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Since the Trump administration unleashed “Operation Midway Blitz” on September 8, workers across the Chicago area have been targeted at hiring sites, on the way to work, and on the job. While the Department of Homeland Security says it has made 500 detentions in Chicagoland, Brandon Lee, communications director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, cautioned against citing the agency’s numbers as fact, because “ICE lies.” While rapid response organizers told me they don’t have their own independent tally, they are certain that detentions are escalating.
Organizers say that the crackdown has created a climate of fear and intimidation that is not only directly harming workers and their families, but is also stifling ongoing worker efforts to improve conditions on the job, and organize to protect themselves from raids. There are documented cases of employers seemingly taking advantage of this climate to clamp down on organizing efforts among their workforce. “The atmosphere that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to create is one where they’re chilling speech and chilling organizing among immigrants, among immigrant workers, and among advocates,” Lee says.
There is a class component to this crackdown. Unlike the immigrants now being abducted off the streets, employers rarely find themselves the target of immigration enforcement, beyond fines that are already factored into their cost of doing business. The same can’t be said for the day laborers, textile workers, street vendors, and domestic workers being rounded up en masse in the United States.
Immigration enforcers in and around Chicago have targeted a homeless shelter and school drop-off, and included a militarized clampdown on protests at the Broadview ICE detention center. On Sunday, more than 50 armed, masked federal agents marched through downtown Chicago detaining people, with Gregory Bovino, commander at large of the border force, telling one reporter that the agents were detaining people based on “how they look.” |
