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In Chicago On the Eve of the Occupation [1]

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Date: 2025-09-05

The news stories have been shouting at us for the last couple of weeks. Trump keeps issuing vague threats about what and when, Governor Pritzker Mayor Johnson and everyone with a big voice has been issuing strong warnings to stay away. There have been more and more tales about new ICE raids every day. And everyone I know here is on edge.

I live in the near west Chicago suburb of Berwyn, and I’m in a group of activists that has formed a hyper-local Rapid Response Team to combat ICE. We’re a part of a network of dozens of similar groups around the metropolitan area that are gathering data, training for different scenarios involving ICE agents and local immigrants, canvassing the neighborhoods and local businesses to warn of potential ICE raids, bringing groceries and other supplies to residents too afraid to leave their homes and sharing literature informing people of their rights and giving tips about how to deal with various situations.

In recent days, our conversations have gotten increasingly frequent and urgent. There is news that the National Guard Armory in the Humboldt Park neighborhood is seeing increased activity and is being readied to be a staging ground for all the National Guard troops when they do finally arrive (today? they weekend? next week? Are they already here but not deployed yet?



Several Mexican Independence Day celebrations scheduled for next weekend have been cancelled for fear of ICE arrests, and others are closely monitoring the situation while determining how to proceed. Right now there are rumors of a possible ICE raid at this afternoon at a middle school right here in Berwyn when classes end and parents come to pick up their children. We will be joining at least several of our allies at the school to record and try to disrupt the event and hopefully prevent some tragedy.

Early this morning, we joined a hundred people in a powerful protest in front of an ICE detention center in the western suburb of Broadview. We have been told that this place is expected to see a huge spike of detainees in the next 45-60 days.



As TV cameras rolled, we chanted and sang songs from the Civil Rights movement. At one point, as helicopters hovered above us, an ICE van tried to pass through the crowd to enter the heavily fenced-in parking lot, and about eight young people dashed in front of it and sat down side-by-side to block the driveway. Local Broadview police stormed in to try to force the protesters out of the way, and then dozens more of us (including myself and my wife) quickly jumped in behind our seated cohorts and began chanting and singing while the TV cameras crowded closer to capture the rowdy scene. After about ten tense minutes, the van slowly backed up and drove away as we all cheered.

Trump has sent what he believes to be his personal army first into Los Angeles and then Washington DC causing vast chaos, disruption and harm along the way, and he has repeatedly threatened that Chicago is the next stop in his fervent quest to turn the US into an impoverished third world dictatorship. No one in Chicago wants his army here, but thousands of us have been actively preparing for this. And while nobody except Trump himself and his horde of slavering sycophants wants this to happen, I believe we are ready to fight him with everything we’ve got. And I believe that in the end, we will prevail.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/5/2342006/-In-Chicago-On-the-Eve-of-the-Occupation?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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