Raids, Retaliation, and Radical Solidarity in Chicago
“History shows us that repression always breeds resistance,” says Chicago organizer Miguel Alvelo Rivera.
"History shows us that repression always breeds resistance. Fear can never kill solidarity," says Chicago organizer Miguel Alvelo Rivera. In this episode of "Movement Memos," Chicago activists and organizers share their knowledge, experience, and hope as the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” terrorizes the Chicagoland area. Benji Hart, Stacy Davis Gates, Arti Walker-Peddakotla, Ric Wilson, and others discuss Trump’s threats to send in the National Guard, ongoing ICE raids, and the solidarity we need to survive these times.
Music by Son Monarcas, Scene, Nyck Caution, Katori Walker, Apollo, Curved Mirror, Daniel Fridell, Scientific, DonVayei, Ballpoint, and Sarah, the Illstrumentalist
TRANSCRIPT:
Note: This transcript was originally published in Truthout. It is shared here with permission.
Kelly Hayes: Welcome to “Movement Memos,” a Truthout podcast about organizing, solidarity, and the work of making change. I’m your host, writer and organizer Kelly Hayes. Today, we are talking about Chicago, and what organizers here are up against as waves of federal agents continue to invade the Chicagoland area and attack our neighbors. After declaring war on the city of Chicago with an AI slop image styled after the film Apocalypse Now, Donald Trump recently rolled back plans to send the National Guard to our city, blaming uncooperative officials and so-called “professional agitators” for making Chicago “hostile” to his vision. But while Trump is now redirecting his fascist military theatrics to Memphis, a major Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation is still being deployed in our city and the surrounding area. While ICE agents in Chicago are not being flanked by the National Guard, they are still causing a great deal of harm.
Last week, ICE agents killed a man in the village of Franklin Park, about a half-hour outside Chicago. His name was Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez. He was a 38-year-old father of three who had just dropped his youngest child off at daycare moments before being targeted by ICE. Villegas-Gonzalez was from Mexico and had lived in the United States for more than 20 years. The official narrative the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has offered about his death does not match available evidence.
DHS has also fired tear gas and pepper balls at protesters outside the ICE Processing Center in Broadview, which is the primary processing center for what ICE is calling “Operation Midway Blitz” — the organization’s current assault on Chicagoland. The total number of immigrants ICE has detained is unknown at this time, but we know residents have been snatched from their homes, at their jobs, in gas stations, at bus stops, and in front of their crying children.
In addition to organizing in defense of our migrant neighbors, local activists are still cognizant of the possibility that Trump may eventually send troops here, and are thinking about what it means to communicate with, and potentially influence, active members of the military in our streets.
Today, you will be hearing from organizers and activists across Chicago about the current state of the struggle, what we’re up against, and what we need you to know about this moment of turmoil, escalation, and resistance. Our governor, our mayor, and most importantly, the people of Chicago have held the line against Trump’s efforts to use our city to further normalize his fascist domestic military occupations. But we are still living through a moment of intense struggle, and gearing up for the long fight ahead. This episode is a true movement memo — a series of messages from the front lines in a moment of intense state violence and federal occupation. I hope you will take the words of my friends and co-strugglers to heart, tell the world what’s happening here, and deepen your own commitment to justice work, wherever you are.
[musical interlude]
Benji Hart: Hey, everybody. My name is Benji Hart. I use they/them pronouns. I’m a member of Southside Together. I’m also a member at Concord Missionary Baptist Church. And I’m a resident on the low end in the Bronzeville neighborhood here in Chicago. And I really want to reach out to you, call out to my people across the city, across the country, and hopefully far beyond, to really think about what is most needed in this moment where we can feel so isolated, we can feel so powerless, and bewildered, and overwhelmed by the barrage of things intentionally being launched at us. How do we find our focus? How do we find our footing? And how do we find our grounding to really pose the threat and really be the threat that we can be and that we know we represent or we wouldn’t be being suppressed so hard and so violently?
I’m thinking a lot right now about how our actions are disruptive. There’s a lot of big demonstrations happening around the country to resist the military occupation of these large democratic, often Black mayor-run cities. And showing mass support that this is not what we want in our communities. And mass resistance to militarization, not just in Chicago and D.C., but globally, I think is so beautiful and so important. And I think we need to be asking critical questions about: Are our actions just showing numbers, and just showing symbolic support for marginalized and repressed communities? Or are they actually disrupting the work of the federal government? Are they actually making the work of ICE and the work of police harder and more difficult?
Because that is so crucial, that actually protecting our communities means making the work that these agencies are trying to do harder. And how do we translate these numbers that we know we have into actions that protect our neighbors and protect ourselves? And I think we’re already doing that. That’s not to say that that’s not happening. It absolutely is. But I really want to encourage folks, especially folks who might be coming out for the first time or coming out in a while, and joining marches against Trump and against the National Guard occupying our communities. Where do you go from there? Where do we go from there?
Whether it’s joining an organization, whether it’s becoming a part of your local ICE watch, figuring out who’s doing the work on your block, in your neighborhood, or even doing that work yourself. How do we actually do things that make it harder for our neighbors to be taken away? How do we actually do things that make the criminalization of ourselves and our communities more difficult? Whether, again, that’s actually knowing your rights and making sure that other people who are being targeted know theirs. Whether that’s actually blocking ICE from entering a space. Whether that’s being present in the neighborhoods that we know are being targeted, to make sure that there’s eyes and there’s bodies making the work of disappearing people more difficult and harder for them to get away with.
Where do we actually put ourselves to stop the violence from happening, not just show symbolically that we’re against it happening? And by that same logic, I think that I’m also seeing still a lot of focus on arguing against the logic of the Trump administration or the logic of militarization. We know that there are so many racist tropes about Chicago being a dangerous, violent, crime-ridden place. And people are right to point out that so many of the investments we’ve been making in recent years — investments in mental health care, and in non-police crisis responses, and in housing, and so many other things — have actually been very effective at lowering rates of crime and lowering rates of violent crime.
And relying on that argument of proving that we’re not the things that people say that we are, is really actually using the logic of the people, of the bodies that are oppressing us, which I think is always ineffective. We know that regardless of what the crime rate is or isn’t, the idea that military occupation is the answer is always wrong and is always a threat to Black communities, to Indigenous communities, to undocumented [communities], to Muslim [communities], to all the people that we know need protection right now. And how do we actually get away from using their own logic against them, which I think is always a waste of our time and energy? And saying, We know what this is really about. We know this has nothing to do with crime.
We know this has nothing to do with protecting our communities, because policing, militarization, criminalization, and incarceration are never about that. They never have been and they’re not in this moment either. And what we want are the things that have actually been successful in lowering violence and lowering harm in our neighborhoods. And that’s violence prevention programs. That’s housing, that’s well-paying jobs, that’s health care, that’s public spaces. That’s where we want to see our resources go. And again, the point of saying that is not to convince the people who are hell-bent on occupying and suppressing us.
The point is to get on the same page and to create a container that other people can join to say, Here’s what we’re actually fighting for. It may be clearer in this moment what we’re fighting against, and that’s important too, to have that clarity. But what are we fighting for? And in place of occupation, in place of militarization, in place of policing, and of environmental devastation, what does the city that we want look like? What does the community, the neighborhood, the landscape that we want actually look like? And getting really clear on that, because that is also I think how we grow our numbers — having a vision that people want to join in with and that are excited about. And that has to be about more than just what we want to destroy and take down. It also has to be about what we want to build up and who we want to build it up with.
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KH: Each person who is kidnapped by ICE has a life, a family, and a story that the broader public will probably never hear about. In Chicago, one of those people is named Willian, and his friends believe he was targeted for trying to do some good.
Miguel Alvelo Rivera: My name is Miguel Alvelo Rivera, a proud Puerto Rican resident of Albany Park and Chicago. The son of teachers and union organizers and the grandchild of farmworkers and laborers. I am also the executive director of the Latino Union of Chicago, Chicago’s oldest worker center, where we fight for social and economic justice by building worker power with domestic workers and day laborers.
Chicago is currently enduring another surge of violence at the hands of ICE. Communities and families are being torn apart in the wake of Trump’s deportation machine. As we experience an escalating federal invasion of our neighborhoods, our collective safety is disintegrating by the day. I’m here today to uplift one of our neighbors who has been taken by ICE.
On September 12, our compañero, our community member, our leader Willian was unjustly detained by ICE. This is not just about one man. It is about a system that criminalizes workers, silences dissent, and tears families apart.
Almost two years ago, our organizers doing outreach [to day laborers] at Chicago’s corner hiring sites began hearing stories from workers. Stories of abuse at the hands of Home Depot security guards and off-duty police officers. Stories of being beaten, harassed, and humiliated simply for seeking a day’s work.
Many day laborers had experienced this before. Many stayed silent out of fear: Fear of retaliation, fear of losing the income they rely on to pay their bills. But five brave workers decided to break that silence. They decided to stand up and denounce these human rights abuses. Among those five was Willian, who I first met at the 47th Street Home Depot in Chicago.
Like thousands of day laborers across this country, Willian would wake before sunrise, lace up his boots, and wait at the corner hoping for a chance to work. He told me, “I came to this country to work and progress, to live in peace with my family.” But instead, he was met with violence, he was met with repression, he was met with abuse.
When we prepared to file a lawsuit against these abuses, we made sure Willian and other workers understood the risks. We told them: Once you speak out, you may face more harassment. You may be targeted. You may be punished for your courage.
Willian listened, he took a deep breath, and he told me: “I know. But I am not only doing this to get justice for myself and my compañeros. I am doing this because I don’t want anybody else to ever have to live through what I have lived.”
That is who Willian is. That is who ICE has taken from us. He is a man of integrity, of bravery, of solidarity. He is a man who stood up not just for himself, but for every worker who has been beaten down, exploited, and silenced.
This detention is not random. It is retaliation. It is punishment for speaking out against corporate abuse and police violence. It is meant to send a message to every worker: stay quiet, keep your head down, don’t challenge power. Or you too could be disappeared.
This is how systemic repression works. Corporations exploit migrant workers. Police harass and abuse them. And when workers resist, ICE steps in to finish the job: to take people away from their families, to sow fear in our communities, to attempt to destroy movements.
We will not allow that.
Willian’s detention is not just an attack on him. It is an attack on every worker who dares to organize. It is an attack on every person who dares to fight for justice. Each and every detention under this administration is an attack on entire communities’ right to live with dignity and freedom.
Right now, we are facing a government that is escalating deportations, that is shredding due process, that is openly using federal agencies as tools of fear. We are seeing laws twisted and weaponized against the very people who build this country with their labor every day. And yet, despite all this, we are still here. We are still resisting. We are still demanding justice.
History shows us that repression always breeds resistance. Fear can never kill solidarity. And fascism always fails when people are united.
So to ice, we say: Free Willian! End this unjust detention and let him return to his family and community. Free all who are unjustly abducted, detained, and denied their basic rights.
We demand an end to the targeting of workers who speak out. We demand an end to the separation of our families and communities. We demand dignity, safety, and justice for all people.
As we stand for Willian, we also stand for ourselves. For every working person who wakes up every day to build a better world for all of us.
We will not be silent. We will not back down. We will fight until Willian is free, until all our communities are safe, and until every worker can live and labor with dignity.
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KH: Amid the many crises Chicago has faced in recent years, the Chicago Teachers Union has remained a steadfast force for the common good — advocating not only for educators, but for students, families, and entire communities. Among the many principled and courageous leaders helping to navigate these times, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates stands out as someone whose vision and commitment I deeply trust and respect.Stacy Davis Gates: My name is Stacy Davis Gates and I am the president of the Chicago Teachers Union. I am also a high school history teacher. And as a high school history teacher, it is incumbent upon me to use this platform to educate, to agitate, and to organize.
Throughout our country’s history, there have been many inflection points where we’ve had to debate our people’s humanity and this country’s democracy. And every single time this country has had that debate, it’s been workers allied with the people who have saved our democracy and honored humanity. For four years, our country fought almost exclusively on these grounds. We engaged in a debate about the sovereignty and the humanity of my ancestors, enslaved Africans.
These workers, enslaved Africans, perhaps were the most courageous in this debate because they allied with women, with abolitionists, both Black and white, left these plantations, and liberated themselves. And through their mass action (one may call a general strike), they pushed the government to codify their humanity and their sovereignty, and Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. He didn’t free us, we freed ourselves. And because of the solidarity and the allyship with women, with Black abolitionists, with white abolitionists, these enslaved Africans, these workers created something called Reconstruction. A space created the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the Freedmen’s Bureau begets the departments of education, justice, and housing. Their action begets an expansion of democracy that gives us the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th Amendments, and they recreate a country where more people have opportunity.
It lays the groundwork for our workers not only to secure a reunification of our country, but one of the greatest expansions of democracy. Workers did that. And we stand today in the city of Chicago, a Black metropolis that was ushered in by Black men called Pullman porters. Workers, men working for low wages, and against the indignities of being called George and not Mister.
We honor these men. These men went to places like Sunflower County, Mississippi, and told Black people, Black southern migrants under the tyranny of Jim Crow south, that they could escape that brutality. They did that, allied with publisher and founder Robert Abbott of the Chicago Defender, and together in coalition, these men drove opportunity and refuge for Black southern migrants escaping fascism.
This is what organized workers do. We make it better for everyone. Today, we are in a time and space where workers must practice a radical solidarity. A radical solidarity that extends beyond the wishes of the billionaire class. Workers have to practice a radical solidarity that elects mayors who can invest in the people because he can see them. Workers have to practice a radical solidarity that anchors the common good, and every single collective bargaining agreement we take from the table. Workers have to practice a radical solidarity that rebukes the tyranny of Trump and his troops in our cities.
This is our work. We have to draw contrast. We have to show that Black mayors and Black cities are reconstructing school libraries while Trump bans books written by Baldwin and Morrison and Hurston. We workers have to show them that reopening mental health care clinics in cities like Chicago means we need the president of the United States to undo cuts to Medicaid. We have to show them that in Chicago, we’ve abolished sub-minimum wage because slave wages went out with the 13th Amendment. In Chicago, we reject a billionaire’s tyranny over our city. We reject a billionaire and his cabinet of more billionaires who rob from Medicaid, who defund public education and give billionaires like themselves tax breaks.
So let me be clear about what solidarity is and the power it holds. Solidarity is the antidote to white supremacy. Solidarity is the antidote to anti-immigrant fear. Solidarity is the antidote to homophobia and transphobia. Solidarity is the antidote of people not having and still needing. Solidarity is what reunites us. Solidarity is what keeps us. Solidarity is what supports us. Solidarity breaks down the lines of race, of gender, of age. Solidarity is our country’s safest space.
And so workers and allies, I encourage you, I organize you, I call you, I challenge you to practice solidarity because it is solidarity that makes these United States of America for the people and by the people.
[musical transition]
KH: Amid our efforts to protect and defend our neighbors in Chicago, we have been learning from our friends and co-strugglers in L.A. and D.C., who have already faced Trump’s escalations and aggression. One of those people is Shannon Clark, an organizer with Remora House, in Washington, D.C. Shannon has been on the front line of mutual aid efforts in D.C., and I have been so grateful for the opportunity to learn from their experience.
Shannon: My name’s Shannon, and I organize with Remora House in Washington, D.C. What is happening now with the federal takeovers of our cities is a further escalation of a fascist police state to whip any dissenters into submission. He [Trump] is marching mass federal agents and the U.S. military into our streets to terrorize anyone not cooperating with his agenda. His goal is to wipe out Black and Brown communities to pave the way for a white supremacist nation that he and his followers dream of.
In D.C., with the help of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), the swarms of federal agents flooding our city have increasingly targeted Black and Brown workers and communities. The National Guard is clustered around the National Mall, the Capitol, and the White House. They’re staging photo ops with massive armored trucks at Union Station and spreading mulch at parks downtown.
They aim to spread fear and intimidation while normalizing having the military in our streets. Meanwhile, ICE, HSI, FBI, ATF, DEA, Parks Police, Secret Service, and MPD are roaming our neighborhoods and harassing our neighbors. They’re checking IDs and barring entry to metro stations. They’re setting up traffic checkpoints for commuters coming from majority-Black and Brown parts of the city.
They’re harassing people sitting on their front porches and targeting and kidnapping migrant neighbors doing food deliveries. They’re arresting people on their way to soup kitchens and Spanish church services. The attacks on our unhoused neighbors is an escalation and an already escalating attack on the city’s residents. There is now no notice when an eviction is coming.
Evictions that would’ve taken hours are finished in 30 minutes, with people packing as fast as they can while MPD drags their tents to dump trucks. Camp evictions are violent, traumatizing, and cruel. People lose their belongings, medical documents and medications, IDs and birth certificates, family photos, clothes, favorite books, privacy, safety, and protection from the elements.
They claim they’re connecting people to services. Not only is that clearly not the goal, how would 850 federal agents from outside of D.C. even know where to begin? Even if that were the plan, there are no shelter beds. People are outside because there is nowhere for them to go, or the options for shelter would force them to separate from their partners, their pets, their belongings. So why did he [Trump] choose D.C.?
He’s been clear about his hatred for this city, a city that has loudly and proudly rejected everything about him and his administration, that made him hide in a bunker during the 2020 uprising. D.C. is beautiful and diverse. It is a chocolate city. It has a thriving legacy of immigrant communities that are integral to who this city is. He wants to erase all of that and create a D.C. that fits his white supremacist, fascist imagination of what a national capital should look like.
But most importantly, he’s doing this to D.C. because he can. He tried L.A. and failed, but D.C. has political loopholes and a cowardly mayor that have left the door open to this federal takeover and military occupation. We were the testing ground for the expansion of this fascist police state. What we thought was going to be 30 days of occupation now has no expiration date. D.C. government has control over our police department again.
But what that means when the chief of police has agreed to cooperate with ICE and when the mayor has agreed to set up long-term relationships with federal police remains to be seen. This is part of the normalization. This is part of the goal. Most of our politicians, no matter where you live, including the bluest city in the country, are aligned with these goals. They love police.
They know the way this capitalist, white supremacist nation functions is by policing, terrorizing, and imprisoning the people within its borders. We have to be kept in our place. We have to be forced to work. We have to be separated from one another. Our communities have to be dissolved. Our solidarity with one another broken. Because when we realize we can have better, that we can build something different when we come together to support one another and defend each other, that is a threat.
D.C. residents are scared and exhausted, but we continue to show up and defend each other and our numbers are growing. In the face of widespread police violence, people are responding by joining mutual aid organizations and taking it upon themselves to keep each other safe. Evictions were stopped by local advocates, buying people another night of rest and safety.
Organizations are getting people into hotels, making sure they are fed, getting them tents and camping supplies, helping them pack and move and find safe places to hunker down. People all over the city are sharing photos and warnings of feds patrolling streets, trying to set up vehicle checkpoints and calling into ICE hotlines to keep each other safe. Mutual aid groups are delivering food to families of people abducted by ICE.
Local orgs are making safety patrols for our young Black neighbors being targeted by the feds. They’re creating drop-in spaces, providing meals and safety from the police. Know your rights trainings or giving people skills to back down federal agents when they’re trying to escalate people and arrest them. So yes, we are exhausted, we’re scared, but we’re in this for the long haul. We’ve become stronger as a community through this.
We have tested our skills and learned our strengths. We have leaned on each other and relied on each other. So it’s coming for y’all next, but you will also get through this. While this is an escalation from the norm, not all of this is new. We have organized against police, against deportations, and against state violence in our communities. We have built the skills and communities we need to get through this too. Find your people, find your place, find your community, and get to work protecting each other.
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KH: In thinking about what it means to have soldiers deployed in U.S. cities, as Trump attempts to further consolidate his authoritarian power, I have been grateful for the work of organizations like About Face, an organization composed of post-9/11 service members and veterans who are organizing against permanent war and the use of military weapons, tactics, and values in communities across the U.S. No one is better positioned to understand the mindset of National Guard members being deployed in our city, or how they might be reached.
Arti Walker-Peddakotla: My name is Arti Walker-Peddakotla. I am a U.S. Army veteran, lawyer, former local elected official, and board chair of About Face: Veterans Against The War. About Face was founded in 2004 by veterans returning from the post-9/11 Iraq invasion. Our praxis is informed by our ancestors at Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). About Face together with VVAW organize to end a foreign policy of permanent war and the use of military weapons and tactics in our communities. About Face works to dismantle U.S. imperialism and the military-industrial complex by organizing post-9/11 military members and vets to withdraw consent from the military machine and reposition our solidarity within an intersectional antiwar movement that can transform what is possible for our futures beyond militarism.
From our vantage point, as veterans, we see a world at war. Currently we have a president that has threatened to wage war against American cities. We have a president that has deployed military troops to Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; and threatened to deploy troops to Chicago and New Orleans. The Department of Defense has been renamed to the Department of War, with the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth stating, “those who long for peace must prepare for war.”
What does that statement mean — that we must prepare for war? It means that militarism is embedded into the very fabric of this country, impacting people beyond borders. War is already being waged against us, both here at home and abroad. As Harsha Walia teaches us, militarism is enacted through border imperialism — “the entrenchment and re-entrenchment of controls against migrants, who are displaced as a result of the violences of capitalism and empire, and subsequently forced into precarious labor as a result of state illegalization and systemic social hierarchies.”
The constructed precarity of racial capitalism results in a counterinsurgency strategy where the same communities targeted by state violence are the ones whose members are recruited into perpetuating that state violence. In the military, we call this the poverty or oppression draft. This dual targeting and recruiting further fractures and divides our communities, confounding left movement efforts to build a united front.
If we can understand militarism as a system of political, economic, and social philosophies that prioritizes and glorifies the expansion and aggressive use of state violence to address social and political problems, and further government and corporate interests, then we can also understand why we are currently seeing the largest expansion of militarism in our lifetimes. A culture that embraces militarism is marked by the passive belief in the intrinsic value (or necessity) of war. To quote Arundathi Roy and INCITE!, “For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade the American public that America’s commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack” — leading us to our current militaristic state.
Under this state, we’ve seen not only the deployment or threat of deployment of National Guard and active-duty troops, but also the deployment of federal immigration enforcement sent to cities like Chicago, D.C., and L.A. as occupying forces. We must remember that the military isn’t the only occupying force in our cities. ICE is also an occupying force that terrorizes communities and destabilizes neighborhoods. We must not normalize the occupation of our cities by ICE, federal law enforcement, or the military — while militarism is a norm in this country, we do not have to accept it as the norm in our communities.
To counter these occupying forces, we must build networks of solidarity, of care, and of support that encourage resistance both from within and outside the machine. At About Face, we use the term “radical reorientation” to describe the turn that GI resisters make — soldiers who become aware of the harm they are inflicting and make the decision to resist and refuse orders. Solidarity requires that we radically reorient ourselves within empire. GI resistance in all of its formations, from the subtle work slowdown to the outspoken war resister, is a radical posture that helps us disrupt state violence. But many people overlook the history of GI resistance because we tend to discredit the organizing work of those who have participated in enacting state violence.
As more of our people are swept up into working for the military-industrial complex or the deportation machine, we must support a spectrum of resistance strategies that withdraws our collective consent from the war and deportation machines, and can eventually lead to the dismantling of the military-industrial complex and the abolition of ICE. Learning the history of GI resisters, from the Civil War to Vietnam, to the post-9/11 GI resisters is crucial in this moment. Because the strategies of GI resistance — the act of radically reorienting oneself inside of U.S. empire, the act of resisting the war machine from the inside — are the same strategies we need to slow the growth of the deportation machine. As more of us recognize the state as the central organizer of violence, more of us can begin the journey of radical reorientation. To achieve collective radical reorientation requires deep networks of support, trust, and care — networks that have already been built in many of our communities and that we must rapidly expand. Thank you.
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KH: Another organization focused on the violence of militarism is Dissenters, a youth organization that seeks to reclaim resources from the war industry, and drive investments in life-giving programs and institutions.
Heather: I’m Heather and I’m from Chicago Dissenters. We’re hearing this week that the National Guard may no longer be coming to Chicago. While that tentacle of U.S. militarism might not be in our backyards this week, there are still so many ways in which the militarization of our cities has been expanding and becoming normalized through discrete military intervention and state-sanctioned violence at a local, national, and international level. We can look at JROTC programs in schools actively focus on recruitment of Black and brown children; they make joining the military a prerequisite for earning any sort of higher education. We can look at one of the 50 schools Rahm Emanuel closed in 2013 was one where the principal refused to instate a JROTC program. We can look at the increasingly militarized policing tactics in our cities across the nation. The fact that ICE is still in our cities and neighborhoods, kidnapping and threatening the safety of our communities and boasting one of the highest military budgets in the world that’s allocated just for so-called immigration enforcement. There is literally a federal prison hidden away in downtown Chicago. On top of this, one-hundred million of our tax dollars being used to fund genocide abroad. We can look at the fact that Chicago is funding the building of a quantum campus in South Shore that is attempting the building of the nation’s first quantum computer. If built, one of its goals is to enhance surveillance for the DoD. We have normalized military violence so much so that Israel was able to attack six different countries, kill a prime minister, and there is a bigger response by our country to the killing of a right-wing political influencer.
Because of all these things and more, right now is the time to join something, whether it be mutual aid or anti-imperialist organizing or just building deeper relationships with the people in your direct communities. I moved back to Chicago last year and joined an anti-imperialist group called Dissenters. We know in Dissenters that U.S. militarism and imperialism rears their ugly heads at every level of our society. We know this because we know that police killings in Chicago, in D.C., in L.A. are protected under the same rhetoric that protects drone strikes abroad. Because we know an IDF sniper from Naperville, Illinois, killing a family in Gaza is made possible and upheld by the same system that is sending ICE into our communities. Because the same system that denies Black and Brown kids equal education while recruiting them to the military to fight for causes that don’t serve them. And because we understand and know how interconnected these systems of militarization are, we know that we can only overcome them by building up our networks stronger.
Chicago Dissenters is building up these networks through our campaign work across the city — one of these campaigns being the Public Health and Safety Campaign, [which] is working to actually build and strengthen networks of care in the city, by directly taking $300 million from the Chicago police budget and using that money to fund public health and safety initiatives in the city. We are also plugged into the Illinois Divest campaign, which is researching and doing work to divest our Illinois tax dollars from the funding of Israel. This campaign was inspired by a similar campaign in Florida called Break the Bonds. At the end of the day, the militarization of our cities is happening whether or not the national guard is here. Whether or not they are here, it is important to stay on alert, look out for your neighbors and continue to build networks of care in Chicago and beyond. There are so many campaigns for you to join. Whether it be focusing on measures that can actually build public health and safety in our city, fighting against the building of two new prisons through the No New Prisons campaign, or fighting to make it so our tax dollars aren’t funding a genocide abroad with the Divest Campaign. There are so many places to build together to create a better world for all of us.
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KH: Some of the most important work that has been done in our city to confront this moment has come in the form of political education and rapid response. Groups like Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD) have worked relentlessly to educate immigrant communities in Chicago about their rights. These efforts have led Trump’s “Border Czar” Tom Homan to complain that Chicago is very well educated. In January, Homan told reporters, “They’ve been educated how to defy ICE, on how to hide from ICE. They call it ‘Know Your Rights.’ I call it how to escape from ICE.” But while those efforts have kept many of our neighbors here in Chicago, where they belong, they are not enough. Community defense requires constant vigilance. Which is why local ICE-watch trainings and rapid response teams are so important.
Ana: Hello, my name is Ana. I’m with Organized Communities Against Deportations. Donald Trump’s attacks on the immigrant community are being strongly felt here in Chicago. He is sending hundreds of federal agents to abduct our friends, families, and communities. At this moment, our people are holding a lot of fear and loss. There are mothers in Chicago who are afraid to take their children to [the] hospital; a lot of children are missing school and important developmental moments, and a lot of people are missing work in order to avoid coming across ICE. I used to work as a barista and I know folks who are no longer going out to get their daily coffee. It’s both the big and little habits that we have which make up our lives. Pulling out of normal life is not out of choice — people are staying inside so they can stay with their families, instead of losing what they’ve built here. Our people are in hiding while Chicago is being attacked.
These feelings of fear are valid, even though we’re being made to feel like we’re wrong to want to live safely when this campaign of hate is coming from the White House and even other neighbors. This reality is not normal, and it shouldn’t become the new normal. We need to find a way to turn the tide.
Trump is not doing all of this to keep our communities “safe.” He is hiding a larger agenda behind that lie. His goal is to target Black and brown communities because we don’t fit into his idea of what the United States should look like. Trump is definitely trying to gain control, but this control is about making stereotyping a legal way for police and federal agents to target, continuing to ostracize us as “other,” and targeting poor communities in order to tear us down. Nobody deserves to live in fear, to think that this will be the last time we will see our children. It’s inhumane.
We are not alone. Even though we’re living inside this system, fighting this thing bigger than a single person, there are so many of us, and none of us are alone. I know that if we stick together, we can overcome this.
Every week I answer calls from people who are calling into an ICE watch hotline and sharing suspicious sightings with hotline operators. We’re getting calls about ICE so that the community can be made aware. This hotline is also able to mobilize rapid responders the moment we get a call about an ICE sighting, have them intervene, and even stop an abduction from happening. Every week, more and more people are reaching out for know-your-rights information so that they can better help their neighbors, families, and wider community.
It is natural to feel this intense fear, but being part of a community that is fighting for immigrants has shown me that there are plenty of people looking out for each other. We are in this together.
At the end of the day, if we look at history, bullies are overcome. They don’t get that far; it has been shown in the city of Chicago. If you’re in L.A., D.C., or the Chicagoland area, reach out to organizations which are already supporting the communities being impacted by the increase in federal agents. It’s so important to have the right people trained to know how to intervene when ICE has been sighted, to understand how to approach a difficult situation, and to be able to move between the legal gray areas so that you can help your fellow neighbors. But you have to reach out to the proper resources to do it.
But every city that is attacked cannot do this alone. If we are going to beat this moment, we have to stand together. If it’s sharing what we know so other groups can take what worked for us in Chicago. Continue to talk about the occupations as weird, unacceptable, and illegal. We cannot allow ourselves to see the militarization of our cities as normal. If you’re able to, donate to organizations in L.A., D.C., or Chicago who are doing work on the ground to keep vulnerable communities safe.
Anything we do which adds another person who calls in to report an ICE sighting, or helps someone feel safer, or empowers someone with new information about their rights is a direct act of resistance against Trump and his agenda. There is actually a lot of power in community. There are so many of us gathering together, making it our daily objective to interfere in the attack on our families and friends. At the end of the day, anytime we can interfere and stop an abduction is a huge win, because it’s one less community member we have lost.
[musical transition]
KH: When we think about the violence of fascism and authoritarianism, we have to think internationally, and I am grateful to my friend Eman Abdelhadi for helping us to make those connections.
Eman Abdelhadi: My name is Eman Abdelhadi. I am an organizer with Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine and Scholars for Social Justice. I am also a scholar here based in Chicago. I want to urge us today to face this moment with political clarity. The ruling class wants us to believe that all of our struggles are separate, that the fight against ICE the fight against the National Guard occupying our streets at the whims of an authoritarian president; the fight for Palestinian lives in Gaza and the West Bank; the fight against police murder of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people here in the U.S., they want us to believe that all these fights are separate, and I want us to enter this moment with clarity that our enemy across all of these fronts is the same. These are all battles in the same war that the ruling class has decided to wage against us. The enemy is a world where the wealthy and powerful get to decide who lives and who dies from Gaza to Chicago, who can walk the streets in safety, and who has to hide from masked ICE agents. Those same people have told us that we can’t protest for Palestine without risking deportation, arrest, or police brutality. Those same people are saying we don’t have the right to protest the occupation of our streets. They have shown us that nothing is sacred to them, none of our so-called rights, none of our so-called constitutional guarantees, nothing. They want to decide who is disposable. They accuse us of violence and then show up in tanks, armed with assault rifles and covered in masks to kidnap our friends, family, and neighbors. They tell us that we are lawless when they won’t even identify themselves. This is not about crime, and this is not about law or order. This is about might. This is about power.
We have to, in this moment, show the power that we have in each other. We have to show that safety never came from the state. It comes from us, from the movements that we have built together, from the solidarity that we have shown each other over and over and over, for decades, and against all odds, we are equipped for this fight. And just as we enter this moment with a ton of clarity, we have to also let this moment further clarify our politics and our landscape here in Chicago. Anyone who stands for the U.S. military occupying our city is an enemy of the people. Anyone who wields this unjust, inhumane, cruel deportation system; anyone who calls ICE on our community, is an enemy of the people. None of this is abstract. None of it is simply a matter of political opinion. These are our lives and our livelihoods on the line. Anyone who buys into and perpetuates the fascist narrative of our city is an enemy of the people. We have to be clear that what we need here in Chicago is for our tax dollars and our energy to go into serving our communities rather than policing them. We are ready for this fight. We are clearer now more than ever, on who our enemies are, and I think our movements have gotten sharper, have gotten better at working together across lines, and we are ready to keep each other safe and to keep our city safe.
Many of us have spent our lives in waves of movement, and with each one, we have further developed our skills, strengthened our networks and sharpened our analyzes. Here in Chicago in particular, we have shown what a strong, united left can do. Trump wants to punish us for that. He wants to make an example of us. He wants to ensure that he can do this in any city. He thinks that if he can make Chicago bow down, then the whole world will be able to bow down to him. He’s angry that our city has effectively protested ICE since his inauguration. What we do now will not just protect us, but will set a precedent, will establish that Trump can be resisted. Trump is not inevitable. We will absolutely rise up and resist the kidnap of our neighbors and the militarization of our city. The whole country is watching, and we will show them that a city can rise up.
KH: Artists are deeply important to our resistance in Chicago. They enliven our imaginations, energize our actions, and help us find hope and joy during dark times. So, with appreciation for Chicago’s movement artists, we are going to wind down this episode with some words from my dear friend, performing artist Ric Wilson.
Ric Wilson: So we’re realizing that we’re in a later stage of fascism in this country than we thought we were. I think because of the education issues that we have in this country, it’s hard to even explain what fascism is to people because they’ve just been misled so much. So as a leftist, I feel like that’s another big struggle of mine. And I perform for a living, and I try my best to spread the word or whatnot. I try my best to do it socially. I try my best. I feel like … especially with social media and technology and everything, and living in this techno-feudalism, it’s really, really creating the disconnect between folks’ humanity. I try to stay hopeful, right? Mariame [Kaba] says that’s a discipline. I think giving up is way easier than trying, and I think being hopeless is way easier than having hope, and it makes me think: If miseducation is an issue here, how much of yourself do you give to try to educate the miseducated, and not from a point where you’re coming on a high road, but from a point of literally actually caring about folks who are being used for the right-wing agenda?
Agenda for what? I don’t know. I don’t know if they’re just trying to destroy the world or what, or just take over everything. They’re going to need the working class. The working-class people are going to always be here. You know what I mean? The bosses aren’t. So I just try to figure out how I can get on stage and represent that.
I don’t know. I never think about making the world a better place. I just try to make the world a safer place, and I don’t think there could be a subjective or a different opinion on what the fuck the word “safe” means. That’s just some thoughts of mine.
[The following is performed as a rap.]
I rap for people that will never get to make it out of Chicago. Marginalize their problems, and then drink it into bottles. Seasons steady changing, but you’re stuck just like a pothole. Then you lose his life from bullets from a tinted Tahoe. Kids from summer camp that never make it to the next year get so numb it’s almost like the death is not complex here, and every funeral where AI leak is getting old, this for everyone they overpriced to ever dig a hole. I rap for listeners, hood niggas that’s turn prisoners, Hennessy holders, and the cousins that I’ll be missing up. Fly ladies, breakdancers and ghetto visitors. Lowlifes, gang bangers and late finishers. Uncles who can’t afford their Hennessy so get the brandy. Hardworking grannies on the CTA standing. Closed all the projects, now we Ubering to Lansing because buying granny house is part of gentrified planning, but fuck them. We still here and we still fighting. Forever in solidarity. Yep.
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KH: During this challenging time for our city, organizations providing legal support are working collaboratively to support targeted community members and people exercising their right to protest. If you’re planning a protest and need legal advice or support, or if the FBI comes knocking, the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild has a hotline you can call.
Jerry Boyle: My name is Jerry Boyle and I volunteer with the National Lawyers Guild Chicago chapter. Most of the work I do is as a legal observer, but with this federal invasion, the Lawyers Guild is working very closely with other legal organizations to provide a unified front from all legal groups for activists and individuals facing this federal invasion. And we’ve managed to put together a fairly seamless network to provide a full-featured suite of legal services for activists and immigrants. And we’re even doing joint messaging and focusing on our hotlines. And for the Lawyers Guild [Chicago chapter], our hotline is 872-465-4244. And the Guild performs a variety of services for protesters. We send legal observers. We manage court tracking and relationships with jail support. We also offer lawyers to advise folks planning actions. The Cook County Public Defender’s Office has an arrest response hotline, and this is for right after people get arrested. And that is 844-817-4448. If somebody gets arrested, you can call that number and the Public Defender’s Office will send a lawyer to check in on them in the lockup.
First Defense Legal Aid has a hotline as well, and it’s 800-529-7374. They’re more focused on civil litigation relating to the invasion and also trauma-informed alternatives to calling the police in this situation. And it’s important; we can’t necessarily rely on 911 right now.
And then for immigrants, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has a family support network, 855-435-7693. And they do a variety of things. They’re a clearinghouse for reports of ICE-related activity. So if you see something, call that number, report it to them. They have a network of rapid response teams throughout the city who can check it out and formulate a response to the potential raid. They also provide services to the families that are subjected to the raid, whether it’s the person that’s been seized or their relatives and dependents, and they put immigration lawyers on those issues.
And legal is just one dimension of what’s going on in Chicago right now. But it’s an important one and a useful one. And we’re there as service people for activists. So keep our numbers handy and feel free to reach out to us and we encourage you to reach out to us. We’re at your service.
[musical transition]
KH: I am so full of gratitude for everyone who brought their experience and strength to this conversation. You can call it a mixtape or remote rally, but more than anything, it’s a call for awareness, understanding and solidarity. The corporate media shaped Chicago’s situation into a question of whether Trump was going to send troops here immediately, and when Trump pivoted in his plans, cable news networks and legacy publications closed the subject. But Trump’s federal agents are here in force. I know a lot of people are focused on Charlie Kirk right now because his death is being weaponized against the left, and because the murder of a famous white man who’s a millionaire is well outside the norms of this society, but there’s more happening in this society than the noise surrounding Kirk’s death. People are being hunted on the streets of Chicago and in surrounding towns and suburbs. Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was killed by ICE agents. On Sunday, migrant parents were snatched from their vehicle, while their children were left screaming in the backseat. We are struggling to defend the Chicagoland area, and we know that Trump’s aggression won’t end here. We need solidarity, in this moment, and in the months ahead, as we build political projects that allow us to protect and support each other. Trump is hiring 10,000 new ICE agents. That means this moment of intensifying state violence in Chicago could be only a hint of things to come.
We must resist Trump’s aggression now, because the grip of authoritarianism will tighten. We have to move now, as much as we can, before the walls close in further. So, please, uplift our stories, and join the struggle. Map your networks of support and defense and do what you can, here and now, to hold the line against fascism, wherever you are. Show them that we will not abandon our neighbors, and we will not submit to authoritarianism. Let’s endeavor to care for each other, and let’s refuse to leave each other behind.
I want to thank our listeners for joining us today, and remember, our best defense against cynicism is to do good, and to remember that the good we do matters. Until next time, I’ll see you in the streets.
Show Notes
- You can learn more about the death of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez here.
- You can learn more from Benji Hart in this piece about Black and brown solidarity and a church-led effort to support migrants in Chicago.
- You can learn more about the detention of Willian Gimenez here.
- You can find the Chicago Teachers Union’s Sanctuary Schools toolkit here.
- You can find Kelly’s worksheet, Mapping Community Defense and Care in Our Neighborhoods, here.
- About Face has a secure form for members of the military to request peer or legal support to explore their options in the event they have concerns about the moral, ethical, and/or legal implications of their situation. You can find that here.
- About Face also has a Know Your Rights resource for members of the military. You can find that here.
- You can find Kelly and Mariame Kaba’s book about organizing, Let This Radicalize You, here.
- You can learn more about the work of the Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild here.
