Chicago

Mother Mary wearing a respirator to protect herself from tear gas. Baby Jesus with zip-tied hands, wrapped in a thin blanket that looks like aluminum foil. Masked centurions with sunglasses and green vests labeled “ICE.”

This is how the Lake Street Church of Evanston chose to assemble its outdoor Nativity scene for the Christmas season. The church and its leaders have been vocal critics of the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz, which roiled the Chicago region from September through November, and expressed a message with their holiday decorations.

“Enforcement terror does not discriminate by documentation status,” the church wrote on its Facebook page on Nov. 25.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6802527

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/8836

Federal prosecutors on Thursday moved to drop criminal charges against Marimar Martinez, a woman who was shot multiple times by a US Border Patrol agent last month in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood.

As reported by local news station WTTW, prosecutors filed a one-page motion asking the court to dismiss the indictment against both Martinez and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, who had been accused of assaulting a federal immigration officer by intentionally ramming their vehicle into the officer's car.

The US attorneys who filed the motion to dismiss offered no further explanation for their decision to drop the case.

In the indictment, prosecutors alleged that Martinez and Ruiz were part of a larger group of people in cars that was trailing immigration officers' vehicles as they conducted operations in Brighton Park.

Prosecutors said that the Border Patrol agent who shot Martinez had been acting in self-defense, and that he had only opened fire after Martinez's car collided with his vehicle.

However, recently uncovered text messages showed the Border Patrol agent apparently bragging about shooting Martinez, as he boasted that he "fired five rounds and she had seven holes" in a message sent to fellow agents.

An attorney representing Martinez claimed last month that he had seen body camera footage that directly undermined the US Department of Homeland Security's claims about how the shooting unfolded.

Gregory Pratt, an investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune, said the dismissal of the case was yet more evidence that the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement operations appear to be backfiring.

"This follows several dropped prosecutions against protesters," he wrote on Bluesky. "To say the immigration raids have been all around mess is an understatement."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

I've been curious about them for awhile, but I just learned they also serve as library cards and ventra cards, which renewed my interest.

How was it getting the card? Do you ever actually use it as ID?

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6522654

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/3738

Residents of Chicago's Little Village are angrily lashing out at federal immigration officials who rolled into their neighborhood and detained residents for a second consecutive day.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that US Border Patrol agents, led by Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, stormed into Little Village on Thursday morning wearing military-style gear and gas masks. Witnesses tell the Sun-Times that the agents began by trying to enter a discount mall in the neighborhood, only to realize that it had been closed.

The agents' presence drew the attention of local residents who gathered around them and demanded that they leave their neighborhood.

Baltazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council, said that he arrived on the scene and tried to deescalate tensions between the agents and the community. However, he told the Sun-Times that Bovino appeared to be itching for confrontation and was the first federal official to lob a tear gas canister into the crowd.

"I told him not to throw it because all he was going to do was rile people up, but he just smirked at me and threw it anyway,” said Enriquez, who also accused Bovino of leading an "orchestrated" assault on the neighborhood.

At the end of the operation, Border Patrol agents detained five people, including at least two people whom locals said were US citizens.

Illinois state Rep. Edgar González (D-23), who grew up in Little Village, expressed fury at the agents' tactics.

“It pisses me off to see them coming into our neighborhood and terrorizing our people,” he said, while also cautioning residents against getting into violent confrontations with federal officials.

"It’s a normal reaction to want to resist and to be angry,” González said. “I’m angry, too. But we need to remember not to take the bait."

The raid in Little Village came on the same day that Human Rights Watch released a report documenting the use of excessive force by federal immigration officials on protesters, journalists, and volunteer street medics outside of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, Illinois.

According to Human Rights Watch—and reporting published since the Trump administration launched Operation Midway Blitz last month—federal agents have repeatedly lobbed tear gas canisters and fired projectiles into crowds of peaceful protesters who are posing no threat to law enforcement officials.

“This is not crowd control, but a campaign of intimidation,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “Federal agents are using chemical irritants and firing projectiles at peaceful protesters, volunteer street medics, and journalists in broad daylight. The message is clear that dissent will be punished.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

The government uses the Whiskey Rebellion as justification, ignoring that is both before police existed in the US and before the Posse Commitatus Act was passed.

"I went to Chicago to see if it's really the crime-ridden, third world hell hole I've been told. You will NEVER BELIEVE what I actually saw."

Photo from Anthony Vazquez at the Chicago Sun-Times

Eboni Russell @_Russell_00 - 13h

I live in Chicago... I live a block over from Cicero. ICE visited my home yesterday. ICE didn't knock. ICE tried to forcefully open my window. ICE opened my screen and asked me to sign papers. I AM an American Citizen. Born on U.S. soil. ICE forcefully tried to enter my home! WAKE UP AMERICA!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/53169770

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37177654

Used to live around this area. It’s the safest area in Chicago before these fascist thugs invaded.

Stay safe everyone.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6383185

President Donald Trump and his allies have been relentlessly pushing the narrative that the aim of the White House’s deployment of federal immigration agents and hundreds of National Guard members to Chicago is to protect the public in what Trump has called “a war zone.”

But hundreds of people who marched through the city on Wednesday evening were clear about who is wreaking havoc in their communities.

“No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” residents of the nation’s third-largest city chanted, demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents leave Chicago and its surrounding suburbs.

Signs at the rally read, “ICE Is Trump’s Gestapo,” “Stop ripping families apart,” and “They blame immigrants so you won’t blame billionaires.”

The demonstration was organized soon after about 300 troops with the Illinois National Guard and 200 Texas National Guard members arrived in the city over the vehement objections of Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker, Democrats who have condemned Trump for deploying masked, armed ICE agents to the city for the past month.

While Trump has claimed that “Operation Midway Blitz” is aimed at protecting the public from undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, US citizens have been targeted in raids and with violence perpetrated by immigration agents, who have shot pepper balls at a priest and a journalist, fatally shot a man during a traffic stop, and “deliberately” attacked peaceful protesters, according to a lawsuit filed this week.

Full Article

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6380339

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/77675

A video has come to light which shows United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shooting a pastor in the head with a pepper-spray projectile.

Priest smoked in the head with pepper ball by Trump’s goons. pic.twitter.com/31jpGjX1E0

— Tim Miller (@Timodc) October 8, 2025

The footage shows protesters gathered outside an ICE processing facility in Broadview, a suburb of Chicago, back in September.

One of the ICE agents shoots pepper balls – which are essentially pepper spray projectiles – at David Black, a pastor at a Presbyterian Church.

This comes at a time when Donald Trump has increased ICE presence in the Chicago area. This has led to daily protests outside the Broadview facility. Additionally, this weekend, Trump ordered US National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois, under the guise of ‘rampant crime and illegal immigration’.

But as the Canary previously reported, Trump has made a habit of targeting Democrat-led cities. Recently, he took similar actions in both Los Angeles and Washington.

Christian values?

MAGA Republicans claim to be the party of Christian values. But the footage we are seeing from the US – almost daily – makes you question which Bible these people read.

The War on Christianity that the Right/MAGA are always crying about seems to be waged by ICE. https://t.co/VAhlqPYnBb

— AJ (@AlisaJass) October 8, 2025

All these bible thumping right wingers are not going where they think they are going… https://t.co/o8a8tMGfiC

— John Milstead (@JD_Milstead) October 9, 2025

Party of Christian values, folks https://t.co/OFq8iqZ29C

— S. Harting-Pope (@shartingpope) October 9, 2025

The Trump administration – and all the goons happily working for them – have made it clear what they think of ordinary American people.

For all the Christians who continue to carry water for this admin, is it not clear what they think of us? https://t.co/giPEm35s1u

— Calvin (@calvinbarr15) October 8, 2025

I cannot believe American citizens believe this is okay. Shooting a priest while unprovoked. https://t.co/DLb3E03gAR

— Cody Mody Mody (@CodyModyMody44) October 8, 2025

Now, David Black has joined a lawsuit with Chicago reporters and protesters. It accuses Donald Trump’s administration of unconstitutional threats to religious freedoms and First Amendment rights, with a “pattern of extreme brutality” designed to “silence the press and civilians”.

If this isn’t fascism, what is? https://t.co/hH8vSdDjbM

— Martina Navratilova (@Martina) October 8, 2025

Clergyman or not, I cannot conceive of any context, or any unseen video angle, which would make this grotesque use of force remotely justifiable. This is utterly shameful in America or anywhere else in the world. https://t.co/DilHQwP6uk

— Wolf Dixon (@BigBadWolfDixon) October 8, 2025

America, the land of the free

And it’s not just Chicago where ICE agents are firing at unarmed citizens.

This week in Portland, ICE also attacked protesters with rubber bullets.

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A post shared by useless cops (@uselesscops)

Meanwhile, Trump is also attempting to crack down on ‘liberal groups’. According to Reuters, ICE agents are being redeployed to target the:

finances and activities of liberal non-profits and groups opposed to his agenda.

The administration plans to deploy the FBI, Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department to fight certain left-wing groups, which it accuses of funding and organising “political violence”.

“The land of the free” is a police state. Proving there are no good guys with guns, that libertarians are cosplaying pussies and the US constitution is as valuable/useful as a roll of toilet paper. https://t.co/dluWB5KZz4

— A.A Is OK (@teach_n_travel) October 8, 2025

Trump also appears to be toying with invoking the Insurrection Act. This gives him the power to deploy US troops or federalise the National Guard inside the US to tackle ‘domestic uprisings’. Basically, he wants to shut down the right to protest.

BREAKING: White House officials reportedly in serious discussions over President Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, allowing Trump deploy active-duty troops in the US to quell unrest.

— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) October 8, 2025

The act has been used many times before. However, since the civil rights movement in the 60s, it has become very rare. It has not been used since 1992.

But civil rights groups and legal experts worry that the president will abuse the act. It gives him broad authority to use the military as a domestic police force. Trump has proven time and time again that he does not care about the rule of law. He cares about power, plain and simple. And those Christian values which MAGA claim to be restoring? From not releasing the Epstein files to shooting pastors with pepper balls – his record speaks for itself. The faith of these Republicans is nothing more than a political prop filled with hypocrisy.

Feature image via New York Post/Youtube

By HG

From Canary via this RSS feed

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6364746

cross-posted from: https://ibbit.at/post/76069

West Chicago, IL – Hundreds of protesters marched through West Chicago on the morning of Saturday, October 4 to denounce ICE’s attacks on Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, referred to by the Trump regime as “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Demonstrators had planned to converge at a local gas station before rallying at the Mayor’s office, but ICE attacked the gathering activists shortly before 9 a.m., pepper spraying three members of the group who intervened when ICE took two men who were at the gas station.

Rapid response networks were quickly notified, and hundreds of people then mobilized at the site of the attack, where a rally began under the flags of Mexico, Puerto Rico and other flags of the Americas.

Notable among the speakers were Cristobal Cavazos of Casa DuPage People’s Patrol, Joe Iosbaker of the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda, West Chicago Mayor Daniel Bovey and faith leaders Pastor Roberto Moreno-Cruz and Reverend Avani Christian.

Speaking as an organizer of the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda, Joe Iosbaker referred to Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, who was killed by ICE while dropping his child off at school in Franklin Park, as the first martyr of the new struggle now taking place.

Iosbaker stated, “He is the first martyr of this movement! We are workers! Everyone here is a worker like Silverio, he is our martyr. Like the martyrs of the Primero de Mayo, he is the first martyr, and we must remember him, and fight for him, and fight for justice for him!”

West Chicago Mayor Daniel Bovey’s remarks began with the news that the two men who had earlier been taken by ICE were now free. The mayor then said West Chicago needed to learn from its history, when its Mexicano community was decimated in the 1950s, alluding to “Operation Wetback” the Eisenhower-era immigration crackdown where a large number of undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens were deported to Mexico.

Cristobal Cavazos, who has been leading the People’s Patrol from the Casa DuPage Workers Center, emphasized the role of mass organization in the release of the two men, stating, “I do not think it's a coincidence that ICE freed those dudes, because there were people there, and people can be there a lot more. That's what we're trying to do with our marches, with our People's Patrol, with our rapid response.”

#WestChicagoIL #IL #ImmigrantRights #ICE #Trump

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