Hi! I’m back from an amazing week off with my family to celebrate my mom’s 80th birthday. I’m at Poynter’s Women’s Leadership Academy this week with these fantastic people and didn’t plan an edition this week, but wanted to make sure you knew about this training, which is free for Local Edition subscribers. I’ll turn it over to my colleague, Jon Greenberg, to tell you more.

The day after President Donald Trump took the oath of office, Univision Gulf states reporter Lidia Terrazas went to Colony Ridge, a community just north of Houston. Well over 50,000 people live there and many are undocumented.

“We knew it would be targeted at some point,” Terrazas said. “I decided to head out and knock on doors, talk to people and leave my number just in case. A few weeks later, the texts started coming in, videos and photos as well. ICE was in Colony Ridge.”

Texas governor Greg Abbott took to X Feb. 25 to post that a multi-pronged enforcement action had arrested over 100 people. 

“The husband of a woman I talked to ended up getting arrested,” Terrazas said. 

She covered that arrest and has stayed engaged with the people in Colony Ridge.

“We need to follow up constantly, with sources, with families, and with authorities. We are looking at a landscape that is changing by the hour,” she said.

Terrazas joins Beat Academy’s immigration webinar tomorrow to share her reporting tips, including making sure that the people you interview are aware of the risks of exposure. 

She has found TikTok to be a powerful tool. It gives her reports a dose of authenticity and, as people engage with her and she follows new users, it’s become a rich source of story ideas, “almost as good as door knocking,” she said.

Also in the webinar, Syracuse University researcher Austin Kocher walks us through the immigration data that reveals asylum vetting activity down to the local level.

University of Texas-Austin law professor Denise Gilman lays out how the government’s power to detain people without a single hearing has expanded in the shadows. And New York Times immigration reporter Miriam Jordan describes the impact of fear in immigrant communities and the toll it takes on essential businesses, like elder care and agriculture.

For Local Edition subscribers, enrollment is free, and any U.S. journalist who signs up is eligible to apply for an expenses-paid in-person workshop in El Paso, Texas, as well as for one of five reporting grants of $7,500.

We took 25 journalists to El Paso last year, but in 2025, the focus is completely different. It’s no longer about tens of thousands of people crossing the border. It’s about accelerated removals and the sense in the immigrant community that no one is safe. It’s about tariffs and the billions in trade between the U.S. and Mexico. El Paso and its sister city across the Rio Grande, Ciudad Juárez, are at the crossroads, and we’ll be talking to legal aid workers, trucking managers and others who deal with life where the two countries meet.

The immigration webinar runs from 1 pm to 2:15 pm Eastern on Zoom. Click here to enroll and use the code 25BeatAcad100 to get in for free.