The Israeli airstrikes on a crowded central Beirut district after nightfall Thursday came without warning, in an apparent attempt by Israel to add to its long list of top Hezbollah leaders and commanders assassinated in recent weeks.

The airstrikes brought down one entire apartment block – within it, a long-standing Hezbollah office – and damaged another, leaving 22 people dead and the local Shiite community in shock.

“I am surprised by what happened – there is nobody here, just families, and I know them all,” says one man who gave the name Haidar, as he breathed the acrid burnt air that permeated the district Friday and cleared rubble from the crumpled roof of his car.

Hezbollah said Israel’s apparent target, senior official Wafiq Safa, was not among the casualties.

If so, it was a rare miss for Israel, which has demonstrated that its intelligence has thoroughly penetrated the Iran-backed Shiite militia and knocked the once-impervious organization off balance with a steeply escalating string of attacks.

Those blows stretch from thousands of exploding Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies to killing the group’s iconic leader of three decades, Hassan Nasrallah, and launching a so-far limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon. Its air campaign against Hezbollah started with 1,300 airstrikes in a single day.

How Hezbollah is able to respond on the battlefield, amid the most serious setbacks since its founding 42 years ago, could determine the postwar shape of the Middle East.

Hezbollah’s status

At stake for Hezbollah is its reputation as the most powerful arm of the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance”; its ability to continue leading the fight against Israeli and American influence in the region; and its stated role at home as the armed “defender” of Lebanese sovereignty.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week boasted that Israel had cut deeply into Hezbollah’s leadership ranks, saying it had eliminated not only the presumed successor of Mr. Nasrallah, but also “the successor to the successor.”

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

A billboard in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiya features a banner of the organization's late leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated Sept. 27 in a series of Israeli airstrikes, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Oct. 9, 2024.

Israel’s stated war aims are to remove the threat of Hezbollah from its northern border, so that 65,000 displaced Israeli residents can safely return home. Yet Mr. Netanyahu also offered the Lebanese people a stark choice in a video message this week: Reject Hezbollah, he intoned, “to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”

One possible Israeli gain this week may be Hezbollah’s indication that it would consider a cease-fire, without conditioning it on a cease-fire in Gaza, where its Palestinian ally Hamas has been fighting Israel for a year. Much of the Gaza Strip lies in ruin, and more than 41,000 people, civilians and combatants, have been killed.

In the meantime, Hezbollah says it has already stalled Israel’s advance into Lebanese territory, with hand-to-hand combat on its home turf. Still, the Israel Defense Forces published assessments Tuesday it had killed 450 Hezbollah fighters in the previous week of clashes and airstrikes.

Despite a partial disabling of its communications network, Hezbollah has also stepped up coordinated rocket attacks across northern Israel, including one 30-minute volley Tuesday of more than 100 rockets on the northern port city of Haifa.

“On the ground, all Hezbollah can really do now is to hold on, deny Netanyahu his immediate war goals, keep firing those rockets, and let the international community come up with some kind of solution down the road,” says Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based expert on Hezbollah and a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington.

Hezbollah’s remaining arsenal

Israeli troops are trying to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure along four parts of the border. But wary of lessons from 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah last fought an all-out war for 34 days, Israeli forces are being “ultracautious,” he says, and so far only advancing a few hundred yards into Lebanon.

Still in Hezbollah’s arsenal are an unknown number of precision-guided missiles, which can reach any point in Israel but have not yet been substantially deployed. Hezbollah in mid-August reminded Israel of this purported capability in a video of an underground tunnel network. Trucks loaded with missiles, and uniformed Hezbollah operatives on motorcycles, were shown driving through the tunnels.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

A woman looks through the smashed windshield of her car as Lebanese first responders and security forces cope with the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes in a crowded central district of Beirut, Oct. 11, 2024.

Israel says it has destroyed half of Hezbollah’s precision-guided missile arsenal during its air campaign. Some suggest that only Hezbollah’s Iranian sponsors can order their use, since those missiles are widely billed as Iran’s first line of defense against an Israeli attack on Iran.

But there may be other reasons Hezbollah has not yet played this card, says Mr. Blanford, author of “Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel.”

“Right now, Hezbollah doesn’t need to use them. It’s achieving its effects – denying Israel’s 60,000-plus civilians from going back to their homes – by using older systems,” he says.

“At the moment, this is not a full-scale war. It may look like it, but it is not, because infrastructure on both sides is not being deliberately targeted,” says Mr. Blanford, noting that in 2006 the Israelis swiftly knocked out the Beirut airport, port, and bridges.

“Hezbollah said this is going to be a long war, so they are not going to shoot off everything at the get-go,” he says. “I think they are holding it in reserve for the day that it escalates to infrastructure.”

After blows, talk of a cease-fire

Israel may have missed its Beirut target Thursday night. But proof of Israeli intelligence prowess is obvious in the southern suburb of Dahiya, close to the Beirut airport, where Israel last week delivered multiple blows with bunker-buster bombs, over several days, to kill Hashem Safieddine – the man widely tipped to replace Mr. Nasrallah.

A deep crater still seeping smoke is all that remains of Mr. Safieddine’s apparent underground bunker. Addressing fighters this week, Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, a cleric and not a commander, took on a confident and defiant tone, and vowed that “many more residents” of northern Israel “will be forced to flee.”

But he also said Hezbollah would entertain a cease-fire, for the first time not making it conditional on an Israeli cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza.

Such a move comes amid Mr. Netanyahu’s threats to Lebanese to either oust Hezbollah and risk a civil conflict, or risk an outcome like Gaza, “neither of which is tenable,” says Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Buildings, shops, and vehicles lie in ruins after more than two weeks of intense Israeli airstrikes against the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiya, in the southern suburbs Beirut, Lebanon, Oct. 9, 2024.

“What we’re looking at is an escalation on steroids,” she said in a Carnegie media call Wednesday. “I have a lot of concerns that we’re seeing a Gaza 2.0 in Lebanon. A lot of the actions that are being adopted by the Israelis in Lebanon mirror what has already been happening in Gaza, and the goalposts of Bibi Netanyahu are changing constantly.”

Already Lebanese officials say that the national death toll since Sept. 23 has climbed above 2,100. Much will depend on how the Hezbollah-Israel fight unfolds.

“There was a lot of hype around the state of the organization, that they are completely paralyzed and unable to put up a fight against the Israelis,” says Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Carnegie Middle East Center.

Hezbollah went into “autopilot” after the high-profile assassinations and pager attacks, but now appears to have regained some of its footing, with the Haifa barrage “an escalatory turn, in terms of intensity and consistency,” he said in the Carnegie call.

“This is a race between how fast Israel can grab that territory it intends to take in the next phase, whether it be a week or two weeks,” says Mr. Ali. “Or would Hezbollah be, like in 2006, able to slow it down for 30 days? If that’s the case, it’s going to be difficult for Israel – time will not be to Israel’s advantage.”

Yancey County Elections Director Mary Beth Tipton has had a brutal few weeks.

Mrs. Tipton had joked to colleagues before Hurricane Helene hit that it would take a “Noah’s Ark”-sized storm to damage her property – then watched the waters rise in her front yard until they were lapping at her house’s foundation. Her office was forced shut for more than a week in the middle of election season. Roads were impassable.

When she finally got back into the office early this week and first saw her co-workers, she was overcome with emotion. “I lost it. We all did,” she says.

Many of her neighbors have it far worse. Her Appalachian community, north of Asheville deep in the mountains, was one of those hit hardest by the storm. At least 10 people died in the lightly populated county, and 80 others died around the state. Her husband, a semiretired detective, spent the days after the storm working with the county sheriff’s office on search-and-rescue operations, before pivoting to dog teams searching for those who died. Her neighbors are scattered across the state and country – she has heard from voters as far away as Minnesota and Florida, where one voter told her they were preparing to evacuate once again before Hurricane Milton made landfall.

As her community reels, she’s doing everything she can to make sure they don’t lose anything more.

“These voters need to vote. People have lost everything. They’ve lost family. The last thing I want them to lose is their voice,” Mrs. Tipton says.

Hurricane season has put immense pressure on voters and election workers already facing an extraordinary amount of stress and logistical hurdles in the crucial swing states of North Carolina and Georgia – and will likely lead to depressed voter turnout that could potentially swing a close presidential election. Untold numbers of people have been forced from their homes, and election workers are scrambling to get polling locations back online while dealing with challenging situations in their own lives.

And things weren’t so easy before the storm, either. Officials in both North Carolina and Georgia are grappling with last-minute election rule changes and delays. And the onslaught of election-related conspiracy theories since 2020 has led to verbal abuse and death threats against nonpartisan election workers that have intensified in the wake of the storms.

Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle/AP/File

Travis Doss, now the Richmond County elections supervisor, tests voting machines for the county in Augusta, Georgia, in 2018. He says the damage from Hurricane Helene was unlike anything he has seen in the region before.

Florida, which was also affected by Helene, is just now emerging from underneath Hurricane Milton. Millions of people in the Tampa Bay area were under mandatory evacuation orders, one of the largest evacuations in recent Florida history. About 3 million people lost power in the state.

Hurricane Helene’s effect on North Carolina voting sites

In North Carolina, 14 county election offices are still without water. Some early-voting sites won’t be usable because of damage from the storm; other early-voting sites, like local fire stations, are now being used for recovery efforts, or repurposed as shelters and warehouses for supplies. North Carolina officials are still figuring out how many of the 270 Election Day voting sites in the hardest-hit 13 counties will be usable, and how many they’ll need to close or combine with other sites.

In Yancey County alone, all 11 Election Day voting sites are no longer options. Half the building of one elementary school is gone, while another polling place was “completely washed away,” Mrs. Tipton says. One middle school that was supposed to be a voting site is a shelter for displaced people; all the fire stations that double as polling places have been repurposed for emergency response and distribution of supplies.

It’s now nearly a two-hour drive on back roads to reach one corner of the county because the interstate was wiped out, so Mrs. Tipton is pushing to have a voting site just over the state line in Tennessee so those residents can cast their ballots. She plans to head out in an ATV with emergency management officials next week to survey other locations where the Federal Emergency Management Agency can set up tents for voting – but she wants to keep them as close as possible to the original sites to make them easy to find.

“We have no cellphone service, no television, no internet, nothing, so I have to keep it as close to normal for my voters,” she says.

She’s also rushing to replace mail ballots lost or damaged by the hurricane and get mail ballots out to her voters, wherever they may be.

More than 1.2 million registered voters live in the 25 North Carolina counties affected by the storm – roughly 17% of the state’s total electorate.

In North Carolina, new steps to make voting easier

The North Carolina State Board of Elections unanimously passed an emergency resolution on Monday to make it easier to vote in the 13 counties most damaged by the storm. The biggest change is allowing people to hand-deliver their mail ballot anywhere in the state. (They’d previously been required to turn them in at their own county election offices.)

Carlos Osorio/AP

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, is seen during a September election forum in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Counties short on poll workers to run the elections can now recruit people from other parts of the state to work the polls. On Wednesday, the North Carolina legislature approved $5 million in emergency funding for the 25 counties impacted by the storm.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to accommodate the voters, and somewhat take voting to the voters – because they may be isolated, they may be having difficulties getting out of their homes or out of their communities to come to the county seats,” Karen Brinson Bell, the director of the State Board of Elections, said at a Monday press conference.

Conspiracy theorists have made their jobs even harder. False online claims that the storms were engineered by the government to steal homes and resources from North Carolinians, and that the FEMA was involved, got so much attention that Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards put out a lengthy statement debunking those claims. And conspiracy theorists attacked the North Carolina election board’s efforts to accommodate storm-affected voters – many of whom are registered Republicans – as an attempt to boost voter fraud.

“It is not helpful. As a matter of fact, it is a disservice to these people who have already faced disaster and have been put in harm’s way and are hurting. What a disgrace for anyone to try to provide misinformation or disinformation affecting their ability to vote,” Ms. Bell said.

Things aren’t quite as dire in Georgia – but election officials there are still dealing with unprecedented challenges, from power outages to road delays.

“Not in my 58 years of living here have I ever seen that type of mass destruction and devastation,” says Richmond County Elections Supervisor Travis Doss in Augusta.

Sandy to Michael: How other storms have affected voter turnout

Hurricane season comes right before U.S. elections, and Helene and Milton are far from the first hurricanes to affect the vote.

Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeastern United States just a week before the 2012 election, leaving a swath of devastation in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York as well as flooding in parts of eastern Pennsylvania. Turnout dipped significantly in those states. New Jersey, which saw the most widespread damage, saw its total 2012 statewide turnout drop by nearly 6 percentage points from 2008, three times the nationwide turnout dip. Ocean and Monmouth Counties, two coastal areas hit hard by the storm, both saw total turnout drop by more than 8%. An academic study found that voter turnout dropped the most in the precincts most affected by the storm.

Hurricane Michael hit the Florida Panhandle on Oct. 10, 2018. Its aftermath, combined with an executive order from then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott to loosen voting laws while consolidating polling locations in the eight counties most affected by the storm, limiting where people could cast their votes, saw a 7% decline in voter turnout, according to one academic study. That means about 13,000 fewer total votes, in a year where the races for both U.S. Senate and governor were decided by around 10,000 votes. In 2022, after Hurricane Ian slammed into southwest Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis used his emergency powers to allow three counties – all Republican strongholds – to consolidate polling places, extend early voting, and loosen rules around mail ballot requests.

Governor DeSantis has already granted the 13 northern Florida counties hit hardest by Hurricane Helene greater flexibility in sending out mail ballots and changing in-person voting sites, and has indicated that counties affected by Hurricane Milton will get similar treatment.

Even if officials find ways to make the voting systems fully operational, it doesn’t mean people whose lives have been upended by the storms will be able to vote.

“On the hard infrastructure, they do have good resiliency plans, but with respect to enabling access to the ballot, it’s not as strong,” Amy Keith, the Florida executive director of the good-government group Common Cause, said on a press call this week. “Where we’re seeing the weaknesses is really on accommodating individual voters, within the context of a disaster, to be able to access their ballot, register to vote, and make their vote heard.”

Florida election officials will soon face similar challenges as those faced by their colleagues to the north.

“This disaster is not just affecting how we conduct elections. It’s affecting day-to-day life,” said Ms. Bell. Many of these North Carolina communities will be without power, water, internet, or cellphone service for weeks or even months. “Our job is to figure out, as long as there are citizens in those communities, how do we provide them with voting opportunities so that they can exercise their right to vote?”

Jeff Roberson/AP

People ride in the back of a pickup truck on a mud-covered street left in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, North Carolina.

Eric Gillespie put his sandals on, walked outside his house, and stood in awe at the sight of Clear Creek – usually a gurgling rivulet – rushing like a dark torrent.

Then he heard the screams for help. Down a steep bank lay a row of cookie-cutter houses, now up to their eaves in muddy water. Friends and neighbors – some infirm – remained in their homes as nearly 30 feet of water rushed down the French Broad River system, rising in a matter of minutes, trapping a dozen neighbors unable to scramble to higher ground.

“That’s when things got crazy,” says the owner of the Wakey Monkey coffee shop in nearby Saluda. “There was no way to prepare for what happened.”

In a rescue scene replicated over 6,000 times across Appalachia as remnants of Hurricane Helene crashed into the steep terrain, neighbors and first responders rushed to action, using everything from sofa cushions and paddleboards to mules and Chinook helicopters in order to ferry friends and strangers to safety. Over 230 people died in the storm, the bulk of them in Appalachia. The toll includes 11 members of one family in the Asheville suburbs.

“There was both beauty and tragedy in the response,” says Nathan Smith, a pilot from Charlotte, North Carolina, who surveyed the damage as he flew his 1979 Cessna 180 Skywagon on multiple missions into hard-hit county airports.

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

National Guard members and residents organize stuff donated by people to be distributed to victims following the passing of Hurricane Helene, in Hendersonville, North Carolina, Oct. 6, 2024.

Nature’s worst meets America’s best

According to the North Carolina state climate office in Raleigh, Helene poured 31 inches of rain into the Busick, North Carolina, rain gauge, setting off one of the largest national emergency efforts since the flawed response to Hurricane Katrina nearly 20 years ago.

There were slip-ups and mistakes. But to many on the front lines here, the very worst that nature could conjure was met by the very best America had to give.

Now, about two weeks after the floods struck and receded, a drama-filled rescue effort has given way to a full swing clawback as roads open and lights flicker on.

While questions around what aid is going to arrive and when still swirl, what promises to be a long recovery is now top of mind for residents of Greater Appalachia, many of them exhausted and still in shock at the discombobulation not only of their lives, but also of the geography of their valleys.

“Remember that your community is here for you, your state is here for you, your country is here for you,” Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards wrote to constituents on Oct. 2. “Mountain people are strong, and we are resilient.”

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

A sign outside a makeshift communications headquarters shows community spirit in Saluda, Oct. 9, 2024, after historic western North Carolina floods Sept. 27, 2024.

But in Saluda, North Carolina, a railroad stop that became an adventure destination, the tone of the first meeting of the local business association after the storm was subdued at best.

What happens next

The Green River, a world-renowned kayaking destination, could remain impassable for months, if not years, some association members said. With major roads blocked and tourist towns like Bat Cave and Chimney Rock leveled, would anyone show up for leaf-peeping season?

“What happened was scary,” says Emily Lamar, co-owner of The Purple Onion restaurant in Saluda. “What happens next is scary, too.”

Access issues for rescue crews tell that story. There is little way to get from South Carolina to Tennessee as parts of Interstate 40 are washed out. The famous Blue Ridge Parkway is undrivable, covered with trees and washouts. Large parts of Asheville’s quirky River Arts District are smashed. Much of what was the iconic village of Chimney Rock is now wreckage situated downstream in Lake Lure.

“The effects keep rippling out,” says Karen Neff, who moved to Saluda from Florida two years ago.

One analogue is the city of New Orleans, which lost more than a quarter of its population between 2005 and 2011. But just as New Orleans used that experience to strengthen its levees, many here hope these Carolina communities can build back stronger. Hard-hit Asheville, for one, has long debated better flood controls for its vulnerable River Arts District.

“This recovery, it’s going to be weeks, months, years, decades, if it’s ever complete,’’ says Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, professor of policy analysis at the Pardee Rand Graduate School in Santa Monica, California. “Some of this trauma is going to be incorporated into the structure of the community.’’

Pushing back on conspiracy theories

Many who live in these mountains have long been wary of government – a resistance that traces as far back as the Whiskey Rebellion, when Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania fled to the mountains to avoid taxes. Conspiracy theories that the government engineered the hurricane to bias the election and that personal property would be seized if Federal Emergency Management Agency funds aren’t paid back – both false – have taken hold.

“Rumors and misinformation have had real-world effects both in the initial responses and the recovery [in other disasters] and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do here,” says Professor Clark-Ginsberg. Much of the brunt, he says, will be borne by rural and marginalized mountain residents. The Appalachian region is one of America’s poorest.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Christian relief worker Dave Hearn (left) and a colleague talk to local cleanup coordinator Tracy Meink Oct. 9, 2024, in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

For Dave Hearn, director of operations for Crisis Relief & Recovery, a Christian relief agency, distrust comes with the territory. Floridians are familiar with how FEMA and relief systems work. But in Appalachia, the last truly disastrous flood came in 1916, though there was major flooding in 2004.

“Right now, people here are in shock,” says Mr. Hearn. “They’re still processing what happened. So we’re here to educate people – and put an arm around their shoulder.”

Here on the banks of Clear Creek in Hendersonville, survival and community-building lessons have come hard and fast.

In Hendersonville, many of the 20 or so homes damaged in the flood have been gutted down to the studs. Neighbors have set up feeding stations, two local contractors took on leadership roles, and neighbors gathered in small clutches to talk as the work wore on.

Dorota Dmytryszyn, who emigrated from Poland 20 years ago and bought the house on Clear Creek shortly after, was part of the rescue effort – and then had to be rescued herself by Mr. Gillespie and others.

“It taught us one thing,” says Ms. Dmytryszyn. “Safety is elusive.”

Her husband, Mario, shakes his head after a traumatic rescue, in which at one point he was assisting two older people through rapids with water up to his chest. “I’m not sure about rebuilding here,” he says. “I’m not sure about the water anymore.”

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Dorota and Mario Dmytryszyn flank their daughter, Victoria, outside their flood-damaged home in Hendersonville, North Carolina, Oct. 9, which was 11 days after being rescued from flood waters by neighbors.

Unexpected time of reflection

Helping a neighbor clear out a house, Lionel Delavas, a former Californian, picks up a soaked Michael Jackson record and shakes his head. “I love Michael Jackson, but do I really need this?”

“I have a new take on life after all this,” says Mr. Delavas. “I think people had perceptions of each other that broke down as we worked together. There was distrust before the storm that is now gone. It has readjusted people’s focus on what is important. I’m learning when I look at all this stuff, how important really is it? I learned that maybe we can be happier with less.”

In Saluda, lights flickered on at Mr. Gillespie’s coffee shop on Monday. Saluda Elementary School opened back up on Wednesday. The mountains still bore the scars of mudslides, but a fully stuffed food pantry had more donors than customers.

Yet down the road, two main attractions – Green River Cove and The Gorge, a zip line ride – are closed for the indeterminate future.

Ms. Lamar, the Saluda restaurateur, took an all-terrain vehicle ride on Wednesday to inspect the damage.

“The river is not the same,” she says. “The river has changed.”

In the closing stretch of the election, former President Donald Trump continues to emphasize claims of “migrant crime.” On Friday, he spoke in Aurora, Colorado, a city he charges is overrun by a Venezuelan gang. The Republican mayor has said such concerns have been “grossly exaggerated.”

Immigration is a top voter concern, polls show, and Mr. Trump has doubled down on assertions that unauthorized-migrant criminals are endangering U.S. citizens. He’s also raised the profile of murder cases, such as that of Laken Riley, in which the suspects are immigrants who authorities say entered the country illegally.

For her part, Vice President Kamala Harris has largely avoided public discussion of historically high unauthorized migrant encounters with the Border Patrol under the Biden-Harris administration. She has called for more border security resources from Congress and blames Mr. Trump for thwarting a related bipartisan bill for political reasons.

In response to Mr. Trump’s migrant-crime claims, media reports often cite research finding that immigrants – including those who are unauthorized – do not commit crimes at higher rates than U.S. citizens. Some of Mr. Trump’s backers are skeptical of that research.

We lay out some recent high-profile crimes, and examine how research on immigrant crime rates is conducted.

What recent crimes have officials linked to unauthorized-immigrant suspects?

Here’s a sample of high-profile cases that have captured attention in Congress, Trump rallies, and national headlines this year.

• Laken Riley. This February, police found the college-age nursing student’s body in the woods of the University of Georgia campus in Athens.

Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan national indicted for murder, kidnapping, and other charges, has pleaded not guilty. Mr. Ibarra was apprehended by federal authorities in 2022 after unlawfully entering the United States near El Paso, Texas, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson. He was then paroled into the country and released for further processing.

Attorneys for the defendant did not respond to interview requests. The Georgia trial is expected to start next month.

• Rachel Morin. In August 2023, the Maryland mother of five was found dead by a volunteer searcher along a trail in Hartford County.

A grand jury indicted Victor Martinez-Hernandez, a national of El Salvador, with charges that include murder and rape. According to an ICE spokesperson, he attempted to enter the U.S. illegally four times in early 2023, and was repeatedly expelled by the Border Patrol under a pandemic policy.

Through a spokesperson, attorneys for the defendant declined to comment. The trial is expected to start next year.

• Jocelyn Nungaray. Houston police found the 12-year-old dead in a creek in June.

A grand jury indicted Johan Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Pena, both Venezuelan nationals, on murder charges. Both men were apprehended by the Border Patrol near El Paso this year, after entering the U.S. illegally, according to an ICE spokesperson. Both were released into the U.S. with a notice to appear in immigration court.

Mr. Pena is a “documented Tren de Aragua gang member,” according to ICE. The Biden administration has labeled the Venezuelan gang a transnational criminal organization. Attorneys for Mr. Pena did not respond to interview requests. Mr. Martinez-Rangel declined to comment through his legal counsel. A trial start date hasn’t yet been announced.

Do unauthorized immigrants commit more crimes than U.S. citizens?

Overall, research points to no hard evidence that unauthorized immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than U.S. citizens. That said, data collection is limited.

Nell Carroll/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP

Defense attorneys Kaitlyn Beck and John Donnelly present a not-guilty plea for Jose Ibarra to sign May 31, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. Mr. Ibarra, a Venezuelan national, is accused of killing nursing student Laken Riley.

Charis Kubrin co-wrote “Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock,” a review of dozens of studies dating back to the early 1900s. “If we take a very global look at what the studies say, what we know is that immigrants themselves offend at a lower rate than their native-born peers,” says Professor Kubrin, professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine. The studies found that crime rates in cities generally aren’t impacted by immigration.

Among the studies she reviewed, the majority focused on immigrants overall. A smaller number looked at unauthorized immigrants and relied on population estimates from the government and research groups.

Research on the unauthorized population is limited by scarce data collection on its size and related crime trends. The government and several researchers estimate 11 million unauthorized immigrants are living in the U.S., though it’s unclear how recent arrivals may impact these numbers. Experts also raise the likelihood of underreported crimes in unauthorized-immigrant communities. Mistrust of law enforcement and fear of deportation factor in, they say.

In domestic violence cases, for instance, some victims consider immigration consequences beyond themselves, says attorney Rosie Read. “They don’t want to get their partner deported,” she says, though they “want the abuse to stop.”

Another research challenge: Police rarely collect and report immigration status in systematic ways. Texas is an exception. Yet peer-reviewed research conducted in the Lone Star State squares with broader findings.

Between 2012 and 2018, sociologist Michael Light found, unauthorized immigrants in Texas were arrested for felonies at roughly half the rate of American-born citizens.

To compare arrest rates, this study used immigration-status data that Texas receives from the Department of Homeland Security. For the unauthorized population in Texas as a whole, the study relied on data from the Center for Migration Studies of New York, a think tank that promotes “the dignity and rights of migrants.” The think tank’s data is based on census estimates.

Some critics question the accuracy of how such studies determine all who are “unauthorized.” Beyond limitations in research, Jessica Vaughan at the Center for Immigration Studies finds the broader debate “pointless.”

Even if unauthorized immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens, they aren’t supposed to be here in the first place, says Ms. Vaughan, director of policy studies at the organization, which supports lower immigration rates.

Families of victims “don’t really care what the crime rate is among all illegal aliens,” she says. “What difference does it make?”

The important policy question to consider is how to “deal with that fraction of the noncitizen population that has committed a crime,” says Ms. Vaughan. If they’re deportable, she says, “How do we make sure that happens?”

Other analysts warn of warped perceptions. Focus on immigrant crime isn’t new, but Mr. Trump’s concentration on the topic and the immediacy of the internet have raised awareness, says David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. The think tank supports expanding and deregulating immigration.

“We’ve seen immigrant crime be a focus of anti-immigration advocacy for a long time,” he says. “Former President Trump raised that issue to a level that’s really unprecedented in its focus.”

Are violent crime rates by unauthorized immigrants going up?

Again, there are no national rates for this group.

For the country overall, violent crime decreased by 3% in 2023 compared with 2022 estimates, reports the FBI. However, FBI crime data comes with caveats, as not all police departments participate each year.

That said, a think tank has drawn similar conclusions around downward-trending crime. Based on data from 39 cities with varied levels of reporting, the Council on Criminal Justice estimates that, as of mid-2024, most violent crimes fell at or below prepandemic levels. Like the FBI, the council excludes immigration status due to inconsistent reporting from law enforcement.

“Until law enforcement agencies make a decision to collect that information ... we’re going to continue to chase these claims,” says Alex Piquero, professor of criminology at the University of Miami. Other researchers have suggested a link between states with large unauthorized-immigrant populations and higher rates of ID theft, but urge further investigation.

Controversy erupted last month over a letter from ICE to Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas. Mr. Gonzales asked the Biden administration to provide him with information on noncitizen criminal convictions and ICE custody.

Mr. Gonzales made public ICE’s response. The agency said that there were more than 600,000 noncitizens with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges – including about 13,000 convicted of homicide – on the agency’s “non-detained docket,” which means they are not in ICE detention.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson clarified that the list includes people incarcerated in other detention facilities and it involves those who entered the country over the past 40 years or more. Mr. Trump has seized upon the letter to charge, without evidence, that Ms. Harris admitted 13,000 murderers during her term as vice president.

Immigrant advocates, meanwhile, say that xenophobic rhetoric leads to danger. In New York City, advocates point to an alleged bomb threat last month against a migrant shelter.

“We need our elected officials to stop with the horrible rhetoric and the continual scapegoating of immigrant communities,” says Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition. “It’s only putting a target on their back.”

What’s being done to keep communities safe?

Efforts include incentivization of immigrants to report crimes and calls for more local collaboration with federal immigration authorities.

In Wyoming, Ms. Read, the attorney, helps unauthorized immigrants who are victims of crimes apply for certain visas in exchange for aiding investigations. Though securing one can take years, a U visa can lead to a green card.

“When immigrants, authorized or not, are not reporting crimes ... the entire community becomes less safe,” says Ms. Read, legal director of the Wyoming Immigrant Advocacy Project. Congress created the visa in 2000 to “incentivize reporting,” she says.

Advocates for more border security argue that curbing illegal immigration – and increasing deportations – will reduce crime by unauthorized immigrants overall. They also often support dismantling “sanctuary” policies that limit law enforcement collaboration with ICE. The agency calls collaborative custody arrangements with police departments “critical public safety tools,” which also save resources spent on finding suspects at large.

Not all researchers are convinced that such cooperation is effective overall. That includes Professor Kubrin, who calls for more studies about policy impacts on immigrants and their communities – and moving away from a too-narrow focus on crime narratives.

“You don’t hear about the immigrants that come to this country, and are successful, and don’t engage in crime,” she says. “There’s no story there.”

Sue Kim’s first encounter with the sea women of South Korea was as a child. During a visit to Jeju Island, she spotted several women in wet suits putting on face masks. Haenyeo, or sea women, are free divers. Holding their breath, they harvest sea urchins, conch shells, and octopus.

“They just had this very bold, vibrant, confident energy,” says the documentary filmmaker, whose Korean parents emigrated to America. “I had not quite seen Korean women like that before.”

In the 1960s, there were an estimated 30,000 haenyeo. A peak. Now, there are only about 4,000. And they’re mostly grandmothers. Ms. Kim’s new documentary, “The Last of the Sea Women” (debuting Oct. 11 on Apple TV+), chronicles how they’re fighting to preserve their culture. In a Zoom interview that’s been edited for length and clarity, the director spoke with The Monitor about the resilience of the haenyeo.

Tell us about how these sea divers have helped elevate the place of women on Jeju Island.

Starting from the 17th century, these women became the breadwinners of their families. ... That is an island that really has survived and [been] supported off the backs of the labor of these women. If you go to Jeju, you see statues of haenyeo all along the island. It actually became a semimatriarchal island because of this sort of reverence and deep respect and appreciation that they have for the haenyeo. So they’re kind of trailblazers in terms of forging a path for women’s dominance in a society in a way that wasn’t contested [by] the patriarchal society.

Apple TV+

In the 1960s, there were an estimated 30,000 haenyeo. Now, there are only about 4,000. They dive for sea urchins, conch shells, and octopus.

What are the reasons why this way of life may go extinct?

We see this haenyeo school in the film. You can see these women trying to learn how to dive and they’re sputtering and they’re drinking seawater. That’s just part of it. The other part is you have to wake up at four in the morning most days and then dive in the cold ocean for hours. So there’s a physical, rigorous element to the work that can be off-putting for the younger generation.

The larger threat to this culture and this occupation is the environmental destruction of the ocean. Our haenyeo subjects that are in the film now are having a hard time finding enough marine life to sustain themselves financially to continue this occupation. Most of the subjects in our film, they also own farms and they do farmwork.

One haenyeo, Soon Deok Jang, says, “Men can’t handle this job.” Why?

Some of the scientific conjectures about why this might happen is that they thought women have a little bit more body fat and that could help contribute to being able to stay in the freezing cold water for longer periods of time. If you talk to Soon Deok Jang, there is this other philosophy, which is this idea of resilience and determination. They actually had to do it because the men stopped doing it at some point in history. There was also a very famous massacre that happened in Jeju. It’s called the 4/3 [April 3] massacre. This happened in 1948 [through 1949]. ... That left a lot of families without fathers, without husbands. So the women necessarily had to become the breadwinners and the backbones of their families. That’s when a lot of them really came to the haenyeo culture. They just have this reputation now of being absolutely determined, resilient, and enduring.

What did you learn about how haenyeo defy expectations of aging?

These are elderly women. But the minute they get in the water, they are elegant and athletic and so graceful. We didn’t even know this till we were really deep into filming with them, but they’re all widows. So these women have already outlived their husbands and they just have this physical agility that I think is built into them from decades of doing physically rigorous work. So it is a mental attitude.

The documentary also follows two young women who have become haenyeo. What do they love about their job?

They both came to this ancient, centuries-old tradition and occupation for very postmodern reasons. The younger haenyeo is 30 years old. She was working in an office, in a windowless cubicle for hours at a time. She really hated that life. Then she discovered the haenyeo occupation and discovered that she could work in the ocean for hours a day. Having that job revolve around being connected to the ocean, being connected to nature, utilizing her physicality, all of that was what she was looking for that she couldn’t find in her office life.

And then Jeongmin has a really interesting storyline. She didn’t even swim. I think she learned when she was 30, but she came to the haenyeo culture and tradition because her husband lost his job. They had three kids. She found this occupation. She can pick her hours around her children’s schedule. So she came to it because it was one of the very few occupations available for women in Korea that fully allow them to be as present for their families as they need to, and also bring in some financial income to the family.

What was your favorite moment of filming in the ocean?

My favorite one is at the very end with Kang Joo Hwa, our haenyeo that broke her foot. She’s kind of the best diver on the island. Then she suffered that terrible injury. We see her finally at the end of the film, returning to the water that she loves so much. At the end, we see her coming up and she just looks so kind of at peace and where she’s supposed to be, which is the water.

Elias Funez/The Union via AP

Volunteers check over holiday gifts for the annual Toys For Tots giveaway in Grass Valley, Calif., in 2021.

Every year starting at about this time, tens of thousands of American children mail a letter to Santa asking for a holiday present – often not for themselves. And ever since 1912, local post offices have invited people – in selfless anonymity – to fulfill those wishes by donating a requested gift.

Known as Operation Santa, the program keeps expanding. Four years ago, it went nationwide. This year, the U.S. Postal Service teamed up with Toys R Us to allow these secret donors – “adopters” – to easily buy the gifts online.

This nurturing of generosity by strangers is akin to Toys for Tots, run by the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, or the Angel Tree program, run by the Salvation Army. They are bellwethers on how much people are willing to give without being identified. Call it kindness without kudos, or pure love.

In big-money philanthropy, too, anonymous giving to either a cause or a group of people has gained more traction. Special consultants, such as one called Silent Donor, now advise wealthy people on how to keep donations private. In many cases, anonymous funders are simply humble enough not to seek credit and wise enough to allow recipients not to become beholden to them. Often, a gift given under the radar encourages self-reliance.

In the digital age, however, more donors want privacy to avoid solicitations or harassment by those opposed to a particular cause receiving money. “The current climate of cultural divisiveness has transformed the act of donating into a public and oftentimes politicized spectacle,” stated a 2022 report by the Philanthropy Roundtable. The Supreme Court has had to rule against those trying to trample on the freedoms of generous donors.

Many religions make a case for anonymous giving. Maimonides, a 12th-century Jewish scholar, ranked it high on his eight-rung ladder of types of giving. Jesus advised followers to give to needy people, and “Do not announce it with trumpets.” Pride in giving is seen as barely giving.

Does anonymous giving inspire people to give? A 2019 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied found that to be the case. Rates of “unobserved altruism” can often be higher than if the donation were to be publicly recognized. Donors may be confused about their motives if they anticipate or receive praise. The possibility of public recognition reduces donations by as much as 20%.

The Postal Service’s Operation Santa keeps mum on who donates holiday gifts to children. All the better as it helps ensure such giving is from the heart. The “From” on the gift tag is nameless. That is to say, selfless.