by Mica Rosenberg and Jeff Ernsthausen ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published. The chief of police in Whitewater, Wisconsin, didn't ask for the moon in late 2023 when he wrote to President Joe Biden about the hundreds of new Nicaraguan migrants who'd arrived in his city over a whirlwind span of two years. All of a sudden, he wrote, his 23 sworn officers were dealing with three times the number of drivers without licenses on local roads.Biden administration officials didn't get back to the chief for almost two months. And when former President Donald Trump learned about Whitewater's predicament, he seized on it as further evidence that the United States was being overrun by migrant crime" and promised voters he would conduct the largest deportation in American history," though that's not at all what the chief was asking for, much less how he saw his city.The small Wisconsin town is one of a number of American communities that have experienced the strains of a new phase of immigration whose origins and meaning have been obscured during this year's presidential election by Trump's incendiary rhetoric and the reluctance of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, to clearly address the Biden administration's track record on the issue.In the coming days, ProPublica will publish a series of stories that we hope will be of use to voters, especially those focused on immigration as a key issue. We aim to provide a more complete picture of what's happening on the border and in cities and towns across the United States. Amid the misleading bombast of the campaigns, our reporting on the ground and analysis of government data will explain the real challenges - as opposed to the ones being made up to scare you - posed by immigration trends at the Southwest border over the past decade. We've found that what's changed most about the border isn't just the number of migrants coming across. It's who's coming and how. Many of today's migrants are coming from new places and in new ways that make their arrivals more visible and, at times, more costly to the communities where they settle. And those changes are coinciding with, if not helping drive, a hardening in public opinion.Our analysis of immigration court and census data found that while the number of times U.S. officials encountered migrants at the border spiked in the past three years, only a small share of Americans live in neighborhoods that saw a significant number of new arrivals when compared with their populations. We found that migrants were concentrated in relatively few places around the country.In places like Whitewater that were ill-prepared for those increases, the new arrivals created small pockets of upheaval that, thanks to television and the internet, spilled into the public consciousness. Meanwhile in large Democratically controlled urban centers like New York and Chicago, where migrants have settled for generations, the new arrivals _- including some bused north by Republican governors seeking to make political points - strained resources in ways that set off flashes of resentment.In Denver last year, taxpayers watched their city government provide months of free housing to Venezuelan migrants, while many in its long-standing homeless population languished on the streets. In Belle Glade, Florida, a farmer who'd long depended on immigrant labor had a change of heart after he became a state lawmaker, helping pass restrictions against hiring undocumented workers.And at the border, in Del Rio, Texas, residents who had long been accustomed to the rhythms of crossings between the U.S. and Mexico were shaken by the swift and sudden arrival of nearly 20,000 predominantly Haitian migrants - a number that amounts to more than half the local population. Three years later, residents fear that such a destabilizing event could happen again. One Democratic candidate for sheriff there has taken positions so openly critical of his own party that local Republicans invited him to join their side. The Biggest Change at the Border Isn't Just How Many People Are Crossing - It's Who's Crossing and How More migrants crossed the border without getting caught in the early 2000s. But today's migrants are more likely to turn themselves in to authorities, often seeking asylum. Note: 2022 and 2023 unapprehended crossings are based on unpublished government estimates. Public opinion polls show that concern and confusion about immigration persist among Americans beyond Del Rio. To understand why, consider the chart Trump shared with his supporters during a rally in July in Butler, Pennsylvania. It showed the numbers of migrants encountered at the Southwest border over the past decade. Trump turned to it in the split second a would-be assassin's bullet grazed his ear. He says he loves the chart, even gushing about sleeping with it, because it probably saved his life. But the reason he's continued to display it at subsequent rallies is that it shows the record jump in encounters that occurred under Biden and Harris, which he says is evidence of the administration's failure.What Trump doesn't say is that the increase actually began while he was still in office. Meanwhile, Harris has touted the tough asylum restrictions the Biden administration has imposed this election year that have led to dramatic decreases in the number of illegal crossings. But she doesn't talk about why it took so long to do so. And she says even less about how some of her own allies accuse her of adopting immigration proposals they say are similar to Trump's.Voters could be forgiven for not knowing whom to believe, for feeling there is an unprecedented crisis at the border. But in past years, according to government estimates, there were many more migrants who crossed into the U.S. illegally and didn't get caught. It might not come through in Republican talking points, but those of us over 20 have probably lived through periods of higher rates of border crossings before.Shifting Demographics The migrants arriving in the past few years came from a broader array of countries, including some that either can't or won't take them back. In some cases they've landed here without established networks of relatives who could support them. Those let in to pursue asylum claims are allowed to stay until their cases are resolved by the woefully backlogged immigration courts, a process that can take years. Many won't ultimately qualify, but in the meantime they can apply for work permits and for some public benefits. There are now around 3.5 million pending cases in the immigration court system, up from some 400,000 a decade ago.Former President Barack Obama oversaw the beginning of these major shifts when he took office in 2009. It was the end of a decade when over 90% of the millions arrested trying to illegally cross the border were from Mexico, and most were single adults. His administration actively pursued border crossers at a rate that outraged immigration advocates, who derisively dubbed him the deporter-in-chief."In his second term, an increasing number of Central American children and families began coming mostly from a region known as the Northern Triangle: El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. This was the first sign of the trend in which more people started crossing the border and didn't attempt to avoid Border Patrol, but instead turned themselves in to ask for asylum. Under U.S. and international laws, they couldn't be sent back to a place where they could face persecution.Obama couldn't easily deport them, but detaining children and families became a losing logistical, humanitarian and political proposition. The numbers of people arriving were at the lowest levels since the 1970s, partly because of the administration's crackdown on many border crossers and because the country was recovering from a recession, when fewer jobs were available.Enter Donald Trump, gliding down an escalator to announce his first presidential bid in 2015. The years of low numbers of border crossings didn't stop him from casting the situation as a crisis and making the construction of a border wall one of the pillars of his campaign platform.After taking office in 2017, Trump didn't make much progress on building a wall, but he made strides overhauling the country's asylum system. He argued that because so many migrants are ultimately found to be ineligible for asylum in court, they were using the process as a loophole to gain entry to the U.S. His administration moved swiftly to enact new restrictions, including forcing tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for court hearings and separating parents from their children at the border.Crossings still rose sharply in 2019, going so high that Trump officials said the system was at a breaking point" and, in turn, released hundreds of thousands of migrants into the U.S. After the pandemic began in March 2020, the Trump administration used a public health policy known as Title 42 to allow border agents to expel migrants to Mexico without giving them a chance to seek asylum.Trump's policy helped usher in another shift in new migration patterns. Mexico initially only agreed to accept expulsions of its own nationals and those from some Central American countries under Title 42. Almost everyone else couldn't be expelled, and many who hoped to claim asylum were released into the United States. Thanks in part to social media, word got out among migrants in nations that were being convulsed by conflict, political turmoil and natural disasters, and people from other countries began coming to the border in larger numbers.When Biden took office promising a more humane approach to immigration, that trend exploded. He initially kept his word and quickly overturned many of Trump's policies. But he left Title 42 in place even after the pandemic began subsiding.Media reports showed thousands of men, women and children making perilous journeys through the inhospitable jungle region between Colombia and Panama known as the Darien Gap. People from China, India and West Africa were paying smugglers tens of thousands of dollars in some cases to fly them to Nicaragua and deliver them to the Southwest border. News stories then showed them illegally crossing the U.S. border by clamoring under razor wire and wading across the Rio Grande but then immediately turning themselves in to officials.By 2023, when encounters at the Southwest border reached an unprecedented 2.5 million, just 29% were from Mexico, 20% were from northern Central America and the rest came from dozens of nations around the world. As more Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans arrived, those countries' poor diplomatic relations with the United States made it difficult to quickly remove them. Haitians also came in large numbers, including many who had already left their country and were living in South America.Much like what happened in 2019 under Trump, the soaring numbers of families and migrants coming in large groups overwhelmed the border's infrastructure. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents didn't have the capacity to either detain or deport the migrants they were apprehending, so they began releasing more of them into the United States.Legal, but in Limbo Removals and Releases by U.S. Customs and Border Protection With no clear place to go, migrants gathered on the streets of U.S. border cities. The Republican governor of Texas paid to bus people north to Democratically controlled cities like Chicago, where families ended up sleeping on the floors of police stations.New York's laws, which guarantee shelter to everyone, made the city a particularly attractive destination. As the numbers of migrants arriving there swelled beyond the capacity of the shelter system, Mayor Eric Adams sided with Republicans in criticizing his own party's management of the border.Recent data shows that more than 200,000 asylum-seekers have accessed the city's shelter system since 2022. As of August, tens of thousands were Venezuelans, who had a relatively thin network of relatives and friends to help integrate them into the city. Their arrival stands in stark contrast to Chinese immigrants who came to New York in similar numbers as Venezuelans. But, due in part to the city's large Chinese population, they did not depend anywhere near as much on the city shelter system.Facing criticism from both parties, the Biden administration tried to deter migrants from risking their lives to cross the border illegally and turn themselves in. Instead, it wanted them to go to a legal port of entry. In May 2023, when Title 42 was lifted, officials implemented a new rule that barred most migrants from requesting asylum unless they made an appointment to approach the border using a government app called CBP One. The app allows only 1,450 slots per day, causing thousands of people to wait in Mexico, where they routinely fall prey to criminal groups.Beyond those migrants released into the country at the border through CBP One, around 828,000 have been allowed to enter through new temporary humanitarian parole programs. Most of those people applied from abroad and have a U.S. sponsor.In June, the Biden administration took the restrictions further. It barred most people from requesting asylum at the border when crossings reached a certain threshold, but it set that limit so low it essentially made the ban permanent. In addition, Mexico agreed to work with the Biden administration to keep migrants from reaching the border by stepping up its own enforcement. The administration says the efforts have allowed the government to vastly speed up screenings and deportations and have reduced releases, while allowing exceptions for unaccompanied children and trafficking victims. Advocates for immigrants slammed the rule as mirroring measures put in place by Trump and said it is putting people with legitimate claims at risk. But the measures have had an impact. The number of people crossing illegally in July and August, after the rule went into effect, dropped to the lowest levels in four years.Demand for Workers Whether they cross the border undetected, turn themselves in and ask for asylum or are granted parole, migrants are drawn to our southern border by the opportunity to work. When businesses across the country were shuttered in early 2020 by the pandemic, border encounters briefly plummeted. In the recovery, American companies created more jobs than there were unemployed people to fill them.There's the elephant in the room: There's just a lot of jobs, and people want to come," said Dany Bahar, an economist at the Washington-based Center for Global Development who has researched border crossings and labor market tightness. He said that as the U.S. population ages, the need for workers from elsewhere is only going to grow. I haven't seen any politician talk about this, neither Democrats or Republicans."Only a limited number of temporary visas and green cards are made available each year for those wanting to migrate to the U.S. legally for work, while refugee admissions - which can lead to U.S. citizenship - are also capped. Those numbers are ridiculous when considered alongside the size of our economy and U.S. workforce," said Leon Rodriguez, who directed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Obama administration.In a recent interview with The New York Times, Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, said the unemployment rate - which has remained low despite the increase in recent immigrant arrivals - did not account for the millions of disaffected and disabled American workers who had dropped out of the labor force because they couldn't compete with migrants who were willing to accept below-the-table wages."But what Vance didn't say was that Republicans and conservative groups have opposed efforts to significantly raise the federal minimum wage. Meanwhile both campaigns offer many more proposals for expanding border security than they do realistic ones to address our country's dependence on migrant labor. Nor do they talk about plans for cracking down on employers who exploit immigrant workers.In Houma, Louisiana, a shipbuilding company with millions in federal contracts embodies the debate. Campaign finance records indicate that the company's chief was giving tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to politicians who call for shutting down illegal immigration even as the shipbuilder struggled to deal with a nationwide shortage of welders. Through a contractor, it employed a young, undocumented man from Guatemala, according to his family, to do the dangerous work of helping to build one of the country's most sophisticated ships. After he died on the job, the worker's family said, the company gave them nothing, nor is it required by law.The company did not respond to requests for comment.Hardening Attitudes Americans' Views on Whether Immigration Should Decrease, Increase or Stay the Same Going into this election, recent Gallup polls have shown that across party lines, a growing number of Democrats, Republicans and independents believe immigration levels should be decreased. Another recent poll found a majority of Americans support some form of mass deportation.Mike Madrid, a Republican pollster, said immigration is an emotional issue for voters rather than a rational one. He said it literally defines who we are as a people," adding, It's how we perceive the world through our racial and national identity and, at the same time, plays to our worst fears as human beings when people who are not like us end up in our neighborhoods and communities."It's no surprise that the findings of those polls are reflected in the presidential campaigns. Just like he did when he ran against Hillary Clinton, Trump makes every effort to keep the issue high on voters' minds, resorting to nativist rhetoric when talking about immigrants and their impact on the country. The Biden administration has imposed restrictions on asylum much like Trump's, and Harris makes clear that she will embrace them. At every opportunity that she has to speak about the issue, Harris promises that if she's elected president she will push for the passage of a bipartisan border deal that includes enforcement provisions demanded by Republicans.It's unclear whether she'd be successful. Congress hasn't passed a comprehensive immigration reform package in decades, and Republicans aren't likely to give Harris such an important political victory.Trump's sweeping campaign promises revolve largely around using executive authority to seal the border" and forcibly remove masses of undocumented immigrants from the country. It's highly likely that those actions would be challenged in court, much like many measures were in his first term.What isn't being talked about on the campaign trail is how all the changes in the past decade are affecting communities like Whitewater today. While we won't have a complete picture of the impact of the post-pandemic spike in border crossings until next year, census data shows that - even with all the people who crossed the border in the first years of the Biden administration - the foreign-born share of the U.S. population only increased from 13.7% in 2019 to 14.3% in 2023.The chief of police in Whitewater wasn't asking for the border to shut down, or for all the Nicaraguans who worked in local factories to be deported. But with so many new Nicaraguan drivers on the roads without licenses, he just hoped the federal government might kick in some money so he could hire more staff to help manage the added workload. His concerns are more typical of how people are experiencing the new effects of immigration today. And if you're looking to make sense of the issue before you cast your ballot, then you need to hear from them.About the DataTotal Southwest Border Encounters ChartSource: U.S. Department of Homeland Security data. Encounters include both U.S. Border Patrol arrests and Office of Field Operations apprehensions, which can result in release, detention or removal. Only includes full fiscal years.Unapprehended Crossings ChartSource: U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates of unapprehended crossing rates at the Southwest border. For 2022 and 2023, we used an unpublished government estimate.Southwest Border Encounters by Nationality ChartSource: U.S. Department of Homeland Security data. Includes encounters by U.S. Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations. Only includes full fiscal year data.Individual nationality charts are only U.S. Border Patrol arrests. Monthly data updated through June 2024.Removals and Releases ChartSource: U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Only includes full fiscal year data, which was updated through June 2024.Note: Removals include total deportations, expulsions and returns by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as counted by: Title 8 repatriations, Title 42 expulsions and Migrant Protection Protocols. Releases include: U.S. Border Patrol releases, Office of Field Operations paroles and transfers to Health and Human Services. Data does not include transfers to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, which can result in deportation or release.Data does not include other uncategorized outcomes, which are usually less than 1% of total encounters.Data also does not include humanitarian parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Afghans and Ukrainians, which are not counted in this CBP dataset.Americans' Views on Immigration ChartSource: GallupJob Openings Over Time ChartSource: U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsImmigration Court Data and U.S. Census Data AnalysisFor this story, ProPublica used immigration court records from the U.S. Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review and population figures from the U.S. Census Bureau to analyze how many Americans live in neighborhoods that saw a significant number of new arrivals when compared with their populations. We relied on address information listed on about 4 million immigration court cases initiated since the start of 2021 for nondetained migrants. We did not screen cases out based on their charge or the result of the case, if they reached one (though we examined those in checking our work). Note that migrants entering under humanitarian parole programs and those who successfully evaded border officials likely do not appear in the court data unless they later encountered law enforcement or were placed in immigration proceedings for other reasons. Migrants could also have moved without updating their addresses. For overall population figures, we relied on the 2020 decennial census, while for foreign-born population figures, we relied on the 2019 5-year American Communities Survey. We compared the court data to the population at several geographies: census ZIP code tabulation areas, counties and - in the case of New York - cities. Graphics, design and development by Lucas Waldron, Zisiga Mukulu and Lena Groeger. Melissa Sanchez and Maryam Jameel contributed reporting.

by Ruth Talbot, Asia Fields, Nicole Santa Cruz and Maya Miller, design by Zisiga Mukulu and Ruth Talbot, illustrations by Matt Rota for ProPublica ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published. As homelessness has surged to record levels in the U.S., cities are increasingly removing or sweeping" tents or entire encampments of people living outdoors.Cities say they carry out these clearings humanely with the goal of getting people off the street. But they often result in people's belongings being thrown away. ProPublica found - through reviewing records from 16 cities, reporting in 11 cities and speaking with people across the country - that these actions create a cycle of hardship.Elijah Harris, 38, was living in a tent near Hollywood in January when Los Angeles sanitation workers showed up late one morning. Harris said he left to warn others nearby that the city was clearing the area. He came back to find his tent and its contents gone. He lost everything he needed for his job with DoorDash: his electric bike, ID and iPhone. Elijah Harris, in a handwritten response to a prompt from ProPublica, described the loss of everything he needed to deliver for DoorDash, alongside storage and mail keys, money and all his identification. (Elijah Harris) Losing his phone meant he had to regain access to his DoorDash account. Without his passport and Social Security card, which he said were also taken, that process proved difficult.They ask you to take a picture of the front and back of your ID and then take a selfie to verify it's you, but I couldn't do that," Harris said. It was a disaster."He said he couldn't do his delivery job for months and then had to ride a nonelectric bike, which limited the area he could deliver to and the amount he earned.Los Angeles officials did not comment on Harris' case but said in a statement that the city works to not unnecessarily remove anyone's belongings" and that unattended items are stored or thrown away.Harris, who lives in Los Angeles, said the loss of items he needed to work was a disaster." (Elijah Harris) I was trying to get off the streets, but they set me back. It's not easy getting services, and trying to find work, and trying to save." Harris is one of thousands of people living on the streets in the United States who have been subject to sweeps, the term often used to describe how cities dismantle homeless encampments or clear areas where people are living outside.Cities, including Los Angeles, have policies to alert people before a sweep. In an ideal scenario, city officials said, people would be packed before crews arrive. But advance notice is not always required. Many people told ProPublica they didn't know workers were coming or had stepped away for work, appointments or to find water when workers came. Some were in the process of moving their items but couldn't do so quickly enough. Workers sorted through what's left, sometimes storing items and throwing others into garbage bags or trucks. Crews in Denver throw out the tents of an encampment site in 2020. (Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post/Getty Images) Encampment removals have become more common as local governments try to reduce the number of people living on sidewalks and in other public spaces. They are likely to escalate further after a U.S. Supreme Court decision in June allowed municipalities to arrest or cite people for sleeping on public property even if there's no available shelter.Municipalities are often under pressure from business owners and residents to remove encampments, which officials said can obstruct sidewalks and pose public health, safety or environmental hazards.Many cities told ProPublica that letting people live outside is not compassionate. We cannot allow unsheltered residents to live in conditions that are below what we would accept for ourselves," a Minneapolis spokesperson said in a statement to ProPublica. Two people left a note for cleanup crews in Portland, Oregon, that said they had left for a housing appointment that had taken months to get but would return as soon as they could, according to a photo in city records. (Records from city of Portland, Oregon) Some cities, including San Francisco, characterized encampment removals as a first step toward shelter and housing.We are going to make them so uncomfortable on the streets of San Francisco that they have to take our offer" of shelter or housing, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in July after announcing more aggressive sweeps would take place.Advocates and people living on the streets say encampment clearings perpetuate homelessness.Every time someone gets swept, it just sets us back like 10 steps," said Duke Reiss, a peer support specialist at Blanchet House in Portland, which provides meals and services to those experiencing homelessness. It makes it almost impossible to get people help because everything requires documentation." A log of documents collected during an encampment removal in San Jose, California. Second image: Identification documents taken in encampment removals in Portland. (Documents redacted by ProPublica. City of San Jose, California, and City of Portland.) While many cities instruct workers to store identification, service providers told ProPublica about people they were working with who struggled to access Medicaid, disability benefits, food stamps, sobriety programs and housing after their documents were confiscated in encampment removals.Courts have ruled that the destruction of property during sweeps violates the Fourth and 14th amendments, which prohibit unreasonable seizures and guarantee due process and equal protection under the law.Some U.S. cities have established programs to store belongings - sometimes in response to those lawsuits. But they still have broad discretion over what ends up in the trash. ProPublica found that even when objects taken from encampments are stored, people are rarely reunited with their belongings. Images of the storage facility in Portland (Asia Fields and Ruth Talbot/ProPublica) To understand what governments confiscate and how it impacts people living on the street, we received storage records from 14 cities with large homeless populations and reported on the ground in 11 cities. We spoke to 135 people who had experienced sweeps, and we gave many notecards to write about the consequences in their own words.Over and over, they told ProPublica that having possessions taken traumatizes them, exacerbates health issues and undermines efforts to find housing and get or keep a job. More than 200 additional people who went through sweeps, outreach workers and others who have worked with unhoused people wrote to us echoing these sentiments.The storage records included images and written descriptions of the items cities had collected. Some records described the brand or color of belongings. Others had little detail, referring to most belongings as a personal item" or providing no description at all.Here are just some of the items that were taken. Survival Gear ProPublica saw more than 400 references to tents and over 400 references to sleeping bags or blankets in the logs. Other survival items included a camping stove, a heater, soap, shampoo, toothpaste and deodorant. (Photos from Portland, Oregon, and San Jose, California) In the three years Steven lived outside around Little Rock, Arkansas, he said he got frostbite leading to the amputation of his feet.City workers cleared his camp in February after a snowstorm. Steven, 39, who uses a wheelchair, remembers asking for more time to pack. He said he was told no and was only able to gather a pillow, a backpack with some clothing and a Bible. Workers bulldozed everything else, including the tent and bedding that kept him warm.City workers came to his new camp and took everything else. He got frostbite again.Steven got frostbite after two encampment removals where his belongings were taken. (Steven) I would almost say it's borderline harassment, but there's nothing borderline about it." Almost everyone who shared their stories with ProPublica said they lost items needed to survive, such as tents, sleeping bags and blankets.Rebecca Huggins, 33, broke her foot this year and needed surgery. While she was recovering, she slept in a dry riverbed in a Phoenix park. City workers confiscated her tent, umbrella, ice chest, sunscreen and pain medication as temperatures rose to 100 degrees, Huggins said. Handwritten card reading My tent was taken also my blankets, cooler, food, prescription medicines. It made it harder for me to be comfortable in this heat and took my shelter away from me made me feel less safe..." (Here and throughout the rest of the story, ProPublica features excerpts from handwritten cards written by people we interviewed.) It was really hard for me," she said. They took everything, my sunscreen, everything, like all my necessities to be almost comfortable."Violette Loftis, a 42-year-old in Portland, said she's lost tents to sweeps and theft.I've had many tents, and I never had one for more than like a week, if that," Loftis said. I've started over so many times it's like nothing now, but like the first few times I was just like lost."To avoid sweeps, Loftis now sleeps in doorways without a tent. Handwritten card reading I have lost everything clear down to the clothes on my back. I now wear a purse that I wear 24-7. I have no trust and I live like an animal and have serious mental issues because of it. Help it get better." Sometimes the belongings that were taken included supplies purchased using government funding. Portland officials say they regularly dispose of tents; the county has handed out thousands of tents in recent years. In San Francisco, an organizer told us the Department of Public Health hands out hygiene kits that are confiscated in encampment removals. Outreach workers said it can be challenging to get people government-subsidized service again when their phones are taken.We're actually getting money from the city or the county to purchase these things for individuals, and then they're just turning around and throwing them all away the next day," John Rios, a case manager for people experiencing homelessness in Seattle, told ProPublica.A Seattle spokesperson said tents and other gear are stored unless they are wet or hazardous. Work Items ProPublica saw over 150 references to tools and toolboxes in the logs. Other work items included a new work jacket, a chest of hand and power tools, phones and battery chargers. (Photos from Portland, Oregon, and San Jose, California) People experiencing homelessness told us that the confiscation of belongings - such as tools, phones and modes of transportation - limited their ability to work.In Los Angeles, Mario Van Rossen said he lost tools he used to do gardening, landscaping and handyman jobs this year. He had moved his belongings to a nearby street that he thought was outside the sweep zone, but city workers still took the tools while he watched. (Mario Van Rossen) You guys stripped me of my living. I use those tools to make money to hopefully get off the streets." He said he lost more items in another sweep after speaking to ProPublica in June.In early June, as temperatures creeped above 100 in Las Vegas, Dorothy said she ran to grab water. When she returned, her wagon - stuffed with her work clothes, blankets, four tents and eyeglasses - was gone.Dorothy, a security guard, said it would take months to replace what she needed for work.They threw away me and my son's badges," she said. So therefore, we can't go to work."Ronald Brown, 61, was working as a street musician in Portland when he said his tent and the guitars inside were taken.City contractors left cards with their number, but when he called, they said they didn't have the instruments. Brown said he has no idea if they lost or stole them or if someone else took them in the chaos of the sweep.Portland officials said they didn't see instruments in the photos crews took of a sweep in the area. Medical Supplies ProPublica saw over 80 references to wheelchairs or walkers in the logs. Other medical supplies included an oxygen tank, a dose of the overdose-reversal drug Narcan, a first-aid kit, a bottle of migraine relief medicine and a blood sugar monitor. (Photos from Portland, Oregon, and San Jose, California) Outreach workers and people who've experienced removals told us of the loss of CPAP machines; antibiotics; Narcan to reverse drug overdoses; medications for blood pressure, diabetes and seizures; wound care items; mood stabilizers; nebulizers; inhalers; insulin; and prenatal items.When medications or medical devices are taken, health conditions can worsen and visits to emergency medical services can increase. Replacing medication and devices can also be expensive.Barbara DiPietro, senior director of policy at the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, said when medications are taken from people it's significantly destabilizing."What would happen if you just suddenly went off all of your medications?" she said. How would that throw your entire body off, but then also your ability to work, your ability to take care of your daily functions?"In the fall of 2023, Greg Adams was sleeping near the Sacramento River when a crew arrived. He said he lost his hiking backpack because he couldn't carry it up an embankment. Inside the backpack, Adams kept Keppra, a seizure medication. It took months to replace, and in that time he said he experienced a seizure, causing him to fall and injure his head. Handwritten card reading My seizure medication motorhome all my belonging. It hurt my head" Sacramento officials said that multiple agencies have jurisdiction over the area.Helen's Hepatitis C medication has been taken multiple times in Portland. For it to be effective, Helen had to finish all of the medication, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.I was flipping out," she said. That stuff's not cheap."Helen had to work with a clinic to get a replacement approved. To keep it safe, she stored it at a local nonprofit.Portland officials say they tell workers to always store prescribed medication.Adam Mora said he had eyeglasses taken in a sweep in Riverside, California, this year. Handwritten card reading My prescription glasses were taken. Have been getting head aches. They just come and throw our stuff away. And they just don't care. Like it was nothing to them. Thank you" His partner said her supply of contacts was also taken.Riverside officials did not comment on specific cases but said they do their work with the utmost professionalism and respect." Clothing ProPublica saw over 1,300 references to clothing or shoes in the logs. That included work pants, socks, underwear and Keds sneakers. (Photos from Portland, Oregon, and San Jose, California) Candince Swarm's boyfriend, Armando, died in July 2021. Swarm, who is 38 and lives in Austin, Texas, kept the shirt he was wearing that day in a Ziploc bag. She described taking it out once: It still smelled like him, you know, and I just missed him so much in that moment and I just hugged the shirt and I cried."In November 2023, city workers told her she had 72 hours to move her belongings. She said workers returned about 48 hours later and crushed her van and everything inside, including Armando's shirt.Jeffery Stafford, in Riverside, said he watched a city crew dispose of his tent, shoes and clothes. They came in with the Bobcat and just picked up whatever they could, threw it in the truck and took it," the 32-year-old said. Afterward, he said, he started wandering the streets," trying to replace his survival gear. Handwritten card reading My clothes because it's hard to keep clean being on the streets so it made me feel insecure to ask people for help." Kayla said she lost all of her clothes when workers removed her encampment in San Francisco in 2020. Kayla's mother had taken her shopping recently.I came back and everything was gone," she said. Handwritten card reading My clothes that my mom had just bought for me. It was really hard to tell her that all the clothes we went shopping together were lost before I even got to wear them." Sentimental Items ProPublica saw over 125 references to belongings described as personal" in the logs. Sentimental items included an American flag, a pink diary, a silver heart ring and a copy of the New Testament. (Personal information redacted by ProPublica. Photos from Portland, Oregon.) Since Teresa Stratton, 61, became homeless with her daughter over a year ago, she'd kept her husband's ashes in an urn made of Himalayan sea salt. Ray, the love of her life," died in 2020.Teresa Stratton said her husband's ashes were taken in a sweep in Portland. (Teresa Stratton) You could see it in his eyes every time he looked at me, how much he loved me." In April, when city contractors came through Delta Park in North Portland, she said Ray's ashes were taken.Portland officials said they didn't see an urn in photos taken by workers. They said depending on how the ashes were stored, they could have been thrown away.Advocates and people experiencing homelessness repeatedly mentioned having ashes taken during sweeps. Handwritten card reading My husband's ashes: I made me feel alone, scared, empty. Now I wonder where he is and if he's all still in his urn and if he's ok. And I hope he's not in the dump." Many cities only store items that cleanup crews deem valuable and in good condition, meaning things like letters and photos can be discarded. In interview after interview, people said the loss of these belongings stuck with them the most.ProPublica saw over 125 references to belongings described as personal."Over six years, Mary and Jeff Yahner said crews in the Phoenix area took their belongings at least a dozen times. They've lost and replaced documentation and clothing. But Mary, 59, gets emotional when she thinks about the loss of blue baby shoes that her son and daughter wore. Handwritten card reading I had my kid's baby shoes w/ me since we became homeless. It was all I had left of them {they are w/ family}. The police/city took them w/ the rest of our stuff. It broke my heart." Harold Odom, 64, has been housed for about seven years. But he still thinks about the family photos, including of his late mother and sister, that he said were taken from him in a sweep in Seattle.It's a sense of loss that doesn't go away," he said. Knowing that my belongings are likely gone for good - trashed or lost forever - fills me with a sadness that's hard to bear."Brandon Lyons, 28, had his belongings taken by Riverside's code enforcement unit last year. Lyons said he and his friends moved their belongings out of the area, but the city still took them when they were briefly left unattended. Handwritten card reading They took my baby pictures and my moms obituaries." Crystal was most devastated to lose a rhinestone crown during a Portland sweep.It was just the feeling when I wore it," she said. Like I was somebody."There were sweeps in the area around this time, but city officials said they didn't find a record of her items. Repeated Loss ProPublica spoke to many people who lost nearly everything they owned repeatedly. They told us how this extreme loss disoriented and demoralized them.After two sweeps in the span of a few months, Jerry Vermillion, 60, said he stopped trying to rebuild and spent most of the past two years in Portland wandering around sleeping in a doorway here, a doorway there, not settled."You better get used to starting over. If you get attached to anything, you'll get devastated," he told ProPublica. Handwritten card reading I felt violated, I felt that no-one cared, and was very hurt and angry." (Luanne Loving, 66, Portland) Handwritten card reading It made surviving day to day life difficult to be able to progress out of being homeless and was a setback that made the depressive state I was in even worse. Then other people would take advantage of me even worse than they already have." (Drew Dinh, 40, Minneapolis) Vermillion is in temporary housing now, as he secured one of 20 spots offered by a local nonprofit. But he said the sweeps did not motivate him to find housing.Even when someone gets off the streets, the loss of what was taken stays with them. Deonna Everett, 68, said the city of Santa Cruz, California, threw away many of her belongings, including furniture she'd saved from when she was housed in early 2024. When she moved into new housing in June, she had only clothes and a few other items.I don't know if anything will ever seem quite right after what happened," Everett said. But I have to keep in mind that there's got to be a light at the end of this tunnel. And so I'm just going to keep a close eye on that light. I hope it'll shine."One person, who asked not to be named because of safety concerns, offered a description for people on the streets: I call us the missing-stuff folks," she said. We're missing our families, we're missing our homes, we're missing our stuff." How We Reported This StoryProPublica received records of personal property collected during homeless encampment removals in 14 cities. Out of thousands of items in those responses, ProPublica chose a small selection to display here, prioritizing notable entries and items representative of those commonly seen.Some records clearly indicated whether an item had been disposed of by the city. Other records did not explicitly list a status for items. When possible, via reaching out to cities or cross-checking against property retrieval logs, ProPublica confirmed that the items displayed were disposed of. When we could not confirm whether an item was disposed of, ProPublica only used items that were not listed as claimed.We verified that sweeps occurred in the geographic area and around the time that our sources described using additional interviews, city data, sweeps schedules or media reports. We also gave cities the opportunity to respond to what would be included in this story, and we noted throughout when they provided relevant context or disagreed with specific details. We verified each person's identity through public records. In one case, due to a common name and difficulty reconnecting with the source, we confirmed the name matched what was given to service providers. We used only first names when people said the publication of their full names would pose safety risks.Get in TouchProPublica is working on multiple projects related to homelessness, and we are committed to hearing from the communities who have experiences and stories to share.

by Talia Buford ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published. ProPublica's Emerging Reporters Program provides support and mentorships to college students who are pursuing careers in investigative journalism and need additional training and financial support to help advance their goals.Participants receive a $9,000 stipend, a trip to the annual NICAR investigative journalism conference, occasional training and presentations by speakers. They'll also be paired one-on-one with ProPublica journalists who can help counsel them on stories, build their connections in the industry and expose them to the varied paths for careers in investigative journalism. Past Emerging Reporters have gone on to work at The New York Times, The Associated Press, Fresnoland, Capital B and other outlets.Our goal is to encourage the next generation of journalists who seek to shine a light on abuses of power and produce stories of moral force that provoke change. In choosing the class, we look for students who demonstrate an early dedication to journalism as a career, through internships, work at local news outlets or work at campus publications. And where those opportunities - which are often unpaid - aren't accessible, we look for other ways the student has shown an eagerness and a drive to learn the craft.The 2024-25 academic year's class of exceptional student journalists are from New York, Connecticut, Georgia, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. Throughout the application process, we were impressed by their experience and their desire to pursue ambitious, important stories so early in their careers. Through their work, the students have shown not only a commitment to careers in investigative journalism, but a desire to build trust and have impact in the communities they cover.As they look forward to a post-undergrad future, like any good investigative journalist, they're thinking about how they can do more in-depth, exciting work.Through narrative, this year's Emerging Reporters have set their sights on covering issues around public transit, affordable housing, the environment and climate change. They want to use audio to make their investigations accessible and digestible to the average listener. Some already work part time for local outlets on pressing community issues, while others are working for print and broadcast student media organizations.Meet our 2024 class:Aisha Baiocchi Aisha Baiocchi is a senior studying journalism and international comparative studies through her dual enrollment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. She is passionate about community journalism and bilingual reporting in Spanish. She is the special projects editor for her university's independent student paper, The Daily Tar Heel. She was previously a metro intern at the Tampa Bay Times and participated in the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' student project.Amira McKee Amira McKee is a senior at Columbia University studying sociology. She is head of investigations at the Columbia Daily Spectator, the campus newspaper, and also is an intern at NBC's Investigative Unit. Over the summer, she interned with The Current, a Georgia-based nonprofit investigative newsroom, investigating traumatic injuries at Hyundai's first U.S. electric vehicle plant. McKee has had internships at ABC New York and the Bronx Times. She also participated in the 2024 Politico Journalism Institute and the Dow Jones News Fund business reporting program. Her reporting interests include labor, policing and economic inequality.Chaya Tong Chaya Tong is a senior at Emory University studying biology and English. She is a part-time investigative reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As an intern, Tong has covered Georgia state politics and policy for the Georgia Recorder, covered breaking news for The Daily Beast, and worked on investigative teams with The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Washington Post. She recently reported in Jackson, Mississippi, covering race and inequity for The Clarion-Ledger. Tong hopes to continue covering issues of race and politics as a journalist after graduation.Trinity Webster-Bass Trinity Webster-Bass is a senior broadcast journalism major and Afro-American studies minor at Howard University. She is president of the Howard chapter of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting and contributes to The Hilltop as an audio producer for The HillTalks" podcast. Her media experience includes internships at WJCT-FM, an NPR affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida, and WHUR-FM's music department at Howard University. She was also the producer of Queer Seminar," the third episode of the 1619: The College Edition" podcast in collaboration with Spotify. Webster-Bass is interested in using investigative storytelling through audio reporting to amplify the voices of individuals from diverse backgrounds.Terell Wright Terell Wright is a senior at Connecticut College studying political economy and minoring in history. He is a contributor to Connecticut Public Radio and The Day. His reporting on Gen Z's struggle to find affordable housing in the region won a 2023 Publick Occurrences award from the New England Newspaper & Press Association for The Day. Wright interned at The Wall Street Journal covering the economy during the 2024 presidential election. Wright is a National Association of Black Journalists scholarship recipient and a Dow Jones News Fund alum. He is interested in humanizing national trends impacting underreported communities. Cedeem Gumbs contributed research.