Many protestors responding to “Operation Midway Blitz,” the stepped-up immigration enforcement in Chicago, are politically active for the first time in their lives.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Chicago has a long, proud history of activism and is considered by many the birthplace of community organizing. So it’s no surprise that there’s fierce opposition in the city to increased immigration enforcement. On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement – or ICE – said it made 400 arrests since it launched Operation Midway Blitz two weeks ago. Resistance in the city is attracting many who are becoming politically active for the first time, as Jessica Pupovac reports.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) No more suspicion (ph)…
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) No more suspicion (ph)…
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: …(Chanting) From fascist politicians.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: …(Chanting) From fascist politicians.
JESSICA PUPOVAC: Outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, armed federal agents in tactical gear and gas masks recently stared down about 50 demonstrators. Jose Richter (ph) stood toward the front, wearing a pro-Second Amendment hat. He was in his work clothes, a black security guard uniform with an American flag on the sleeve.
JOSE RICHTER: I do security at Navy Pier.
PUPOVAC: Have you been to many protests?
RICHTER: No. This is my first one.
PUPOVAC: Richter is a U.S. Army veteran, born in Mexico and adopted by a U.S. family as a child. He has legal status but said he’s standing up for those who don’t.
RICHTER: I never seen this, how they discriminate if you’re Latino and looking at you like a criminal. That’s not right. My old friends, they got deported already. They went to court. Not even 10 minutes, they were out of the courthouse, sent back to Mexico. And it shouldn’t be like that. We’re not in Russia. They need to stop it.
PUPOVAC: The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration has sparked a wave of new organizing here and inspired many first-time activists like Richter and Kevin Naglich. Naglich used to work in cybersecurity. Now he’s devoting most of his time to resisting Trump’s second-term agenda, including his call for mass deportations.
KEVIN NAGLICH: Right out of the gate, this time was, you know, attacking all these pillars of democracy. I was just like, OK, well, I can either sit around, feel bad and do nothing or try to make a difference, and I chose the latter.
PUPOVAC: So he got to work. In February, Naglich started a northwest Chicago chapter of the progressive pro-Democracy group Indivisible. He says it’s already attracted more than 3,000 members, most of them brand new to activism. And he’s not alone. Other groups are forming networks to support their immigrant neighbors, canvassing door to door, helping them get their IDs and guardianship paperwork in order and walking children of immigrant parents to school if they’re afraid to leave their homes. Others are protesting almost daily – outside a suburban hotel where ICE agents are believed to be staying, at the naval base north of Chicago where they train and at this ICE processing facility just west of the city.
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RACHEL COHEN: And I am so proud to be a Chicagoan. I am so proud…
PUPOVAC: Attorney Rachel Cohen is another new activist.
COHEN: And I am so proud to be in a community that shows up and says absolutely not.
PUPOVAC: Earlier this year, Cohen was a corporate finance attorney at one of the country’s largest firms. But then her former firm pledged $100 million in pro bono legal services to causes backed by Trump after the White House threatened sanctions. She said that capitulation kept her up at night, and eventually it changed her life. She publicly quit her job in March and has since devoted herself to resisting the president’s agenda, plugging into local efforts and sharing what she learns with her growing TikTok following.
COHEN: When you get off your couch and you stop scrolling and you plug into the community, you realize that things are very bad. But there are so many people who also see that for what it is, and you’re motivated to keep going and keep showing up.
PUPOVAC: ICE agents have continued making arrests in Chicago and the suburbs this week, though it is unclear exactly how many. A DHS spokesperson told NPR the number is in the hundreds across Illinois. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin this week blasted what she called the demonization of ICE agents by the media and, quote, “leftist groups and sanctuary politicians.” She says it puts ICE agents at risk and undermines public safety and national security. But Cohen and other activists here say they have no intention of stopping.
For NPR News, I’m Jessica Pupovac in Chicago.
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