Cities and states across the United States are reporting a spike in activity by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the run-up to the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, NPR reported on Friday, October 30. The reports come from residents, local officials and volunteer rapid-response networks — not from ICE itself, which no longer publicly shares timely information about its operations, NPR said.

Source: NPR via KWBU

The clearest account came from Dover, New Jersey. Very early on Wednesday morning, Dover Councilwoman Sandra Wittner began receiving messages about ICE agents — about a dozen or so of them — outside a Walgreens at 5 a.m. In Wharton, very close to Route 80, at the back of a building backing onto a residential street, between 12 and 15 agents in vehicles were seen suiting up and getting ready to go, Wittner told NPR.

Later that day, activists say, another dozen or so cars were seen going in and out of a warehouse owned by the Department of Homeland Security in the nearby town of Roxbury. The next morning, ICE agents were outside a house near Wittner's family home. Wittner said she is not sure who was detained or where they were taken. 'There was definitely a lot of apprehension and fear yesterday,' she said. 'We just really weren't sure if something huge was about to happen.'

NPR said reports of a surge of ICE arrests in recent weeks and days have also come from rural Illinois, Oregon, Detroit and throughout California, as well as from New York City. A New York rapid responder — a volunteer with a neighbourhood group that goes to the scene of ICE operations, who asked NPR not to use her name because she fears retaliation — said: 'We're certainly witnessing an uptick in activity and have been since the summer. In the past few weeks, we've seen numerous large operations or what we call cluster raids, of multiple agents going to one spot and then to a next.' NPR said it reviewed and confirmed video of one such operation.

Across the country, Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Troy Brynelson has reported a similar trend in Portland. 'What we were seeing in early October and what we've seen continue, at least anecdotally, throughout this month is that ICE activity's really picked up in Portland,' Brynelson said. 'I'd say it's a noticeable uptick compared to what we've seen over the summer.' OPB's earlier reporting in the first week of October documented a sharp increase in immigration arrests around the Portland metro area, including at least nine people detained on October 6 across Gresham, Troutdale and parts of eastern Portland, according to an immigrant-rights coalition — separate reporting that supports the pattern NPR described on Friday.

Source: Oregon Public Broadcasting via AILA news clips

Why the timing matters: four days to Election Day

The reports land four days before the November 3 midterms, in which control of Congress is at stake, and they arrive alongside a separate, already-decided point readers should keep distinct: the Justice Department told a federal court on October 28 that no FBI or ICE employees will serve as election monitors at polling places. That filing covers monitors only — it does not address ICE enforcement activity near polls outside the monitoring program, and NPR's reporting is about enforcement in neighbourhoods, not about polling places.

Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law told NPR she is concerned the timing is meant to intimidate voters. 'The tactics that the administration has been deploying in communities really appear to be designed to try to intimidate voters, even election officials, and to keep people from voting,' she said. That is her assessment, presented as an allegation about intent; the administration has not said enforcement is linked to the election, and ICE's statement to NPR made no mention of the midterms. Weiser also reminded listeners that intimidation at the polls is illegal and should be reported.

Background: a year of expanding enforcement, and a higher daily target

The reported spike sits inside a longer escalation. Earlier in October, CNN reported that ICE leaders had told agents to ramp up daily immigration arrests as the midterms approached, reviving a goal of 3,000 arrests a day — 1,000 more than the previous target — according to the AILA news summary of that reporting. ICE arrests already surged over the summer, with around 100,000 arrests in July and August reported in NPR's earlier Roxbury investigation. DHS no longer shares timely operational details publicly, which is why the current picture is being assembled by local officials, responders and reporters city by city, and why exact arrest numbers for this week cannot yet be verified.

What this means for Punjabi and immigrant families

New Jersey is one of the largest Punjabi diaspora hubs in the United States, and Dover and Wharton sit in Morris County, within commuting reach of the Edison and Jersey City communities. For naturalized citizens and permanent residents in those communities, the practical points from the reporting are narrow but important: a monitor or an agent has no power to stop a lawful voter from voting; intimidation at the polls is illegal and can be reported; and anyone approached by agents can ask to see a warrant — a point responders are heard making in the video NPR reviewed. Families should rely on official election information for where and how to vote, and treat unverified social-media raid claims with caution, because neither ICE nor DHS has published a list of this week's operations.

What happens next

Voting concludes on Tuesday, November 3. Watch for three things before then: any official ICE or DHS statement confirming or denying a pre-election surge, with numbers; any court action in the pending lawsuits over federal agents and polling places; and whether the early-voting surge Weiser described holds through Election Day — she noted that, so far, participation has surged in communities of colour and Latino communities despite the enforcement reports. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if ICE publishes verifiable arrest figures for the operations reported this week.

Sources: NPR (Jasmine Garsd), 'Cities across the country report spike in ICE activity ahead of midterm elections,' October 30, 2026; Oregon Public Broadcasting reporting on the early-October Portland increase, summarised in AILA Daily Immigration News Clips, October 8, 2026; CNN reporting on ICE daily arrest targets, via the same AILA summary. ICE's statement is quoted from NPR's account of its response.