CHICAGO — As Operation Midway Blitz continues, progressive organization Indivisible Chicago hosted a Monday panel and discussion with residents about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

Guest speakers included Tiffany Walden, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The TRiiBE, a digital media platform dedicated to telling the stories of Chicago’s Black community, and Baltazar Enriquez, a longtime community leader who serves as president of the Little Village Community Council.

“Just for the record, the FBI has been to my house. They’ve tried to intimidate me. I had to talk to attorneys and ask, ‘Can I get arrested? Can I be charged?’ And they said, ‘You might, because you’re the one with the idea, and you could be charged with federal obstruction of justice.’ And I said, ‘That’s fucking crazy,’” Enriquez described at one point.

Approximately 81% of Little Village's residents are Latino. Enriquez shared how the Little Village Community Council launched campaigns like “Blow the Whistle” to protect children and provide support for families affected by enforcement actions, as well as the “Magic School Bus” program, which picks up children from home, takes them to school, and ensures they don’t miss their education.

Enriquez added that under the current administration, those who organize their communities or educate others about their rights often become targets. 

“It’s very hard when one of your family members ends up in those detention centers because they’re going to torture them,” he said. “They torture them so severely that people end up wanting to deport themselves or warn others not to get locked up or kidnapped. They turn the air conditioning to the maximum, don’t feed them, and don’t let them shower. There’s no hygiene at all,” Enriquez said. 

Recent reports show that ICE is trying to expand the hiring of healthcare workers, “as deaths in custody mount and federal oversight is weakened by layoffs,” POLITICO noted last week.

“The push by the Department of Homeland Security to hire more than 40 doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, pharmacists, and health administrators follows the revelation that nearly as many immigrants have died in custody so far this year than over the course of the Biden administration, according to government records,” the POLITICO story said.

An NPR analysis released last week noted that ICE “has recorded its deadliest year since the early 2000s as agency officials push to increase the number of people in its custody,” adding that “at least 20 people have died in ICE custody so far this year. The number comes as ICE is also holding nearly 60,000 people in immigration detention, the highest number in several years.”

​​Before Operation Midway Blitz, Walden said The TRiiBE closely monitored reports from Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., where federal agents were using aggressive tactics, jumping out of cars and swiftly detaining people. 

“This really has nothing to do with targeting a specific group. They’re going after anyone and everybody they can, asking questions later. A lot of people on the North Side woke up to that this past week, with the night manager who was detained at Laugh Factory and in the Lakeview neighborhood, which was also tear-gassed,” Walden said.

In D.C., she saw how Black communities were being harassed in their own neighborhoods, with agents approaching residents on their porches to question them. These experiences prompted The TRiiBE to closely monitor the situation and consider how to respond if similar actions occurred in Chicago.

“We knew that at some point, there would be a variation of that happening in Chicago. A lot of the attention, even still today, in the media has been on when the National Guard troops are coming to Chicago, in particular. So Trump initially said he wanted to send in the troops to Chicago, and everybody kind of hung on to that,” Walden said.

As enforcement actions increased, The TRiiBE realized they couldn’t cover them alone and began partnering with other news outlets, including Unraveled Press, which had been reporting extensively on ICE sightings via social media. Together, they created a centralized platform to document and share confirmed ICE sightings and the events surrounding them.

Walden said the South Shore raid earlier this month highlighted longstanding tensions in Chicago’s Black communities, where new arrivals have often been placed in neighborhoods with affordable but low-quality housing. She noted that the raid made it clear that detentions were affecting people beyond any single group, showing Black residents firsthand the impact of aggressive enforcement tactics.

“This administration has turned Little Village into a nightmare. And it's really hard. In Little Village, our people call me every morning, ‘Baltazar, is it safe to go out? Baltazar, is it safe to take my kids to school? Is it safe to go to the laundry?’ And these questions aren’t just coming from immigrants. U.S. citizens are asking them too,” Enriquez said. 

Authorities appear to be provoking street confrontations, aiming to create a situation that would justify deploying the National Guard or declaring martial law, Walden explained.

“When ICE first came to Chicago in February, they left saying that Chicago was really educated. I think they are losing this fight right now because Chicago is really educated, and we’re not taking the bait,” Walden said. “They really want some type of brawl. They want something to happen in the street where they can say we're sending in the Guard or declaring martial law.”

Hector Cervantes is a freelance writer based in Chicago who enjoys covering stories related to Latin culture, entertainment, and community.

DEA Tracking: From The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team about claims that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is taking down the Sinaloa cartel, “A Globe investigation found that the DEA misrepresented the stature of its targets, who were not cartel drug lords but largely addicts, low-level dealers, shoplifters, and people living at a homeless encampment.”

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