National

Biweekly emerging monitoring trends on key developments and drivers of political violence.

Recent reporting indicates an immigration enforcement surge will likely take place in and around New Orleans in the coming days. Border Patrol officials and agents who previously deployed to Chicago and Charlotte will be in Louisiana, suggesting similar tactics may be used in New Orleans. Local protests have already occurred in advance of the deployment. Drawing on the latest analysis from BDI, this advisory provides context, risk & implications, and resources ahead of the possible deployment.

Following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September 2025, threats and harassment spiked sharply nationwide. In the days after Kirk’s death, a wide range of teachers, professors, journalists, and everyday citizens were targeted with doxing and harassment over real or perceived criticisms of Kirk and his organization, Turning Point USA. The latest data collected by BDI shows that local officeholders were also chief targets of this campaign, highlighting how incidents of political violence can rapidly escalate into widespread intimidation of public officials and civil society.

Local monitoring is essential for identifying early warning signs. BDI produces regular national situation reports (SitReps) on key risk trends at the national and state level, disseminated to a vetted list of community leaders and organizations.

This memo covers insights from a dozen interviews with local elected officials in November 2025.

Threats and harassment against local officials decreased from October to November. The latest Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) update adds 60 new threat and harassment events to the dataset, including 18 for November, bringing the total number of events captured so far in 2025 to over 500. Community-specific issues remained a consistent driver of incidents for the month, though to a smaller extent compared to previous months. So far this year, THD has no recorded threats or harassment against election officials and and has seen fewer election-related grievances, compared to the years preceding the 2024 presidential election.

Biweekly emerging monitoring trends on key developments and drivers of political violence.

Local monitoring is essential for identifying early warning signs. BDI produces regular national situation reports (SitReps) on key risk trends at the national and state level, disseminated to a vetted list of community leaders and organizations.

A bi-monthly newsletter to share updates from BDI and our network of trainers and practitioners. Tools for non-violently navigating conflict are essential to a healthy democracy. To increase access to these resources, BDI created the Community Safety and De-Escalation Directory - an interactive platform to connect users with a curated network of community safety, de-escalation, and bystander intervention trainers from all around the country.

Threats and harassment against local officials decreased from November to December. The latest Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) update adds 40 new events, including 14 incidents for December, bringing the total number of events captured in 2025 to 550. In contrast to previous months, no cases with community-specific grievances were tracked in December. Instead, December saw a slight increase in immigration-motivated targeting related to local decisions about cooperation with ICE.