Crafting for Evan Cordes-Stone and his daughter, Evie, looks different these days.
The two have been spending afternoons in their Chicago apartment assembling whistles for neighbors to use if they see federal agents carrying out detainment operations.
"I'm a fan of very simple solutions," Cordes-Stone said on Monday while putting together a batch of 600 whistles. "This seemed like a very simple, efficient way to keep the community safe if ICE came in."
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Across the Chicago area, whistles have become a symbol — and sound — of resistance to the Trump administration's efforts to deport undocumented migrants.
"If you see an ICE agent, just observe them in the area, it's (three short whistles)," Cordes-Smith demonstrated. "If you see an ICE agent actively abducting someone or actively being aggressive towards the community, it's three long whistles."
Cordes-Stone and some local groups have assembled the whistles and passed them out to neighbors, left them in pop-up corner library boxes that normally store used books and given them to small businesses to hand out to customers.
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"We wanted our neighbors to be prepared when it happened," he said.
In September, ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz to target undocumented migrants who it says are "terrorizing Americans" across the state of Illinois.
The Department of Homeland Security says it's arrested over 1,000 undocumented migrants, "including the worst of the worst pedophiles, child abusers, kidnappers, gang members, and armed robbers."
Critics of the Trump administration's operations say they've also detained undocumented migrants with no criminal record.
Cordes-Stone started assembling the whistles in early October. He and his daughter have since distributed more than 1,500 whistles.
"At the time we first started, ICE wasn't visible in our neighborhood yet, but we sensed that it was going to happen soon and we wanted our neighbors to be prepared when it happened," he said.
It happened on Oct. 24. In multiple operations, just blocks from where Cordes-Stone lives in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood, Customs and Border Protection agents made arrests.
Abby Nystedt says she was on a call in her home when she heard the sound of whistles.
"I got off the call that I was on and came out of my house and started protesting with other neighbors that don't want to see this type of activity happening in our neighborhood or any neighborhood in our city or in our country."
Neighbors say federal agents detained one man who was part of a construction crew working on a home on Nystedt's street.
Within moments, Nystedt and others formed a crowd around the federal agents protesting their actions. Many blew whistles to alert others of what was happening.
The legality of blowing the whistle
"Certainly, blowing a whistle is your right to do under free speech," said David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor. "On the other hand, once you've done that, you cannot now go and impede that officer from performing a legitimate lawful function."
Neighbors in Chicago say their whistle-blowing is peaceful and say it's their duty to sound the alarm.
"These whistles just kind of enable the community to be aware of what these agents are doing and to come out and watch what they're doing," Cordes-Stone said. "If you as a federal, and or civil servant, don't want the community, don't want the people to see what you're doing, you're probably not doing the right thing."
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment about locals using whistles to protest their operations.
