Black Chicagoans express solidarity with immigrants amid federal raids
Members of Chicago’s Black community stressed the importance of supporting immigrants’ rights and the city’s Latino residents even as President Donald Trump’s administration has scaled back its deportation campaign across the city.
A coalition of Black Chicagoans presented a solidarity statement with more than 130 signatures during an event Saturday afternoon at Carnitas Uruapan in Little Village.
“We stand as allies to others and defenders of ourselves. We recognize this juncture, like others in the past, to affirm the interlocking nature of struggle — those waged by our brothers and sisters in Pilsen, Little Village, South Shore, Rogers Park, Broadview, and detention centers across the county, state and nation,” the statement reads. “The only pathway to collective freedom is to stand in solidarity with one another.”
Immigration enforcement efforts have eased since a majority of immigration agents, including U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, left Chicago last month. DHS also recently closed its command center at Naval Station Great Lakes. The feds have since focused their immigration enforcement in Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans.
But the daylight enforcement in the Chicago area hasn’t entirely stopped. Federal immigration agents deployed tear gas at protesters Saturday during a standoff with a man who barricaded himself inside an apartment in Elgin. And immigration agents were seen making arrests Friday in the western suburbs.
Several speakers Saturday referenced the Sept. 30 immigration raid at an apartment building in South Shore, a predominantly Black neighborhood. A Cook County judge has ordered tenants there to vacate the building, where living conditions have deteriorated, by Friday.
Julia Bradley, with the Black Youth Project 100, emphasized the need for all communities to support each other and work together to combat Trump administration deportation efforts. She likened the support to shoveling snow: “It is much easier to shovel the snow with two people rather than one person.”
Activists say the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement isn’t based on arresting people with violent criminal records despite the administration's contentions. Court records have shown that 16 of the 614 people arrested during the so-called “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration enforcement had criminal records.
“We understand that whether there’s an ICE raid happening on the West Side of Chicago or the South Side of Chicago … that they are all a part of the system that continues to historically and intentionally perpetuate violence in our community,” Bradley said.
Linda Murray, a physician and former president of the National Public Health Association, said the current pushback against the Trump administration is another point in Chicago’s long history of resistance. She pointed to the city’s rejection in 1850 of the federal Fugitive Slave Act.
Murray also noted that about 20% of Black residents in the U.S. are immigrants or children of immigrants.
“It’s not just a question of being in solidarity with our Latinx and Asian brothers and sisters, and other immigrants, we should understand we are part of that,” Murray said. “And don’t think, as Trump tries to eliminate birthright citizenship, that he’s not considering our birthright.”