Across the United States, seemingly every day, there are raids on suspected illegal immigrants, protests against such raids, arrests of those protesters, and even clashes between activists and security forces.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency facility in heavily Latino Chicago has become an almost daily Flashpoint.
They’ve manhandled women who are about 110 pounds (around 50 kg). I’m sure people have seen the video.
They’ve shot people with pepper balls. I’m sure people have seen those videos.
And they’ve thrown tear gas and CS gas at people who have just been out here trying to voice their dissent and opinions to this which, if this is a free country, if it’s supposed to be a free country, we have to be able to do that still, especially in a time where authoritarianism and fascism is on the rise.
Cory Gulandi, Political Activist
Public opinion on the immigration raids is generally split along party lines, but an overall majority does disapprove. However, in urban centers, opposition is often widespread, especially in the nation’s third largest city.
Perhaps the most telling indicator of local sentiment is that government prosecutors were forced to drop charges against protesters who were accused of assaulting federal agents here at the facility.
A citizen Grand Jury refused to even indict, meaning there won’t be a trial, and granting immediate freedom to the protesters.
That support for the activists may embolden more people to join protests, but there’s no indication that President Donald Trump is going to call off the raids, which have led to nearly one thousand arrests in just one month in Chicago.
They’re not giving them a good path to citizenship, and that’s a big reason why they’re coming in, because it’s taken them 10 years to get themselves legal, and we haven’t done the job in making things easier, I should say, for them.
So now our answer to the situation, to the problem, is to go and round them up and treat them like criminals, and that’s just wrong.
Army Vet, Anti ICE Protestor
Latino immigrants, as well as Muslims and other non-white immigrants, are reporting that they are locking themselves down at home for fear of being arrested.
Our immigrant families are living in absolute [sic] a sense of feeling traumatized and terrorized by federal agents who are swooping [sic] them up, racial profiling, and other such measures by ICE or those associated with Homeland Security.
Father Brendan Curran, Dominican Commission for Justice and Peace
There are an estimated 14 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, around 5 million entered during the previous administration of Joe Biden.