With a goodbye to their mom, Sam and Ben Luhmann walked out the screen door of their West Chicago home on a recent weekday morning.<\/p>\n
A few minutes shy of 7:30 a.m., Ben pulled their midsize sedan out of the garage as Sam stood in the driveway, adjusting the straps around his shoulders and checking his phone.<\/p>\n
But the brothers weren\u2019t gunning to beat the first bell at school. They were racing to find ICE.<\/p>\n
At 16 and 17 years old, Sam and Ben for the past two months have made it their mission to follow, investigate and capture federal immigration activity across the Chicago area. It\u2019s an undertaking the brothers say happened naturally after growing up in a household where social justice and civic duty were as much a part of their homeschool curriculum as math and science.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I get the opportunity to fight like this for the rest of my life, I would be totally OK with that,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
Their efforts in the vast resistance movement against the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation operation in Chicago, represent the wave of youth activists who have been galvanized into action by Midway Operation Blitz, following a long tradition paved around the world by young activists, experts say. From Students of a Democratic Society protesting the Vietnam War to today\u2019s Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg, the sense of injustice draws young people to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know in these moments \u2026 where there is deep distrust toward political institutions \u2014 where individuals and particularly young people are feeling quite dissatisfied with both political parties \u2014 that young people actually do engage in politics quite passionately,\u201d said Matthew Nelsen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami who also works as a research consultant for the University of Chicago\u2019s GenForward Survey.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, students at New Trier High School in Winnetka who regularly volunteer with refugees and migrants in Chicago spoke out that the school is curtailing their volunteer efforts because of the blitz. In October, hundreds of Little Village students staged a walkout in protest of the crackdown. And on Mexican Independence Day in September, students from all across Chicago Public Schools organized a rally in front of Trump Tower to denounce the raids, their cheers of \u201cViva la Raza\u201d and \u201cViva Mexico\u201d echoing through skyscrapers down East Wacker Drive.<\/p>\n
\u201c(The youth) hold a lot of power to shift the direction of the country and how it\u2019s working,\u201d said Kate Rice, 52, a Rogers Park-based rapid responder, who has witnessed a number of younger people spring into action. \u201cIt\u2019s time for them to take control, especially Generation Alpha. They\u2019re young, they\u2019re motivated, they\u2019re angry \u2026 and I think this is the perfect time for them to start getting politically active.\u201d<\/p>\n
When immigration agents started swarming Southern California in June, Ben found himself antsy to do something.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the horror of it, I wanted to be able to fight it so bad,\u201d he told the Tribune on a recent morning patrol. Sam sat in the passenger seat with a body camera strapped to his chest, his eyes glued to his phone for any reports of activity nearby.<\/p>\n
His parents, both Wheaton College grads, have raised him and his seven younger siblings to see the humanity in everyone, Ben said. But from more than 2,000 miles away, he wasn\u2019t sure what he could do. Then the blitz came to his hometown.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 15, Ben and Sam\u2019s mom, Audrey Luhmann, got a text from a friend calling for someone to check reports of federal activity in West Chicago. Though she\u2019d never received nor heeded that kind of request before, Luhmann\u2019s gut reaction was that this is what she\u2019s supposed to do, she recalled in an interview earlier this month. So she and her eight kids, even her 3-year-old, piled into their white passenger van.<\/p>\n
By the time they arrived, activity had long passed. But that day introduced the family to other rapid responders. Within 48 hours, Ben and Sam encountered their first attempted federal immigration arrest in real time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could finally do something,\u201d Ben said.<\/p>\n
Since the raids hit home, Ben and Sam, who have been homeschooled their whole lives, have balanced college applications and schoolwork with patrols. They\u2019ve documented immigration enforcement from Carpentersville to Little Village. They\u2019ve gone toe-to-toe with federal agents, asking officers questions and checking to make sure they\u2019re abiding by court orders. And they\u2019ve started to compile a list of plates on federal vehicles that appeared altered.<\/p>\n
Every day is different. Last week, the pair spent a weekday morning primarily just monitoring usual hotspots and letting fellow rapid responders know areas were clear. But by the next day, they were going door-to-door speaking with neighbors about landscapers who had been detained in St. Charles and videotaping federal agents detain a man just outside the Kane County Judicial Center.<\/p>\n
Nelsen, the University of Miami professor, said he thinks the uptick in youth political activism in Chicago is indicative of how younger residents are feeling about the current administration\u2019s policies. Young people are also often drawn to extra-systemic forms of political action when they\u2019re feeling cynical about their political institutions, Nelsen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019re not feeling trusting of the government, they may be moved to take political action in realms that they feel are beyond the state,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Citlalli Santiago, 23, is a graduate student at the University of Illinois Chicago who became part of her local rapid response group after the presidential election. She said the raids have taken a toll on her own family but that moments like this illuminate the importance of a community banding together, to stepping in where government falls short. And she\u2019s encouraged, she added, that younger voices are among those rising to the occasion because it\u2019s a sign that progress is possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud of my peers (and the) people even younger than me because we\u2019ve stepped up,\u201d said Santiago, who recently moved to Pilsen but was born and raised in West Chicago. \u201cI do think that things need to change, and if it\u2019s younger people driving it, then I see more of a hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Get updates from the editors of GMToday.com sent directly to your email inbox:<\/b>\u00a0<\/p>\n