Chicagoans Fight Back

My heroes of the day are all of the Chicago residents who have decided to fight back to protect their neighbors from being kidnapped by ICE agents. ICE agents are now in multiple Chicago neighborhoods- swooping in and taking street vendors, mothers walking their children to school and harassing pretty much anyone with brown skin who is out in public.

ICE agents have shot at least two people, one fatally; put a man in a chokehold after a traffic crash; threw a smoke bomb into the middle of a busy neighborhood street; accosted protesters and journalists; chased and arrested people outside a Bronzeville homeless shelter; and raided a South Shore apartment building, destroying property and detaining dozens of people and children in the middle of the night. (citybureua.org)

But Chicagoans are fighting back. There are now rapid response and mutual aid efforts organized in multiple neighborhoods. These grassroots efforts are organized into a network. There are crowd sourced maps of where ICE agents are spotted and people with orange whistles verifying ICE sightings. When ICE agents are spotted they blow whistles and others blow their car horns. People come running to help. Neighbors are walking to school in groups and doing shopping for their neighbors so they do not have to venture outside.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has signed an executive order declaring public property, such as parks and city garages, off limits for ICE agents. They may not use public property for staging any more. He has encouraged private businesses to join with them.

This is a terrible moment in U.S history that will go down in infamy, but the upside is that people in communities everywhere are uniting. This is inspiring and cause for hope.