Editor’s Note: The following article was written by one of our newest writers, Alexandra Renoult-Orlandini.
CHICAGO, IL — Since September, the Trump administration has launched an attack on Chicago under “Operation Midway Blitz”, led by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino. From the beginning of the operation, ICE agents have been terrorizing communities all over the city by kidnapping neighbors at all hours and using violent force against protestors. Protestors at the Broadview Detention Center, just outside of Chicago, have been tirelessly showing up to protest the kidnappings but have also held religious vigils and even documented information about ICE agents to share with rapid response networks. Organizers have kept track of what license plates and car models are being driven out of the detention center and have even documented what direction ICE vehicles head towards to give organizers a heads up.
Despite the violent tactics Trump, Noem, and Bovino have deployed, community resistance is at an all time high. Lalo Alcaraz, a famous cartoonist, portrays the dismay that communities are feeling at the current moment with Border Patrol, ICE, and federal agent presence here in Chicago. An abandoned ice cream cart, and people fleeing the streets is the reality now. What Alcaraz calls the SUMMER OF ICE, on the other hand, is not stowing fear in others, but motivating them to act on the illegal events occurring to citizens and non-citizens alike. Residents are forming large groups all over the city like in Rogers Park, the Southeast Side, Pilsen and Little Village, and even at the Broadview Detention Center, to inform communities and band together to fight back, through Know Your Rights campaigns, distributing red cards, protests, and more.
While ICE agents tore people away from their families in the streets, webinars and information spread like wildfire to inform people of their rights. ICE agents are not allowed to enter people’s homes without a signed judicial warrant, and people have the right to remain silent in public if stopped, frisked, and questioned. To make this information even more digestible, red cards were distributed to English and non-English speakers, translated in many languages, to inform all cultural communities of their rights to remain silent and not cooperate with agents targeting them. Universities, social service agencies, restaurants, and community leaders alike are working together to ensure people know this information during prevalent ICE presence as a form of resistance. As a result, knowledge became power.
Community members are also posting sightings of ICE agents in their neighborhoods on the internet, such as websites where people can post anonymous ICE sightings, to neighborhood apps like Citizen and Ring. While pressure to condemn these acts occurred as a result, such as the deletion of apps like Red Dot and ICEBlock, this does not stop other ways of posting ICE sightings. Others on famous social media platform Reddit have even collaborated to post ice emojis to inform others of ICE presence in apps such as Waze, a GPS app. Facebook pages have also been created to post sightings and share community prayers. Chicagoans all around the city are working together to protect those who are being targeted during this administration.
Community resistance has also pressured politicians to stand up for immigrants against Trump. J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois, and Brandon Johnson, mayor of Chicago, are not holding back against President Trump’s threats to the city. Pritzker himself stated,
“The President of the United States is causing mayhem in the grounds of our state. He is going after his political opponents. I don’t know why anybody would look at the situation and not recognize he’s moving toward an authoritarian regime in his own image.”
As a result, he is even looking to prosecute ICE agents in Chicago due to the aggression that has escalated in just a few weeks. In early October, Mayor Johnson also signed a “ICE Free Zone” executive order, prohibiting ICE from using city-owned property in Chicago, stating, “…with this Executive Order, Chicago stands firm in protecting the Constitutional rights of our residents and immigrant communities and upholding our democracy.” Most recently, Johnson defended immigrants in a press conference by correcting a reporter and stating
“We don’t have illegal aliens… The legal term for my people were slaves. You want me to use that term, too? So, look, let’s just get the language right. We are talking about undocumented individuals that are human beings. The last thing I’m going to do is accept that type of racist, nasty language to describe human beings.”
The Chicago Police Department, on the other hand, confuses others. In one instance, police were arrived during an encounter between ICE and community watch, and as a result, were tear-gassed in the streets they swore to protect. In this video linked, a protester desperately screams, “Today it’s us! Tomorrow it’s you!” This is just one example of the aggression of what is occurring in Chicago, putting fear in everyone’s hearts, even official police. While the police are there to protect, people wonder whether it is crowd control, siding with protestors, or siding with ICE.
Secretary of State, Alexis Giannoulias, has also spoken out against ICE’s illegal tactics by condemning their act of switching license plates. In a social media video, Giannoulias is seen reminding audiences that switching plates is illegal and has even launched a Plate Watch Hotline where people can report license plate tampering.
More recently, Bovino has come under immense legal pressure to respond to his violent tactics against protestors. Reporters in Chicago have filed a lawsuit against the federal government accusing Bovino and immigration agents of violating their First Amendment rights through their extreme force. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis even ordered Bovino to report to her courtroom daily and wear a body cam but before he could even report, an appellate court granted Noem’s emergency motion preventing Ellis’ order.
There is a lot of fear in the streets of the Chicagoland area. Loved ones, many of them not criminals at all, but regular members of families and communities, are being detained before our eyes, so much so that Tiktok and Instagram are flooded with videos everyday, desensitizing people to the situation. Organizations like the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights have hotlines to help people locate loved ones in detention, but the tension has reached such a high level that even those call volumes are flooded. This does not stop communities from protesting and taking action. Chicago is a city of immigrants from all over the world, but the blatant targeting of racial groups has motivated Chicago to push back against the rule of federal law and prevent it from growing. While ICE is still in the city, communities and policies alike are succeeding at wearing down ICE in Chicago, and it seems nothing will stop them until ICE has completely melted.
Tribuno del Pueblo brings you articles written by individuals or organizations, along with our own reporting. Bylined articles reflect the views of the authors. Unsigned articles reflect the views of the editorial board. Please credit the source when sharing: tribunodelpueblo.org. We’re all volunteers, no paid staff. Please donate at http://tribunodelpueblo.org to keep bringing you the voices of the movement because no human being is illegal.
