Midway Blitz engage in daily patrols through the city’s neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs searching for undocumented immigrants.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

Over the last two months, la migra has swept throughout Chicago but has swung its hammer with gusto on Little Village, known as La Villita by residents and considered the Mexican heart of the city. Imagine the density of Pico-Union with the small-town feel of Boyle Heights and the fierce pride of South L.A., then mix in murals and nationally known Mexican restaurants — Carnitas Uruapan, Taqueria El Milagro.

It’s a charming barrio, and it’s been under siege, like many other neighborhoods in the Windy City.

Immigration agents have staged operations in the parking lots of local schools before grabbing undocumented immigrants and citizens alike. When Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino swung by in late October, he tossed a tear gas canister toward a group of protesters filming him, a move so reprehensible that a federal judge issued an injunction banning such force the morning I was in Little Village.

Now, the rumor was that Bovino was cruising around with a caravan.

He’s the man the Trump administration tasked with its deportation deluge in Southern California this summer before moving on to Chicago. In L.A., Bovino mostly mugged for the cameras, like the time he oversaw an invasion of an emptied MacArthur Park in July with the National Guard parked on Wilshire Boulevard. Bovino said it was necessary to stop transnational gangs, but he nabbed no one.

In Chicago, Bovino has dialed the cruelty and spectacle to 11. Residents have responded in kind in a way I haven’t seen in Southern California. Sure, Angelenos have organized block patrols and group chats and enlisted the help of politicians and nonprofit leaders just like Chicago.

But we don’t have the whistles.

They’ve become the fall soundtrack of the Windy City to the point organizers are holding “Whistlemania” events to hand them out by the thousands. Chicago has a radical legacy that predates L.A. by decades — anarchists, socialists and immigrants were fighting back against government-sponsored thugs when L.A. was still a relative cow town.

The suburban apathy that has kept too many Southern Californians on the sidelines as immigration agents sweep into our cities was nowhere to be felt in Little Village. People poured out of businesses and their residences. Others looked out from rooftops. The intensity of their pushback was more concentrated, raw and widespread than almost anything I’ve seen back home.

It wasn’t just the activists on call — block after block was ready.

Honks and whistles went off toward the west. I ran toward them and met Rogelio Lopez Jr. He was going inside grocery stores and discount marts to let people know that el hielo — ICE — was nearby.

Federal agents, including from Border Patrol and the Bureau of Prisons, stop a resident and request to see his proof of citizenship in Chicago. The man produced the required documents and was allowed to go free.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

The 53-year-old Little Village resident was enjoying lunch with his father at Carniceria Aguascalientes the day Bovino unleashed his mayhem nearby. He and other customers bolted to confront the Border Patrol bigwig.

“I’m sure he was thinking, ‘Here’s this guy standing in front of my force with a stupid little whistle in my territory.’ No, you’re in our territory.”

A minivan stopped near us and rolled down its window. “We lost them by Central and 26th!” shouted 32-year-old Mariana Ochoa from the back seat as she held her son on her lap. Joining us now was a masked 18-year-old college student who went by Ella and is a U.S. citizen along with her parents. She rattled off all the locations where her WhatsApp group had spotted ICE that morning. Lopez texted them to his own group.

Ella took a call from her mother.

“I’ll be back home soon, Ama,” the college student said in Spanish. “Love you. Stay inside.”

Angry residents gathered on street corners. Many had whistles — pink, black, orange, green — around their necks. Lopez handed one to Juan Ballena, who immediately used it — a shrill, reedy blast soon answered by others.

He waved up and down 26th Street. “Look at the buildings,” said the 61-year-old. “Closed. Closed. Closed. These migra are ruining a beautiful town.”

Nearby, 64-year-old Flavio Luviano stood outside his wife’s bistro with a whistle in one hand and a laminated know-your-rights card in the other. Business is down — and so is trust.

“I always have the door locked,” said the dual Mexican and U.S. citizen in Spanish. “People will come who aren’t from here and say, ‘Let me in’ and I tell them, ‘No, only with a warrant.’ They get angry, and I say, ‘I don’t care, we need to protect the people we know.’”

Three blocks toward the east, the horns and screams and whistles I had heard an hour ago were going off again. ICE had just passed by.

The stocky Enriquez stood in the middle of the street trying to clear cars whose drivers had tried to block off what they said were undercover immigration agents. People around him were scrambling in every direction while on their phones letting others know what had just happened. “I got their … license plates on my phone!” a woman yelled to no one in particular.

Most had whistles around their necks.

Wearing Crocs, a puffer jacket and sweats, Enriquez looked like a defensive end about to start a training session.

Soon, we were off again.

Border Patrol agent Gregory Bovino speaks with other federal agents during a gas station stop before resuming immigration arrests in Chicago.

(Jamie Kelter Davis / Getty Images)

Esparza and the driver, Lissette Barrera, sped up and down Little Village’s narrow tree-lined streets, many with signs that read “Hands Off Chicago” inside the city’s flag scheme. They alternated between blowing their whistles, pounding on the car horn and yelling “¡Anda la migra!”

Immigration agents always seemed a few minutes ahead. Reports via texts said they were asking people about their legal status. Some were detained.

We finally parked underneath the Little Village Arch, a colonial-style gateway crossing over the part of 26th Street where Uber dropped me off earlier. A crowd was waiting for Enriquez to hear his game plan: “No ramming, no throwing, no nothing. Just follow and film.”

A Chicago police officer passed by. “Ya se fueron [They’re gone],” he told Enriquez very matter-of-factly. “The whistles worked.”

Steven Villalobos pulled up in a raised truck with a giant Mexico flag flapping from its cab. It was his first-ever protest.

“I’ve been seeing this for months and enough was enough — I had to join,” said the Little Village lifer. Near him, Amor Cardenas nodded.

“It sucks that my mom can’t even go to … Ross, bro,” said the 20-year-old. She was still in her pajamas. “You don’t understand this feeling of terror until it’s in front of you. Then, there’s no turning back.”

Barrera and I jumped in the back seat of another car as Enriquez took the wheel. She opened a bag of Sabritones and passed it to two other passengers. The four of them had just returned home on an overnight bus from Washington, D.C., where they participated in an anti-Trump protest at the National Mall.

Enriquez drove slower. He and a volunteer named Lille logged on to Instagram and livestreamed from their respective phones to an audience of about a thousand.

“Those who have papers, come out and patrol,” he said in Spanish in a deep voice. “Those who don’t, stay inside.”

“Tell Baltazar that I’m going to buy him a caguama,” Lille said someone had commented. A tall boy of beer.

For the first time all morning, Enriquez smiled. “Make it two.”

The 46-year-old Enriquez was born in Michoacán, came to Chicago without papers as a child and received his American citizenship thanks to the 1986 amnesty. He cut his activist teeth with the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, before becoming the Little Village Community Council vice president in 2008.

A rapid responder blows a whistle to warn residents of an approaching caravan of federal agents in Chicago.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

Espinoza said the idea of using whistles to alert people about ICE in Chicago started in Little Village but came indirectly from Los Angeles. During a June Zoom call, Enriquez heard activists say they couldn’t communicate with one another while protesting outside the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. after their cellphones suddenly stopped working.

“So I thought we needed low tech to beat that if it happened here,” Enriquez said as we cruised past a city-owned lot where ICE had staged operations weeks earlier. Signs now said immigration agents weren’t allowed. “People at first thought the whistles were a joke. But then we used them once and la migra took off — and it spread like wildfire.”

We were now in nearby Brighton Park. He was following a tip that Bovino was approaching residents himself.

“They just tear-gassed someone!” someone yelled over the phone. “They’re taking people right now.”

The call cut short.

Enriquez tried to speed back to Little Village but hit construction traffic. Barrera jumped out of the car to grab two traffic cones. “To trap pepper balls when ICE fires them,” she explained.

Another call. “They got my son,” a woman quietly said in Spanish.

“Go to the [Little Village Community Council] office and we’ll help,” Enriquez replied.

“I can’t go out. I don’t have papers.”

When we passed an elementary school off Western Avenue, Barrera screamed in Spanish, “Take in the kids because la migra is driving around!” Teachers immediately blew their whistles and rushed their students inside.

Amid the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz, residents watch a parade while celebrating Mexican Independence Day in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood on Sept. 14.

(Brandon Bell / Getty Images)

ICE was out of Little Village — for now. Enriquez logged back on to Instagram Live.

“Good job, guys. Stay on their ICE nalgas.”

We took a right on 26th toward the Little Village Community Center’s small office. “We’re going to take a break,” Enriquez told his audience. We’ve gotta get pizza for everyone.”

Bilingual signs taped to the storefront window read “ICE OUT!” and “Free Whistles.”

“It was just supposed to be the bad people that they were going to target, they told us, but that didn’t happen,” said Nayeli Girón, a 24-year-old student. She wore a jacket that read “Southwest,” the name of a nearby neighborhood. “Every day it’s a different story. That’s why we need to stand up.”

Enriquez told everyone to gather around.

Time to learn how to defuse a pepper ball.

Aside from last season’s glitch, where they failed to lift a major trophy, City have been a relentless winning machine themselves, with six Premier League titles in the last eight seasons, as well as a Champions League in 2023.

In Haaland, they have someone destroying defences with power, speed and clinical finishing.

The 1-0 defeat at Villa Park was City’s first in 10 games and, while they responded with wins over Swansea and Bournemouth, he has not forgotten that blip.

“I didn’t score last game,” Haaland told Sky Sports when asked if he felt unstoppable. “I try to help the team to win – that’s my goal.

“Even by scoring, helping or winning duels, it doesn’t matter as long as we are winning games. I want to help the team become a better football team, that’s my job.”

Haaland’s numbers this term are on a different level. The only other player to score 13 times in the opening 10 Premier League games was Les Ferdinand for Newcastle in the 1995-96 campaign, while Haaland himself managed 15 in 2022.

He has the highest xG (9.20) in the league without scoring a penalty, while he accounts for 65% of City’s goals in the top flight and Champions League – scoring 17 of their 26 goals across the two competitions.

“To give the chances and the passes to him, this is what we have to do,” added Guardiola. “He knows that, but we are so blessed and lucky to have, first of all, an incredible person because he is the sweetest and kindest.

“And he will improve. After that, as a player the numbers are just outstanding.”

Much has been said of City’s over-reliance on Haaland and the need for other players to ‘step up’ and score more goals.

“Of course you want other people to join in and they will eventually,” journalist Julien Laurens told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“But I don’t even know why this is a debate. When you have Haaland and the best finisher in the world right now, it would be silly to even give a chance to anyone else. You want the ball to fall in the box to Haaland 100% of the time.”