Federal immigration authorities are deploying police departments' old, regrettable tactics

Communities have long memories when it comes to how law enforcement treats them. I learned this as a Chicago police officer, and I teach it now as a criminal justice professor: Trust takes decades to build and moments to destroy.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents stand where local police departments stood decades ago. They can learn from our mistakes or repeat them on a national scale.

The warning signs are flashing.

During Halloween festivities last fall, federal agents deployed tear gas before a party in Chicago's Old Irving Park neighborhood, forcing the cancellation of a children’s Halloween parade. Residents in Logan Square created designated "safe space" blocks for trick-or-treaters, closing streets and posting volunteers. American citizens felt they needed protected zones for their children because they feared federal law enforcement operations.

When 33rd Ward Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez checked on her constituents, witnesses reported agents pushing her. In Evanston, federal agents allegedly caused a crash near an elementary school.

All this brings to mind rogue tactics of the past deployed by police departments.

In New York City, stop-and-frisk policies saw police stopping nearly 700,000 people in 2011, with 88% resulting in no arrest. The policy was eventually ruled unconstitutional, but a generation of young men grew up viewing every police interaction with suspicion.

In Chicago, former Police Commander Jon Burge and officers under his command tortured more than 100 suspects between 1972 and 1991. Children who watched their fathers handcuffed grew into adults who won't call 911 when they hear gunshots.

Those heinous acts cast a shadow over legitimate police work.

I once arrested a domestic batterer who became verbally aggressive. His young son watched as I handcuffed his father. That little boy looked at me and said, "When I grow up, I'm going to kill you for locking up my father." This was a necessary arrest, but that child only understood that a man with a badge took his father away.

If a legitimate arrest can create that resentment, imagine the impact when families are separated during a children's holiday. These children will remember the Halloween when federal agents made their parents too afraid to let them trick-or-treat. That's how generational distrust is built; one traumatic memory at a time.

My students from Chicago neighborhoods describe what this looks like. One reports hearing constant helicopter surveillance. Another student, born in Syria, shared something troubling: the atmosphere reminds him of the fear he experienced back home — helicopters, uncertainty, the sense that violence could erupt at any moment.

When a young man who fled a war zone says federal operations in Chicago feel similar to what he escaped, every federal law enforcement professional should pause.

Enforce laws professionally

ICE and Border Patrol have legitimate mandates to enforce immigration law. The question isn't whether they should enforce the law; they absolutely should. The question is whether they'll learn from local law enforcement's mistakes about how enforcement is conducted.

You can arrest someone without traumatizing their children. You can execute a warrant without turning a neighborhood into a war zone. Professional law enforcement transcends politics because the principles of proportional force, constitutional rights and community trust aren't partisan issues.

When federal agents deployed tear gas during Halloween weekend and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rejected Gov. JB Pritzker’s request to pause enforcement operations around schools during the holiday, they sent a clear message about priorities.

Federal immigration enforcement agencies don't have to repeat police departments' mistakes. Police departments that rebuilt trust did so by fundamentally changing their approach, training officers in de-escalation, emphasizing procedural justice and holding officers accountable when they crossed lines.

The child who watches a harsh immigration enforcement operation today will be a voting adult in a few years and a parent in a decade. The lessons children learn now about whether law enforcement treats people with dignity will shape their attitudes toward all authority figures for the rest of their lives.

It goes back to communities having long memories. Local police learned this lesson the hard way, spending decades trying to rebuild trust. Federal immigration enforcement doesn't have to make the same mistakes, but they have to be willing to listen to those of us who've lived through the consequences.

Louis Martinez is a professor of law enforcement at Oakton College's Des Plaines campus and a former Chicago police officer. He has written about law enforcement issues for nearly two decades.