{"id":396800,"date":"2025-11-22T11:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396800\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T11:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:25:11","slug":"chicago-activists-share-blueprint-for-resisting-border-patrol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396800\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago activists share blueprint for resisting Border Patrol"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a story repeating itself<\/a>: Border Patrol agents flooding immigrant neighborhoods, showing dramatic force, storming Home Depot parking lots and preying on people at courthouses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those arrests erupted in Chicago. Then they were 750 miles away in Charlotte, North Carolina. And they will keep roving across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But no matter where they go, Chicagoans will try to stop them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As President Donald Trump\u2019s ramped-up Border Patrol action hits city after city, Chicago\u2019s immigration-focused community organizers are following. They aim to pass on what they learned to foster pushback in Operation Midway Blitz.<\/a><\/p>\n

The resistance effort<\/a>, which was backed by top elected officials<\/a> in Illinois, provides a blueprint for immigration activists nationwide: lawsuits, whistles, cellphone cameras and more.<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s immigration advocacy groups, which played an integral role organizing on-the-ground rapid responders, are now sharing their information nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Veronica Castro, deputy director at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said she has been in at least half a dozen calls with organizations, mutual aid groups and government entities outside of Chicago, including Boston and North Carolina on best ways to prepare for immigration enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely want to share information with other folks,\u201d she said. Earlier in the year, Castro and her team reached out to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., to prepare for the immigration crackdown in Chicago and is now circling back to them to \u201ccompare notes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casa Central, a Hispanic social services agency in Chicago, is planning a conference call with 304 invited affiliates of Unidos US to discuss rapid response tactics and insights from immigration enforcement in Chicago, according to Unidos\u2019 director of immigrant integration, Laura V\u00e1zquez.<\/p>\n

The call will feature information on the long-lasting humanitarian impact of what happens to family members after some of them, often the primary income earners, are detained, said V\u00e1zquez.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is tremendous value in bringing people together so organizations can learn lessons and effective tactics,\u201d said V\u00e1zquez, who noted interest went beyond North Carolina, from New Orleans to New York City, where threats of similar immigration operations loom.<\/p>\n

The federal action centered in Charlotte last week,<\/a> where Trump\u2019s Border Patrol chief, Gregory Bovino, led a weeklong arrest spree that quickly started after agents left Chicago.<\/p>\n

Pooja Ravindran, who lived for a decade in North Carolina and is now chief of staff for Chicago City Council\u2019s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, once again couldn\u2019t look away as the arrests hushed cherished hometown bakeries, coffee shops and an elementary school in Charlotte.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ravindran has met online around 10 times with groups in Charlotte to present tactics learned organizing alongside Ald. Andre V\u00e1squez, the committee\u2019s chair.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be at all places at once, I can\u2019t be in all of the areas where I call home to prep everyone,\u201d Ravindran said. \u201cTo see the resistance, but also the devastation, there is just a whirlwind of emotions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Inside Chicago\u2019s growing resistance movement against Operation Midway Blitz: \u2018Small acts have huge consequences\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Earlier this week, Protect Rogers Park community organizer Gabe Gonz\u00e1lez said he planned to travel to Charlotte, where he was set to speak with hundreds to try to pass the information baton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learned from Los Angeles and D.C. and it\u2019s our turn to share what we learned with the cities facing it now,\u201d said Gonz\u00e1lez, co-founder of Protect Rogers Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just as Gonz\u00e1lez was preparing to discuss safe resistance techniques with the North Carolina crowd, Border Patrol reportedly ended its operations in Charlotte dubbed \u201cCharlotte\u2019s Web.\u201d But Gonz\u00e1lez is skeptical that the actions will truly end.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday it\u2019s in Charlotte, tomorrow it might be in New Orleans, and in March it might be back in Chicago,\u201d said Gonz\u00e1lez, who is also in touch with community organizers in New Orleans and Memphis, Tennessee.<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s top elected leaders have gotten involved too, from the City Hall to Springfield.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gov. JB Pritzker spoke to North Carolina\u2019s Gov. Josh Stein about dealing with masked federal agents, tear gas deployment and documenting activity when rights were being violated, his office said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The governor has stayed in touch with California, Oregon and other states in an effort to \u201cpush back against these authoritarian power grabs and curb normalizing the militarization of American communities,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Beatriz Ponce de Le\u00f3n, Chicago\u2019s deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights, met with leaders in St. Paul, Minnesota, where federal agents arrested over a dozen people Tuesday at a manufacturing plant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ponce de Le\u00f3n shared strategies Mayor Brandon Johnson\u2019s administration has used to push back, like lawsuits, executive orders and close collaboration with community groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cChicago clearly is front and center in the response to these militarized immigration tactics,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are all in this together \u2026 Why would we not share what we learned?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When other cities reach out, Ponce de Le\u00f3n often offers advice she got from people in Washington, D.C.: \u201cThis is a moment to be very clear and bold and not to shrink away.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The quick response from Charlotte community groups to respond to and document arrests occurred in part because of what people there learned from Chicago, she said. And someday, the connections made by City Hall now could shape its own response if federal agents return en masse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the federal actions evolve, we all have to evolve and be as prepared as possible to maintain and to protect the things that are important to us and to our cities,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

West Chicago brothers are on the front lines against \u2018Operation Midway Blitz.\u2019 And they\u2019re only teenagers.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At the online meetings Ravindran helps organize, other cities are getting everything from advice on how to fight for more legal protection funds in budgets to tweakable scheduling documents for volunteer patrols outside schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were just so grateful that they didn\u2019t have to think about protocol,\u201d Ravindran said. \u201cThis documentation has created the opportunity for them to spend more time doing the actual recruitment of folks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was an emotional homecoming for Ravindran, who first engaged in community organizing as a University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student and then continued that work in Charlotte.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the incremental progress does not erase what Ravindran has witnessed in one home, then another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to see, the detentions in your community, over and over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago Tribune\u2019s Olivia Olander contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a story repeating itself: Border Patrol agents flooding immigrant neighborhoods, showing dramatic force, storming Home Depot parking…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":396801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[20174,69509,140728,960,69,5410,106786,5386,1818,409,19409,12084,7090,112100,121074,7093],"class_list":{"0":"post-396800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-brandon-johnson","9":"tag-broadview","10":"tag-broadview-ice","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-ice","14":"tag-ice-in-chicago","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-illinois","17":"tag-immigration","18":"tag-immigration-raids","19":"tag-jb-pritzker","20":"tag-national-guard","21":"tag-national-guard-in-chicago","22":"tag-operation-midway-blitz","23":"tag-raids"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115593106398554424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}