* Earlier this week, President Trump directed ICE to expand deportations in Chicago, and other Democratic-run cities. Block Club Chicago…
Trump’s order comes at an already tense time: Chicago saw tens of thousands of people march against the president and his anti-immigrant policies at Saturday’s No Kings rally, local leaders are bracing for more immigration raids, Mayor Brandon Johnson has called on Chicagoans to “resist” immigration enforcement and local officials question the legality of recent detainments of immigrants.
Trump praised Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while ordering them to “expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest cities,” which he called “the core of the Democrat Power Center.” […]
It is unclear just how many people locally have been affected by the Trump administration’s raids and detainments, as ICE has refused to provide accurate data or respond to various records requests.
* Rolling Stone…
As President Donald Trump calls on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ramp up arrests and deportations in America’s biggest cities, because they are the “Democrat Power Center,” he and his administration are eyeing Illinois for the next militarized crackdown.
“Chicago is next, if they go too far,” a senior Trump administration official tells Rolling Stone. “The second they do, the president is prepared to prove that nobody is above the law.”
Senior administration officials are “closely monitoring” the anti-Trump and anti-ICE protest movement in Chicago, according to two Trump officials and another source familiar with the matter. The administration is reviewing federal intelligence memos and informal law enforcement reports about activities on the ground. Officials say they are also focused on developments since the city’s progressive mayor, Brandon Johnson, told citizens to “rise up” against the president’s immigration crackdowns. […]
Mayor Johnson responded to Rolling Stone questions with a statement defending the “tens of thousands of Chicagoans” who joined last weekend’s peaceful protest of “the authoritarian tactics of the Trump administration.” He insisted that Trump’s “twisted and depraved mandates” to meet “arbitrary” deportation “quotas” have nothing to do with Chicago’s security. “Ripping families apart and disappearing people do not make our cities safer,” Johnson said. “These unconstitutional actions incite fear in our immigrant communities and cause more problems than they solve.” He continued: “Chicagoans know that immigrants are a critical part of the rich social fabric of our city. We will always fight for the rights and dignity of all Chicagoans [and] continue to work with community-based organizations and legal groups to ensure that all Chicagoans know their rights.”
* Alice Yin asked Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson about the threat earlier today…
Yin: The senior Trump official in Rolling Stone said Chicago is next if they go too far. How are you interpreting that and what would be your administration’s plan of action if Trump makes good on his threat to send the military here?
Johnson: I’m not going to speculate what someone means. I don’t think that would be responsible. I can only control the things that I have jurisdiction and purview over. Standing up for civil rights in the city of Chicago is a long tradition in history. Just a few feet away from this room, Dr. King and Al Raby looked right into the eyes of Richard J. Daley and challenged him to do more around housing. Protest is something that has allowed for this room to exist, Black, Brown, White, Asian, women. So we have to go as far as necessary to protect our Constitution and our democracy.
And so whatever is necessary, we should all be committed to doing just that, anything short of protecting our democracy would really be a poor display of our appreciation of our ancestors.
As far as what this administration has been allowed to get away with we have put forth lawsuits, of which we’ve seen some success there. We will continue to move policy that protects the interests of working people, and we’ll make sure that the people of this city know their rights.
It’s clear that the Trump administration expects people to behave ignorantly. That’s not who we are, and so whether it’s making sure that our residents know what their constitutional rights are, moving policy or moving at the legal level in the courts, we’ll do whatever is necessary to ensure that the sensibility of our democracy is still intact.
Yin: Last week, your Law Department said the city did hand over some documents to ICE as part of its subpoena on streets and [sanitation] seeking employment eligibility records. Did these records contain any personal information?
Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry: We received two requests on that through administrative warrants.
What we said was, with respect to City Key that we decline to provide documentation.
There was another administrative warrant category for streets and [sanitation], where, under federal law, we had an obligation to at least provide a listing, and that information was provided without the kind of detail that you just referenced.
* WGN’s Courtney Spinelli sat down with Sam Olson, field director of Chicago’s ICE field office yesterday…
When asked what Chicago ICE officials have been directed to do and what people can expect to see, Olson said officers will be in the streets, seven days a week, working to enforce immigration law.
“We have, unfortunately, a lot of targets to go after. There’s a lot of people who are here, that are here illegally with criminal convictions, here with final orders of removal and our officers are out there daily,” Olson said. […]
Spinelli: “Border czar Tom Homan initially said it was a priority to go after dangerous criminals, but we have seen some examples, like the enforcement and detentions at ISAP check-ins, people who activists claim were not doing anything wrong, that were already under supervision. What’s the response to that, and why now with those folks that may not have a criminal history?”
Olson: “With immigration, like I said, there’s a lot of people that we have the ability to target; our authorities are kind of wide-ranging. While we’re focusing on a lot of the criminals, there are a subset of those who are here illegally that have final orders of removal that were maybe on some type of reporting procedure, but at some point, they’ve already been already ordered removed by a judge, so again, we’re just enforcing that order.” […]
Olson was asked whether people who have no orders of removal need to be worried, especially if they are being notified of ISAP check-ins.
“I can’t tell people how to be worried, the idea is that everybody probably knows what their status is in the U.S.,” Olson said. “If you’re here without status, but you’re going through a process, the issue is we’re not going to remove somebody who is not amendable to removal, right, we have to follow that law, how we do these removals.
* Governor Pritzker was asked about Trump’s order yesterday during a press availability. NBC Chicago…
“We do know ICE is coming once again in force to cities across the country, so we expect to see them in Chicago. I don’t know exactly how big the force will be, but I do know he has used other law enforcement along with ICE to carry out his ill-conceived mission to go after people who frankly are paying taxes and they’re law-abiding and they’ve been here for many, many years,” [Pritzker] said.
Despite claims by the Trump administration, enforcement operations have not been focused on those with criminal records. According to data obtained by NBC News, of the more than 51,000 migrants currently in ICE detention, less than 30% had criminal convictions on their records. Roughly half of the individuals deported by the U.S. in the month of February had no criminal charges or convictions, and more than half of individuals currently detained in the U.S. have not been charged or convicted with a crime.
Being in the United States without legal status is a civil infraction, not a criminal one, according to the American Immigration Council.
“Those are the wrong people to be going after,” Pritzker said of detaining those without criminal charges or convictions. “We ought to go after the violent criminals. People who get convicted of violent crimes who are undocumented should be thrown out of this country, and that’s not what they’re doing.”
* If you watch the video, you’ll see at least three FBI special agents were involved in this arrest…
According to news reports, the arrested man’s family claims he had no criminal record.
…Adding… South Side Weekly…
In the morning of Wednesday, June 4, immigrants arrived at the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) office in Chicago’s South Loop after they received an unexpected notice to appear for a check-in appointment. Apparently, it was a trap.
These ten people, who had been complying with ICE surveillance, according to advocates and attorneys, were detained on the spot by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) officials in what witnesses described as a chaotic scene. […]
This new enforcement tactic comes as the Trump administration set goals for ICE to make an increasing number of daily arrests. These heightened enforcement actions that include the deployment of the National Guard in California and threats by the administration to deploy them in Illinois, contributed to sparking mass protests across the country demanding an end to deportations and detentions. […]
ICE claimed the ten individuals they detained at ISAP had final orders of removal, meaning an immigration judge has determined a non U.S. citizen must leave the country. However, Xanat Sobrevilla from OCAD said otherwise.
“It’s a lie. The people here are all not in final orders of removal. They are folks that were complying. They are not the people they are trying to paint,” she said.
* Related…
* ABC Chicago | Video shows federal agents rip Elgin man without criminal record from pickup truck, his partner says: His partner says he is undocumented but has lived and worked in Elgin for 12 years and has no criminal record. Video that has been shared hundreds of times and is circulating on social media shows federal agents ripping a man out of a pickup truck on a residential street in Elgin before putting him in handcuffs and taking him away.
* WTTW | Chicago to Stop Accepting Online Applications for Municipal IDs After ICE Subpoena, City Clerk Says: Chicago will no longer allow residents to apply online for a municipal identification card after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials subpoenaed records identifying applicants for the ID, known as the City Key, City Clerk Anna Valencia announced Saturday. “This was a tough decision as this program serves a number of vulnerable populations that rely on the accessibility of City Key, and ultimately, that’s also the reason I’m pausing our online platform,” Valencia said in a statement.
* WTTW | Chicago Immigrant Advocates Demand End to ‘Deceptive’ ICE Raids, Reminds Communities to Know Their Rights: “As news spreads about militarized ICE teams carrying out Trump’s agenda of hate on the streets of Chicago, so too does the fear among our community members,” ICIRR Executive Director Lawrence Benito said during the Thursday news conference. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas said during a Wednesday news briefing the mayor’s office has received word that federal immigration agents have been told to be ready to deploy, with ICE tactical units expected to target workplaces in Chicago this week.
* WTVO | Mayor McNamara urges calm amid possible ICE presence in Rockford: In a recorded video posted to the City’s Facebook page, McNamara said, “We’ve reached out to every law enforcement agency that we possibly can. right now, we have no agency confirm that they have been part of the activity that took place this morning in southwest Rockford.”
