Trump Is Waging War on an American City
The actual threat to people in cities like Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago comes from the Trump administration, as it attempts to turn the military and federal law enforcement into the president’s personal enforcers. Trump’s lies about this project—and his broader project of mass deportation—are not meant to sound convincing; they are a means of getting other people to cast doubt on reality. Now, with his brutal immigration crackdown in Chicago, Trump is using lies and propaganda as tools alongside the masked officers and the midnight round-ups. All this is meant to cover up the obvious reality that may still be too much for many people to accept: The president is trying to wage war on an American city.
The Texas National Guard arrived outside Chicago on Tuesday—after a judge declined the city and state’s request to immediately block them—and on Wednesday, Trump threatened to arrest Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. As federal troops arrive in the city, a federal court is considering a case brought by Chicago journalists, among others, who together have sued the Department of Homeland Security; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Customs and Border Protection; the Department of Homeland Security; the Federal Bureau of Prisons; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF; and other agencies, along with Trump, for impeding the public’s First Amendment rights to protest and for obstructing their work as press. (Among the plaintiffs are Chicago News Guild, it should be noted; The New Republic is a NewsGuild of New York shop.) “Plaintiffs endeavor to protect their basic constitutional rights to express their views opposing the lawlessness unleashed on the Chicagoland area, and to safely report on that public outcry, without fear of again being shot, gassed, and beaten by federal agents,” their complaint stated. The “lawlessness” is coming from federal agents, directed by the federal government.
These events in Chicago kicked off one month ago, when Trump launched “Operation Midway Blitz,” a campaign predicated on more lies about the city that are not worth repeating, except to say that the Department of Homeland Security has described its anti-immigration raids there as being carried out in “honor” of a dead young woman. According to one Chicago alderperson, among the first people taken by anti-immigrant enforcement was a flower vendor. In response to the operation, activists called for daily protests at an ICE “processing” facility in nearby Broadview. Then, in mid-September, Border Patrol arrived in Chicago to launch “Operation At Large,” modeled on raids in Los Angeles, in which courts have found agents to have engaged in racial profiling (though the Supreme Court allowed them to continue making what have since been dubbed “Kavanaugh stops,” for the justice who claimed such stops were lawful). A Border Patrol commander has since admitted that in Chicago too, people are being detained based in part on “how they look.” Immigrants’ rights groups have said for weeks that the ongoing arrests are terrorizing whole communities. In some neighborhoods, people have stopped going to work, kids are not going to school, and streets are “dead.” Faith leaders have encouraged their communities to carry identification documents when they go anywhere and tell people where they’ve gone, in case they disappear.
