And It’s Happening On Our Watch!
In Chicago this week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) reportedly pointed a gun at a state legislator and his staff. The next day, raids in Little Village and Cicero led to the arrest of two American citizens working for a city alderman. Local leaders called the actions a “brutal escalation” of the Trump administration’s enforcement campaign.
These scenes—agents rappelling from helicopters, firing pepper balls at protesters, zip-tying children—are becoming routine. What was once shocking has become the new normal. The spectacle is part of a deliberate strategy: to frighten communities into silence and self-deportation. Even the administration’s own promotional videos have glorified the raids, using recycled footage to dramatize its crackdown.
Yet amid the fear, Chicagoans are fighting back. Residents have created their own alert networks, blowing whistles and organizing rapid-response teams whenever ICE appears. Lawyers are challenging detentions in court, where judges and advocates say discretion—the ability to consider a person’s health, family, or community ties—has all but vanished.
Under current policy, compassion no longer counts. Parents of sick children, longtime residents, even cancer patients have been swept up and shipped to detention centers hundreds of miles away.
What’s happening in Chicago is more than an immigration story. It is a test of our national conscience—of whether we still believe in due process, humanity, and the rule of law. When fear wears a badge and a mask, it threatens not only immigrants, but the very soul of our democracy.
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 