{"id":224475,"date":"2025-09-13T20:56:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224475\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T20:56:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:56:55","slug":"chicago-suburbs-join-opposition-to-donald-trumps-ice-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/224475\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago suburbs join opposition to Donald Trump’s ICE blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

She got to the base\u2019s main gate at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, dressed in her Army boots and a red and black dress adorned with embroidered flowers, one of two identical dresses she and her daughter received from her aunt on a family trip to Guadalajara.<\/p>\n

The boots, she said, were for confidence, the dress to symbolize her Mexican heritage.<\/p>\n

Lina Alvarez spearheaded a protest outside Naval Station Great Lakes on Sept. 6 that drew hundreds of people opposed to its use as a base of operations for President Donald Trump\u2019s planned immigration \u201cblitz\u201d on Chicago.<\/p>\n

Four days later, the 42-year-old retired U.S. Army sergeant first class returned to the North Chicago base alone, carrying two flags \u2014 American and Mexican \u2014 bound together as one and a poster board on which she wrote in green marker:<\/p>\n

IMAGINE
4 deployments
IEDs
Small arms fire
Indirect fire
Soldier\u2019s suicide
PTSD
But I must prove I\u2019m American when they ask?<\/p>\n

\u201cI came here to be a voice for people who are too scared to come out here,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cI came here to try to make the world a little bit safer for my daughter. I came here because last Saturday was the first time I felt a little bit of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Trump administration has singled out Chicago for immigration sweeps this month \u2014 dubbed \u201cOperation Midway Blitz<\/a>\u201d \u2014 and a possible National Guard deployment aimed, he\u2019s said, at curbing the city\u2019s endemic crime, those threats have stirred considerable pushback from residents and leaders across the suburbs who have organized protests and publicly condemned the spectre of federal incursions.<\/p>\n

Tensions over immigration enforcement were heightened Friday after the agency reported that one of its agents shot and killed a man<\/a> who struck and dragged the officer during a traffic stop in west suburban Franklin Park. The agent suffered severe injuries, the agency reported.<\/p>\n

But suburban protests had mounted even before the shooting. In Downers Grove a few hundred people rallied Sunday outside a hotel after immigration advocates spotted Department of Homeland Security vehicles in the parking lot and suspected federal agents were staying there.<\/p>\n

A day earlier, a similar-sized crowd gathered near a Wheaton grocery store to protest federal immigration raids, some carrying signs that read: ICE is not welcome here. And on Friday, dozens protested outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview.<\/p>\n