Danny Postel writes:

Our far North Side neighborhood is one of the most diverse and multilingual, not only in Chicago, but in the U.S. More than 80 languages are spoken here. One of the neighborhood’s high schools, Sullivan, has a long history as a home to immigrant and refugee students, and was the subject of the 2021 book “Refugee High: Coming of Age in America” by the journalist Elly Fishman. My father, a child of immigrants, attended Sullivan in the early 1940s. Another member of my family, also a child of immigrants, is on the staff of the school today, working with special education students.

So the chant “This is what America looks like” [from over 400 locals protesting against ICE arrests] had a powerful resonance in this neighborhood with deep immigrant roots, and with the diverse assembled crowd. Several demonstrators wore hoodies adorned with the words “Raised by immigrants. The children of those who turned nothing into something.” One of them was Alderperson Andre Vasquez, who represents the neighboring 40th Ward on the Chicago City Council. His parents emigrated from Guatemala. People held signs that read “‘Love thy neighbor.’ Note the full stop.” and “Fuck ICE. No human is illegal.”

There was a palpable emotional intensity on the street. Virtually every car that drove by over those three hours honked in support of the rally. It was hard to hear anything over the sound of the horns and chants. Several drivers rolled down their windows and raised their fists. One woman pulled over and asked me what was going on. When I told her what had happened two days prior, she expressed dismay and said she was with the demonstrators.

Protect Rogers Park, the group that organized the rally, is a rapid-response network that monitors ICE activity in the neighborhood. Members share real-time updates via Signal to let one another know where ICE vehicles or agents have been spotted. Members show up as quickly as they can get there, blow whistles to alert neighbors of imminent danger and document any encounters with federal agents on their phones. The group offers online training sessions in ICE monitoring and understanding people’s legal rights when dealing with federal agents.

“We’ve had at least 500 people in our online training sessions,” Protect Rogers Park organizer Marissa Graciosa recently told Block Club Chicago, which has become a go-to online source for neighborhood-level news in Chicago, especially since the onset of “Operation Midway Blitz” in September. That number has now doubled. The last training had over 1,000 people sign up. And Protect Rogers Park is just one of several organizations leading training sessions and mobilizing people.

The recording of encounters with federal agents is crucial, given that ICE’s own account of events tends to differ sharply from what many people have witnessed on the ground. Organizers stress the need to have direct footage that contradicts the claims of ICE, which maintains that its agents have committed no abuses or used excessive force.

Protect Rogers Park also coordinates response teams stationed outside of neighborhood schools as children are dropped off and picked up, when families feel particularly vulnerable because of the fixed schedule and known locations. Many immigrant parents in Chicago are afraid to send their children to school. Some are keeping their kids home. Stories abound of children hugging their parents extra tightly before leaving for school, in case their parents are taken away during the school day and they aren’t there when the kids get home.

We don’t have to speculate about the impact of this climate of fear on students. “Protecting the American People from Invasion,” an executive order that Trump signed on the first day of his first term, in 2017, effectively turned state and local police around the country into arms of ICE. The consequences were immediate. A study of 55 counties found that this program to “enhance collaboration” between federal and local levels reduced the Latino student population by 10% in just two years. [Continue reading…]