I Want You to Understand Chicago

I want you to understand what it is to live in Chicago.

Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is upset, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again.

An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next.

Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head, because, as the manufacturer warns, they could seriously injure or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st.

Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Shore. Roughly three hundred agents deployed flashbangs, busted down doors, and took people indiscriminately. US citizens, including women and children, were grabbed from their beds, marched outside without even a chance to dress, zip-tied, and loaded into vans. Residents returned to find their windows and doors broken, and their belongings stolen.

Understand what it is to lead Chicago. On October 3rd, Alderperson Jesse Fuentes asked federal agents to produce a judicial warrant and allow an injured man at the hospital access to an attorney. The plainclothes agents grabbed Fuentes, handcuffed her, and took her outside the building. Her lawsuit is ongoing. On October 21st, Representative Hoan Huynh was going door-to-door to inform businesses of their immigration rights when he was attacked by six armed CBP agents, who boxed in his vehicle and pointed a gun at his face. Huynh says the agents tried to bash open his car window.

Understand what it is to live in Chicago. On October 9th, Judge Ellis issued a temporary restraining order requiring that federal agents refrain from deploying tear gas or shooting civilians without an imminent threat, and requiring two audible warnings. ICE and CBP have flaunted these court orders. On October 12th, federal agents shoved an attorney to the ground who tried to help a man being detained in Albany Park. Agents refused to identify themselves or produce a warrant, then deployed tear gas without warning. On October 14th, agents rammed a car on the East Side, then tear-gassed neighbors and police.

On October 23rd, federal agents detained seven people, including two U.S. citizens and an asylum seeker, in Little Village. Two worked for Alderperson Michael Rodriguez: his chief of staff Elianne Bahena, and police district council member Jacqueline Lopez. Again in Little Village, agents tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed protestors, seizing two high school students and a security guard, among others. Alderperson Byron Sigcho-Lopez reported that agents assaulted one of the students, who had blood on his face. On October 24th, agents in Lakeview emerged from unmarked cars, climbed a locked fence to enter a private yard, and kidnapped a construction worker. As neighbors gathered, they deployed four tear gas canisters. That same day, a few blocks away, men with rifles jumped out of SUVs and assaulted a man standing at a bus stop.

“They were beating him,” said neighbor Hannah Safter. “His face was bleeding”.

They returned minutes later and attacked again. A man from the Laugh Factory, a local comedy club, had come outside with his mother and sister. “His mom put her body in between them, and one of the agents kicked her in the face”.

Understand what it is to raise a family in Chicago. The next day, October 25th, federal agents tear-gassed children in Old Irving Park. Again, no warnings were heard. On October 26th, agents arrested a 70-year-old man and threw a 67-year old woman to the ground in Old Irving Park, then tear-gassed neighbors in Avondale. That same day, federal agents deployed tear gas at a children’s Halloween parade in Old Irving Park.

“Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer. They just don’t. And you can’t use riot control weapons against them,” Judge Ellis said to Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino.

Understand how the government speaks about Chicago. On November 3rd, paralegal Dayanne Figueroa, a US citizen, was driving to work when federal agents crashed into her car, drew their guns, and dragged her from the vehicle. Her car was left behind, coffee still in the cup holder, keys still in the car. The Department of Homeland Security blamed her, claiming she “violently resisted arrest, injuring two officers.” You can watch the video for yourself.

“All uses of force have been more than exemplary,” Bovino stated in a recent deposition. He is, as Judge Ellis has stated, lying. Bovino personally threw a tear gas canister in Little Village. He claimed in a sworn deposition that he was struck in the head by a rock before throwing the canister, and when videos showed no rock, admitted that he lied about the event. When shown video of himself tackling peaceful protestor Scott Blackburn, Bovino refused to acknowledge that he tackled the man. Instead, he claimed, “That’s not a reportable use of force. The use of force was against me.”

“I find the government’s evidence to be simply not credible,” said Judge Ellis in her November 6th ruling. “The use of force shocks the conscience.”

Understand what it is to be Chicago. To carry a whistle and have the ICIRR hotline in your phone. To wake up from nightmares about shouting militiamen pointing guns at your face. To rehearse every day how to calmly refuse entry, how to identify a judicial warrant, how to film and narrate an assault. To wake to helicopters buzzing your home, to feel your heart rate spike at the car horns your neighbors use to alert each other to ICE and CBP enforcement. To know that perhaps three thousand of your fellow Chicagoans have been disappeared by the government, but no one really knows for sure. To know that many of those seized were imprisoned a few miles away, as many as a hundred and fifty people in a cell, denied access to food, water, sanitation, and legal representation. To know that many of these agents—masked, without badge numbers or body cams, and refusing to identify themselves—will never face justice. To wonder what they tell their children.

The masked thugs who attack my neighbors, who point guns at elected officials and shoot pastors with pepper balls, who tear-gas neighborhoods, terrify children, and drag teachers and alderpeople away in handcuffs are not unprecedented. We knew this was coming a year ago, when Trump promised mass deportations. We knew it was coming, and seventy-seven million of us voted for it anyway.

This weight presses upon me every day. I am flooded with stories. There are so many I cannot remember them all; cannot keep straight who was gassed, beaten, abducted, or shot. I write to leave a record, to stare at the track of the tornado which tears through our city. I write to leave a warning. I write to call for help.

I want you to understand, regardless of your politics, the historical danger of a secret police. What happens when a militia is deployed in our neighborhoods and against our own people. Left unchecked, their mandate will grow; the boundaries of acceptable identity and speech will shrink. I want you to think about elections in this future. I want you to understand that every issue you care about—any hope of participatory democracy—is downstream of this.

I want you to understand what it is to love Chicago. To see your neighbors make the heartbreaking choice between showing up for work or staying safe. To march two miles long, calling out: “This is what Chicago sounds like!” To see your representatives put their bodies on the line and their voices in the fight. To form patrols to walk kids safely to school. To join rapid-response networks to document and alert your neighbors to immigration attacks. For mutual aid networks to deliver groceries and buy out street vendors so they can go home safe. To talk to neighbor after neighbor, friend after friend, and hear yes, yes, it’s all hands on deck.

I want you to understand Chicago.