September 4, 2025 • 42 mins
Mia talks with Unraveled journalist Raven about the impending deployment of the National Guard, ICE and the Border Patrol to Chicago and how the city is preparing to resist.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to it could Happen Here, a podcast where by
my longtime home city of Chicago is preparing for a
federal occupation. I am your host, Mio Wong, and with
me to talk about what the fuck is going on
about a thing that at the end of last year,
as bad as we thought this was going to be,
was basically unimaginable. With me talked about this is Raven,
(00:29):
who's a journalist from the independent outlet Unraveled in Chicago,
which does a lot of really really excellent work on
the ground reporting on social movements in the city. You're
putting on the government does a bunch of incredible works
and some really good stuff on shot spatter. Yeah, Raven,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, thank you for such a beautiful intro.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, thanks, thanks for doing this. I don't know, like
I'm a really big fan of Unraveled. I think most
of the newspapers in Chicago are like just weird right
wing rags, and getting actual good news out if the
city is kind of difficult because it's like.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, we we have a good number now, like Digital
India outlets in the city, but once you get outside
of Cook Counties, especially you know, the Chicago metro area
is huge, and like, yeah, it's all like pink slime garbage,
like everything's been bought out. They don't have like real
reporters anymore. So it can be a huge challenge to
cover things like just in the collar counties, which is
(01:30):
coincidentally also where a lot of this ice activity might
be happening in the next yep, forty five days, thirty
days over long it lasts.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, so let's I guess from the jump, before we
get into sort of the kind of long arc of
ice and the FEDS in in Chicago for the last year,
let's talk about Trump's thing to send in the National
Guard and stuff the people in the city are really
concerned about.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, well, you know, there's kind of two things happening simultaneously, right.
Trump is threatening the National Guard, which has been a thing,
Like threatening the National Guard in Chicago has been a
thing with him for like a while, and it can
be very difficult to tease out like what what level
of it is propaganda and what level of it is
like really happening. Right, But the other more important part
(02:17):
here is we do know now like conclusively that DHS
is planning a large operation in like Los Angeles style.
So everything that's been happening around Lay for the last
few months is moving to Chicago. This is what the
chief of Border Patrol has said. You know, he just
put out like a social media video that was saying
(02:37):
they're trading palm trees for skyscrapers and bringing a few
hundred guys with dhs ICE Border patrol to Chicago. So
it's pretty wild. I don't think I've ever seen Border
Patrol in numbers on the ground here in the Great Lakes.
We've always known it's like a thing that could conceivably
happen because we're technically like a border city. Yeah, but
(03:01):
you know, to be staring at in the face now
like it's real, like it's actually happening, it's obviously feels
like a real emergency for our communities.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah. And I think that's the interesting thing, like talking
to you and then talking to other people on the ground,
is that, like the National Guard deployment is what's getting
all of the press right, and people really aren't that
worried about it, it's worth pointing out. So we're recording
this on the morning of like Wednesday, September third. Yeah,
(03:32):
So it's possible that stuff has changed by the time
this episode goes out like tonight, because the situation is
shifting really rapidly, right, But you know that there's this
whole fight over whether the Texas National Guard is being
deployed here on a federal deployment, But people don't really
seem to be worried about the National Guard, and I
think kind of for good reason. They didn't really. I mean,
(03:54):
they did some protests stuff, I guess, but like they
mostly kind of are there to make it look like
there's troops and street right, while ICE in DHS does
like the most horrific shit.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Right, that's been sort of the the understanding of what's
happened in Los Angeles, and then in DC it's gone
a little bit differently, just because they have so many
FEDS already, so they've been able to do a lot
of traffic stops in these little fed tactical teams. So
you'll have like some FBI guys, some DA guys, maybe
(04:26):
like an HSI guy I just read and wappoo the
other day, they've crashed like six cars in DC. I mean,
like it's it's really dangerous that kinds of stops. These
guys are executing their jumpouts. Right. It's not like officer
friend and like pulling you over a license and registration please.
You know, it's like really violent and they're in on
mark cars and they're like trying to suffice people. So
(04:48):
that is you know. Also, what we're expecting to see
alongside like the ice operations is these fed teams crawling
through the city. You know, I don't know when they're
going to be doing what where, but like I said,
the Chicago Land area, you know, the suburb everything around,
it's very big. Yeah, you know, there's every indication this
(05:09):
isn't going to be centralized just to like downhunt.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Chicag Yeah, And like I think there's something that's kind
of hard to understand if you're not from Chicago, but
like even just the city proper is massive. Yeah, right,
Like it takes like I mean, I haven't driven it
in a long time, but like I think, I think
if you're trying to go from like the top of
like the North Side to like the bottom of the
South Side, that's like hour and a half two hour drive, right,
(05:33):
It's massive, right, And this.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Naval station where they're basing operations isn't even in the city.
It's two hours north than of different county. Yeah, so
there are a lot of questions right now. I don't
have the answers. Nobody's gonna know until it starts. But
you know, there are a lot of questions now just
kind of like how far into the city are there
even going to go? You know, it's obviously you know
(05:56):
what we've seen out in Los Angeles with these like
larger like workplaces like car washes and home depot and stuff,
it's really difficult to imagine them executing something like that
in the city. I'm not going to say they couldn't try,
but they would obviously need a lot of backup from
Border patrol. Yeah, to try something like that, even in
the suburbs, which is what we saw in La you know,
(06:17):
that's who showed up those first few days when they
were like tear gassing the fuck out of everybody and
it was just like crazy. You know, that was Border Patrol.
So what our eyes are on is something like that.
And to your point about the National Guard and the press,
you know, it's part of the issue is like the politicians,
the electeds, like they can't say no to the fence.
(06:38):
They can't say no to Ice, like Ice is coming,
DHS is coming. No matter what they do, the guard
is a little more of like a political football for them,
and and Pritzker can push back, and there's like you know,
the arguments about sending one states troops into another, and
so there's more legal options, you know, all this stuff, right,
But the FBI already has field office here, I already
(07:02):
has field offices here. You know, Like there's there's just
I think also just a disconnect there because of like
the way the news reporting works is like, well, we're
reporting on what the public officials are saying. Governor Pretsker
did say pretty clearly actually like well DHS is coming.
You know, Ice is going to do these operations and
we don't improve it, but we can't stop it.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, And I think before we get more into that,
I want to pivot to talk about what the presence
of ICE has been in Chicago already. And I want
to kind of like roll the clock back to right
before kind of like I think, like the literally the
weekend before the big confrontations in LA started, there was
(07:46):
a pretty big raid at a check in and a
bunch of stuff happened with that. I was wondering if
you could talk about that a bit.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, it was around the time when things popped off
and early I don't remember precisely, but around then.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah, I think it was like right before.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yeah, you know, they have these stuck in sights where
people have to go and some of them are on
like electronic monitoring and some non and they check in
with ICE, and so it was like an ambush, right
Like people showed up and then they were like, oh,
we're actually like kidnapping you. And it was very very
ugly of course, you know, like agents ripping people away
(08:20):
from their families and friends. And we had some local
electeds like trying to get in the way of the van,
and Chicago police of course showed up. And then there
was this whole back and forth over whether the police
really assisted.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
ICE or not.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
And I mean they were there and they did crowd control.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, they definitely did.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Like you know, it's it's very interesting what's happening with
CPD and ICE right now, because like, at the end
of the day, cops are lazy above all else too write,
you know, and so there's this kind of tension of like, well,
we support what ICE is doing and ideologically, like, of
course the cops are aligned with ICE, but they also
(09:01):
like don't want to get out of their car, you know,
so it's kind of any any excuse they have not
to do something, they will take. So it's not that
we've seen them assisting with like enforcement removal operations, but
of course if there's a protest, they're going to show
up and police that. And then also, like data sharing
is a huge issue there. I mean, like with fusion
(09:22):
centers and with like block license plate data visas everything.
There's just the information is is so porous between local
cops and the FEDS that it's just kind of absurd
on a space to even think that they're like not
sharing information. Some of these cops are on task forces
and they have like group chats together, you know, with
DA and FBI agents, right, so it's all it's all connected,
(09:46):
it's all porous. They're already working with the Feds, you know,
it's just they can't visibly be seen assisting with immigration enforcement.
But yeah, that was that was a really stramotizing day
for community. Like an organ er here who was well
known was taken and she was a grandmother, so she
(10:06):
had a family here too. You know, so it was brutal.
And then around that time that that was happening, also
I started escalating russ at the Immigration Court downtown, which
went on for a while and ultimately was stopped by
protesters continuing to show up and just have a presence there.
You know, these guys are terrified of being docks terrified.
(10:28):
I mean, they just they really don't want to be filmed.
And it's been a very different situation here in our
courthouse versus New York's because I've seen so much photography
out of the New York Immigration Court. For whatever reason,
they allowed photos there, but they don't inside of ours.
But you know, protesters started showing up there. I mean,
we had been their documentary what.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Was going on.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Slowly people started trickling in, showing up and protesting, and
eventually people started then taking it to like actually walking
the driveway that they were using a private parking garage
belonging to the building, and so they were like going
underground and then like waiting and then using the great elevator.
It was like the whole operation. But ultimately the building
(11:09):
put their flick on and ban them. You know, they
got a lot of complaints from tenants. People didn't like
that the protests were going on shore, but people also
were like in the building, people were ICE using our
frad Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Used the power against them, deploy every weapon.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Exactly, exactly exactly. It was. It's kind of like, uh,
you know, diversity of tactics thing there where It's like,
the people who owned property in this building, aren't you
super aligned with the like people trying to block ICE stands,
But at that moment they joined Yeah, and you know,
so so that that was happening. And like while all
(11:49):
of this is happening, of course ICE is still doing
more dispersed traffic stops, arresting people at their homes. It's
it's been happening. It's happening all over out in Elgin,
out in Waukegan, which is up by the base of operations,
you know, where they're setting up all of these operations
for what's coming this week. Waukegan, North Chicago and that
(12:10):
area of the county. There are a ton of imfants
and they're not surrounded by necessarily like super progressive, super
friendly people. Some can be I mean, the politics in
the North Shore, it's very like purple like it's weird.
It's like you can have super progressive people, but then
also like it can be out in the boonie somewhere
you'll see like Trump science. So it's it's not as
(12:33):
sympathetic as being in Enoughtown Chicago for sure. Yeah, and
so there's a lot of concern from people up around
the base about what's going to happen in those communities
because there's much less coverage, too much less eyes on them.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I want to I want to talk more about sort
of what enforcement has been looking like in outlying areas
and what it's going to look like. But first we
need to go to ads and we are back, so
(13:10):
I wanna I kind of I want to follow the
train that you've been on about the stuff in the
center of the city versus the stuff in the outlying
areas and across Chicagoland in general, which is also just massive,
unbelievably large geographic area. It has unbelievably large numbers of people,
and also the concentrations get way smaller really quickly, And
(13:34):
I think, I don't know, it seems like the resistance
inside of the city proper had been pretty effective in
a lot of ways, just in the sense of like
shutting down the courthouse raids for the most part. But
what have things looked like up near like Wakegan and like, yeah,
in the sort of outlying areas in terms of like
(13:56):
resistance and in terms of cooperation.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah, I mean I've seen videos out of those places,
you know, really harrowing scenes like traffic stops where they're
separating people from their families, showing up at people's homes.
Usually what's happening is we're not hearing you got it
until after the facts. And in the city there are
(14:21):
like quid response groups going by different neighborhoods. But I
think in general sometimes it just doesn't feel very rapid
because it's people are are vetting, they're verifying. There's a
lot of false alarms. You know, there's a lot going on.
So that's what I've seen that's happened out out in
the Burns. You know, it's kind of, like I said,
kind of a black hole for news out there too.
(14:43):
It's not always easy to get information. You know. We
also had a case of like an ice agent detaining
a woman with her child at like a well, it
wasn't an agent, it was a contractor contact are working
for Ice detaining an arrest tee out at an hotel
by Ohare Airport. That's something that that people aren't concerned
(15:07):
about in a more general sense too right now, because
we actually literally just this morning, we're looking at a
letter from the mayor of broad View, Illinois, which is
where our processing center is, outlining how they're going to
be operational seven days a week for the next forty
five days, which to me implies like thousands of arrests
potentially happening, and that facility is not set up. It's
(15:30):
not a long term detention center. Yea Overnight detention is
banned in Illinois, so people have been kept there longer
than they technically are allowed to even with like without
some huge surge happening. So it kind of thinking about
what's potentially coming and then using that center, it kind
of follows that, yeah, there could be more contractors keeping
(15:50):
people in hotels like dispersed around, like there's just not
enough space at that facility to keep up with that.
And so because there are also in the like ice
logistics chain, because like people have to be they can't
be kept here long term, so they have to go
to Gary Airport to fly out somewhere or detention center
(16:11):
in Indiana or Wisconsin or Michigan.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So I guess there's a couple of things, kinds of
sort of resistant stuff I want to ask about. I remember,
like got back in like twenty eighteen. I remember there
was a bunch of efforts to like block deportation flights
out of the airport. Has up been still going no,
I mean.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
There was a protest at Gary Airport very early on
in the year. Actually it was like right after Trump
was inaugurated. I think I know a photographer was arrested
some protesters. It was really random. It was like towards
the end of the protest, Gary police just decided to
like grab and arrest the few people. And since then,
(16:51):
I have not heard of any more protests or attempt
or attempts at intervention at Gary Airport. I mean, obviously
it's not Chicago thin Gary, so you know, the smaller
community there people will have to travel to. I don't
know if deportation, if any deportation flights are leaving from O'Hare.
I don't believe so, but don't quote me on that.
(17:12):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yeah, And it's ALTI like I feel like O'Hair is
kind of a soft target for that in the sense of, like,
I mean, it's annoying to get there, but like there
is just a rail line that runs it directly into
O'Hare and you can flood it with a bunch of
people pretty easily, like what happened to like the beginning
of Trump.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
One, Right, we haven't seen anything like that yet.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, yeah, But it's also like I wonder if they're
still thinking about that in terms of like the flight logistics,
in terms of flight running stuff primarily through Gary.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Oh I see, yeah, that might be why.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah. The other thing I'm wondering about is like, Okay,
so I guess it looks like right now with the
information we have, that they're planning to run their operations
out of that military base. But everything that I've seen
has been talking about like the National Guard operating out
of that base. But do we know where the FEDS
are supecially operating out of.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
The Feds are operating out of the base. The National
Guard will will potentially operate out of the base if
they come, but we don't have a lot of details
on like un National Guard employment. And the other thing
to keep in mind is like the National Guard are
all younger people. Typically is a lot of young people
and they have like families and things. So that kind
(18:28):
of information, like a deployment right of like platoon or
several platoons whatever, the worst of National Guard, it's not
going to stay secret for very long, right like, because
we would know. So I have not seen anything yet
as a twelve thirty noon on Wednesday indicating that the
National Guard specifically has rolled into that base. That could
(18:51):
change at any point, you know, I don't know what's
happened in the last hour that I have checked the news.
But what we do know is that the DHS Operation
Customs and Border Protection, the FEDS that are coming, they
are setting up abasive operations at that naval station, and
the Navy said that they denied them lodging and that
(19:12):
they have to stay elsewhere like hotel.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Wise.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I don't know how that will work because that's like
several hundred people. I guess they're going to have to
disperse a lot around the suburbs in order to do that.
And I don't know the reason for the denial for
the lodging. It could simply be they literally don't have space.
You know, people are actually like training there, like military
and Navy and stuff. It's not like it's just empty,
so they might not have had capacity for that, but
(19:37):
supposedly they're going to be doing office space there. I
think the letter also mentioned they can do laundry there,
emails like stuff like that. But but yeah, I mean
that's that's like something that of course people have eyes
on because if you can locate a hotel where people
are saying, you know, that's like a pressure point.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah. I think I think that's an interesting point that
comes back to something you were saying earlier, which is
like it really looks like this is a lot of
this is going to be targeted on the places close
to the base, just because like if they're really like
two hours out from the city, it's like pretty difficult
to do raids further right into the city just onto
(20:23):
logistical level, and just like I don't know, just just
in terms of like dealing with Chicago traffic.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I don't want to exclude it as a possibility.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, it's definitely possible, but it's like I.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Just think when we look at inner city or urban policing,
there are certain tactics that like local police use that
we see the FEDS also using right like these unmarked cars,
more covert operations, trying to move really quickly and get
in it and out because they know that it's such
a denser area and if rapid response shows up, people say,
(21:00):
showing up, then can get unsafe you know, for them
as cops. And so we just we do know that
those tactics work. We know that this is how they've
been doing operations so far. With more DHS agents and
more customs and border production backup, could they try for
something bigger in the city, I mean yes, Like we
(21:22):
don't want to rule that out, trust me, Like it
definitely could happen. But I think given the numbers that
they are trying to reach at this point, what we
have to prepare for is being really dispersed and just
kind of everywhere, you know, like and like that traffic
like you mentioned, you know, it's yeah, it's like obviously
if they're driving like three in the morning or something,
(21:43):
they're not going to face as much traffic up ninety
ninety four. But like, yeah, there's also the like covertness
of it too, Like you can't just drive a bunch
of military vehicles down the highway for an hour and
a half and not be sighted or spotted right like,
so then you'd be giving like you're giving people more
opportunities potentially intervene. So I don't know. I mean I
(22:06):
think like we'll see them in the city for sure,
we'll see them in the burbs for sure. Whether or
not we're going to see like teams of like border patrol,
you know, in like full riot kit marching through like
Pilsen that I don't know. I think it's something that
probably they want to do. I'm sure those dudes would
be amped as fuck to like, you know, be in
(22:28):
downtown Chicago, like harassing people, you know, beating on people.
But from an operational security standpoint, like for them, it
is like so dangerous.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, so I.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So so, speaking speaking of dangers, we're going to go
to these ads and then we're going to come back
and talk about Oh god, is rumors the right word
to describe something that the governor is saying about the
targeting of the Mexican Independence State Parade?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
But maybe not rumor, maybe maybe just statement.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, I will, we'll figure we'll figure out the verbiage
when we returned.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, we are back.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
So one of the things that Governor Pritzker has said
is that Stephen Miller, I'm gonna I'm gonna read this quote.
This is an NBC. I'm gonna read this quote, just
that Pritzker said at a conference, we have reason to
believe that Stephen Miller chose a month of September to
come to Chicago because of celebrations around Mexican Independence Day
that happened here every year. And yeah, you know, he
(23:41):
further said, it breaks my heart to report that we
have been told ICE will try and disrupt community picnics
and peaceful parades. He said, Let's be clear, the terror
and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone
living here. So yeah, I guess I want to start
by talking a little bit about these parades themselves, because
they are absolutely massive event in Chicago. There's like a
(24:01):
big one in Pilsen, but also like I'm just all
over the city. There's just a bunch of people driving
around with Mexican flags, rocks, There's people celebrating. It's really cool.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, it turns into more of like a like a
widespread like car caravan thing.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Ye, there'll be a lot. Yeah, like the you know.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
I like, here's the thing. I know, traffic jams are
annoying to like anybody, but when it's in celebration of something.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You know, yeah, it rocks. Like take the train that day,
it's great.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
I mean, I understand the arguments for like, well, ambulances
need to get through things like that, but I think
there's a lot of power in people taking the streets
and like, you know, the cars are just the easiest
way to get massive amounts of people around. And then
there's a lot of like there's a street culture here
around like street takeovers too. And this happens outside of
(24:58):
like Mexican Independence Day, where like some some people will
take over an intersection and do donuts send and set
off fireworks.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And like yeah, yell at the cops and whatever.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Right, it's fun, it's cool, it's it's goods like that
happens in cities, and I think when it comes to
living in a city, it's like, yeah, you you're trading
certain things for other things and and and stuff like
that happens. And so with Mexican Independence, say, it's like
we we we can have like sustained nights where that
is just going on and on, like the loop will
(25:31):
be jammed up, like everyone will be jammed up. And
of course there's like the public safety people who like
whine about it and and you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Know, yeah, this is also like a big like like
white people of the city get really fucking pissed about this,
like every year vers like oh no, no, no, no, look
at the Mexicans. Like it's just like and like like
the most racist shit you've ever heard in your entire life.
And there's people sort of below that who will couch
it and like, oh, public safety, and I'm gonna be
(26:02):
really fucking mean to these people, which is like if
you're if you're pissed off at a bunch of people
like basically doing their own parade, you are not fit
to live in a city, Like get the fuck out
of here, Like, fuck off, go back to the suburbs,
you dip shits. You're fucking losers. You're not fit for
urban life, like you light dick the shit rules.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
Yeah, it's yeah, the reaction to it is like so
so over the top, and it's the kind of thing
where like when when Trump is like talking about the
National Guard and responding to crime in Chicago or disorder,
you know that's the kind of.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Thing I could see him like ordering them into respond to,
you know, especially if there's like there's like a shooting
or something that happens towards the tail end of one
of these celebrations, which again, you know, it's like that
that's a risk anytime large amounts of people gather anywhere
in our personal violence freaking out right, like again, is
thing that happens, and the direct cause of it is
(27:03):
never like people partying. The direct cause of it is
usually like somebody's that a beat with somebody, or somebody
drank too much and lost impulse control, you know, whatever
the reason might be. Yeah, So I think that is
like I think that's what Pritzker is alluding to. It's
kind of like the car caravan and stuff when he says,
like Stephen Miller is bringing ice to interrupt family picnics,
(27:24):
Like I don't I don't know where he's getting that information, Like,
I don't know that that is like specifically going to happen.
You know, I think given what we've seen out in LA,
unless I've missed anything, it doesn't seem like they've attacked
any like festivals or like like public gatherings like that,
Like in a direct way.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I think like logistically it's just maybe not as easy
to necessarily like grab people with questionable immigration status at
that kind of stuff. And if you go to like
a place where you know, like the car wash or wherever,
they have intel that it's like undocumented people are working here,
it makes more sense. So I don't want to rule
out that something like that could happen, but I think
(28:04):
I think there's a whether it happens or not. It's
like part of it is also the intention is to
have this chilling effect, like to make people afraid to
celebrate or come out, to cause that terror. You know.
It's kind of like we had a situation a couple
months ago where some FEDS who claimed they were with
(28:25):
like a financial crimes task force. It wasn't even ice,
but I don't know what they were doing, and they
were meeting up at a boat house parking lot in
Humboldt Park like a week before all these cultural celebrations
in the area, and people got really freaked out because
it was just like, what the fuck are you guys doing,
And they like went into the museum and were like
(28:45):
questioning workers and asking you the bathroom and I mean
just being assholes, it sounds like. And then they laughed,
and then there were like all these questions swirling about,
like well what was this, Like were they seeking intel
before these fests? And you know, keep made sure to
like we wanted, we wanted to still have these fasts,
but we want people to show up and even bigger numbers,
(29:06):
like powering numbers. Everybody show up, and that's what happens.
And you know, they didn't attack the fest, and you
know that was a really weird situation because it wasn't
ice and we didn't know what was going on. But
I think ultimately, like yeah, giving in and like staying
home and refusing to show up obviously just plays right
into their hands.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And I wanted to kind of pivot a little bit
from this into the way that Pritzker has sort of
been framing this, where he's talking about how if anyone
throws a sandwich at the guard, this is going to
be used as like the excuse to do a crackdown,
and like I think, yeah, they're gonna they're gonna do
the crackdown anyways, Like I don't think that's like, I.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Mean, this is the central kind of point of conflict.
I think in like a lot of movement space discussions
right now too, especially among kind of like older liberals
and like the young generation. And part of it is
is like, yeah, there's this insistence that well, he's looking
for a reason to send in the National Guards, so
don't give him more. But it's like border patrol is
(30:12):
the reason. Yeah, you know, like they're going to show up.
And I don't know how it's gonna go down, if
it's going to be walking again, if it's going to
be in Chicago, whatever is going to happen. But if
somebody throws a water bottle at those DHS agents, that's
enough of a reason, you know for them to say
there's there's unrest, like and who triggered that? The cops?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, and like it's CPD, Like I have I have
watched CPD do this ship to people where nothing happened, right,
like it was just people standing there.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
And you know, right, our Attorney General said the same
thing in a statement last night, like make sure you
protest peacefully within the law. The Cook County Board President
Tony Prokwinkle said this money still around you, No, I
mean all the like you know, Illinois Democratic God, big
(31:04):
dog people like they're.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
All, yeah, all the machine mother fighting the same thing.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
I mean, like honestly, mayorv. Johnson kind of was a
little more fiery in his rhetoric, but he's still only
going to go so far, you know, like they're politician.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, they can't.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
They're not going to come out and say like, oh,
that's physically resist ice. I think we all w yeah,
but it is like it is a very dangerous way
to frame resistance, like to say, yeah, well, don't provoke him.
You know. It's kind of like living with an abuser
or a bully and then blaming somebody for fighting back.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, And I think there's also there's really it creates
really changers and hammocks on the ground. I mean, like
I still remember, like one of the things I'm sort
of haunted by from this from twenty twenty was in
Atlantic or someone like the person who burned the Wendy's Down. Yeah,
there was like a whole there was like a whole
thing where people were like, this is a federal infiltrator
(31:59):
and they in order to the Feds, which doesn't make
any sense, by the way, Like if your logic is
this person is a FED and we turn them over
to the FEDS. Nonsensical, but like this, this is the
thing you see a lot in these kinds of protests,
Like people will just like hand people over to the FEDS.
And then it turned out that that she was the
girlfriend of of a fucking guy the police had shot. Yeah,
and that shit just like happens. Yeah, And I don't know,
(32:23):
like that's like, that's like the consequence of this O
this kind of stuff is like these people, the peace
of police people feel like they are in power to
hand people over to the actual police. And I just
want to sort of like take a second to talk
to like directly to people who are listening to this
who agree with this stuff, which is okay if you
are facing a fascist regime, right, regardless of whether you
(32:45):
agree with what someone is doing or not, do you
think it's a good idea to hand them over to
the lead, to the legal executors of that regime? Like
would you would you hand someone over to the SS
because they resisted the SS know what you didn't approve of? No,
what are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I don't know? And I think this ties back to
something from we're talking about the beginning of the week
of like the extent to which people have become convinced
that like the ICE agents are all like proud boys
or something, because they can't imagine the institutions that they
had supported for so long, right, suddenly being fascist and
it's like no, actually, like these organizations have always bent
(33:26):
this way, and they're they're organs of the state, which
means they're going to be subverted to enforcing the regime
of fascism, right.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And you know, I think I think a lot of
people who kind of and I'm not talking about the politicians,
but like regular people who kind of share in this
sentiment of like they're scared. They don't want to provoke
or like make things worse. You know, I think their
their hearts are in the right place, Like they're coming
from a place of like, well, we just don't want
people to get arrested. We want people to be safe.
(33:54):
Like I think by and large, that's the motivation. But yeah,
it's just kind of like a very shallow under standing
of like how resistance actually looks and works in real life.
There's also just like a worry for a lot of
people that like, well, that kind of stuff might endanger
others who want to show up with kids or families,
(34:15):
and I think there just needs to be like a
separation in space. Obviously, not every protest or every resistance
is for everyone, but at the end of the day,
like some of these discussions kind of just fall to
the wayside once things get to a certain point, because like, yeah,
if border patrol rolls through your town, you're you're not
(34:36):
gonna be able to control how everyone responds to that. Yeah,
like that that's a point at which you can see
a more spontaneous response. And and so like this sort
of like top down movement organizer level like control of
like the protests and how it's going to go kind
of falls apart anyway, because by that point, like no
(34:58):
one's in control of any.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a bunch. It's a
bunch of people running out of our houses being like fuck,
fuck the fucking like the immigration authorities, right, you know.
And I don't know. That's the thing that gives me
hope in the situation is that, like I'm going to
retreat to the metaphysical level for a second, where like
one of the things I don't know almost spiritually that
(35:22):
I believe in is cities that cities are more than
sort of some of their parts. Yeah, and obviously like
they're they're broken down into all of these things, and
you know, like like they're like there's something there right
in Chicago is something that I believe in, and I
believe in the people there, and I believe in their
(35:42):
capacity to resist this and to drive these people out
because they can be driven out. And you know, with
with enough organization and enough spontaneity and enough cost imposts
on their logistical operations, they can be ran out of
a city. Yeah. I think the power of a city
it's not something that's clear until it's manifested, and you
(36:06):
never know when it's going to manifest, but when it does.
If you look at the entire federal deployment, even if
they bringing the National Guard, like we're talking about less
than three thousand people, there are millions of people in
the city.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
This is a fucking flea in an ocean, and the
flea is relying on the waves staying calm so it
doesn't get drowned. And this is the thing that can happen.
These people can be ran out of cities, they can
be chased out, their operations can be made impossible, they
can be rendered impotent, and they can be made to retreat.
And you know, that's just the thing I'll say, is
(36:42):
it like the experience of watching these people break and run,
because they will break and run. They can and they
will and you can do it is the most amazing
feeling in the entire world, because you know, however powerful
they look, they are beatable and they know and that's
why they operate with this sort of you know, these
(37:04):
like fear shock tactics because they know that if you're
not afraid of them, they can be defeated.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
There have always been more of us than there are
of them.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, like that's always.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Been true, and they do rule by fear, and Chicago
will fight back. And there's so much knowledge and history
here of our urban black and brown communities resisting the police.
Even to this day. I see on TikTok every night
videos of crowds hassling the cops or pushing them out
(37:37):
of their hood.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I mean, like, this is it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Happening right now. There are communities who do this work
right now. The schallenge, of course, remains building solidarity across
the borders of the neighborhoods.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, but I don't think this is an insurmountable thing.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
No.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
I have never been in a place where where people
fly the flag of their fucking city that you like,
it's not real.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We're basically a small nation state at this point, So
this is going to get really weird really fast.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, and it's like, I don't know, like the US's
record of military occupations is not good and we can
hand them another l Yeah. So, Raven, is there anything
else that you want to say? And also where can
people find your work?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Nothing else to say? Our work is who've mostly even
posting on Blue Sky honestly, which I always like kind
of cringe, But we just you do a lot of
live reporting. It's the only functional way to do it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, it's it's really good. By the way, this is like,
it's it's a kind of coverage that I think is
becoming more and more important as things go on, and
it's really the only way right now to get good
on the ground coverage of people of how these actions
are actually unfolding. And it rocks I've I mean, we've
(39:00):
we've been there together at events at protests before, and
like I could, I could I could personally vouch for
the coverage being good and yeah, yeah, and it's also like,
I mean, we have a lot of people on this show,
but like it really matters when the people who are
covering a social movement are people who actually are in
(39:21):
them and understand how they work and like have been
in these places, and so yeah, I think it's I
think it's really really important work. And I think people
should go support y'all because it's it's great and it's
going to be more and more necessary as the occupation unfolds.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
As the occupation unfolds, what a what a bleak, what
a what a terrible world? But another world is possible.
That's the most important.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, yep, remember, yeah, And the only way to do
it is by building it, and you can do that
right now.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I also do think a lot about too, how like
the first well not the first police uprising, but like
kind of the the opening of this like era of
what's going on was the George Floyd Uprising, which didn't
happen in Great Lakes in the Midwest, in Mineapolist. Yeah,
I think there is there's something about this legion specifically,
(40:22):
we're generally not like the first to pop off just
because one of as many people as in New York
or Los Angeles. But there's such a rich history of
like resistance to the police here. I mean, you had
Ferguson in Missouri, which is like kind of Midwest, kind
of South, but like these communities have such a strong
history of norm what it's like to live as like
sun downtowns too, and some of them still are with
(40:44):
these like majority of white police departments. So it's it'll
be something to watch how things unhold here specifically.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, and the uprising in Chicago was like one of
the mission times anywhere in the country. Like they ran
the cops out of the center of the city, like
they they lost control for days of like the giant
shopping district in the middle of the city. That is
like the thing that like the Chicago business glitzy self
image is like based off of They just lost it
(41:14):
fully because people ran them out, and you know we
did it to them once, we could do it again.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah. Well, and I think public opinion against ICE is
much worse than like CPD. I mean, like not that
public opinion against CPD is great, but obviously things with
ICE are reaching like a fever pitch right now.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, people hate them.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, so you know you're not. I don't know if
there's ever been an occupying army that people didn't hate.
But like, it's just not going to go well for
you when the locals hate you, like, it's just not
it not going to go well.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, And I think you know. The history, as said before,
was the history of American occupations is littered with defeats.
Fucking hand them in other one Amen.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for it Could Happen Here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to it could Happen Here, a podcast where by
my longtime home city of Chicago is preparing for a
federal occupation. I am your host, Mio Wong, and with
me to talk about what the fuck is going on
about a thing that at the end of last year,
as bad as we thought this was going to be,
was basically unimaginable. With me talked about this is Raven,
(00:29):
who's a journalist from the independent outlet Unraveled in Chicago,
which does a lot of really really excellent work on
the ground reporting on social movements in the city. You're
putting on the government does a bunch of incredible works
and some really good stuff on shot spatter. Yeah, Raven,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, thank you for such a beautiful intro.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, thanks, thanks for doing this. I don't know, like
I'm a really big fan of Unraveled. I think most
of the newspapers in Chicago are like just weird right
wing rags, and getting actual good news out if the
city is kind of difficult because it's like.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, we we have a good number now, like Digital
India outlets in the city, but once you get outside
of Cook Counties, especially you know, the Chicago metro area
is huge, and like, yeah, it's all like pink slime garbage,
like everything's been bought out. They don't have like real
reporters anymore. So it can be a huge challenge to
cover things like just in the collar counties, which is
(01:30):
coincidentally also where a lot of this ice activity might
be happening in the next yep, forty five days, thirty
days over long it lasts.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, so let's I guess from the jump, before we
get into sort of the kind of long arc of
ice and the FEDS in in Chicago for the last year,
let's talk about Trump's thing to send in the National
Guard and stuff the people in the city are really
concerned about.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, well, you know, there's kind of two things happening simultaneously, right.
Trump is threatening the National Guard, which has been a thing,
Like threatening the National Guard in Chicago has been a
thing with him for like a while, and it can
be very difficult to tease out like what what level
of it is propaganda and what level of it is
like really happening. Right, But the other more important part
(02:17):
here is we do know now like conclusively that DHS
is planning a large operation in like Los Angeles style.
So everything that's been happening around Lay for the last
few months is moving to Chicago. This is what the
chief of Border Patrol has said. You know, he just
put out like a social media video that was saying
(02:37):
they're trading palm trees for skyscrapers and bringing a few
hundred guys with dhs ICE Border patrol to Chicago. So
it's pretty wild. I don't think I've ever seen Border
Patrol in numbers on the ground here in the Great Lakes.
We've always known it's like a thing that could conceivably
happen because we're technically like a border city. Yeah, but
(03:01):
you know, to be staring at in the face now
like it's real, like it's actually happening, it's obviously feels
like a real emergency for our communities.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah. And I think that's the interesting thing, like talking
to you and then talking to other people on the ground,
is that, like the National Guard deployment is what's getting
all of the press right, and people really aren't that
worried about it, it's worth pointing out. So we're recording
this on the morning of like Wednesday, September third. Yeah,
(03:32):
So it's possible that stuff has changed by the time
this episode goes out like tonight, because the situation is
shifting really rapidly, right, But you know that there's this
whole fight over whether the Texas National Guard is being
deployed here on a federal deployment, But people don't really
seem to be worried about the National Guard, and I
think kind of for good reason. They didn't really. I mean,
(03:54):
they did some protests stuff, I guess, but like they
mostly kind of are there to make it look like
there's troops and street right, while ICE in DHS does
like the most horrific shit.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Right, that's been sort of the the understanding of what's
happened in Los Angeles, and then in DC it's gone
a little bit differently, just because they have so many
FEDS already, so they've been able to do a lot
of traffic stops in these little fed tactical teams. So
you'll have like some FBI guys, some DA guys, maybe
(04:26):
like an HSI guy I just read and wappoo the
other day, they've crashed like six cars in DC. I mean,
like it's it's really dangerous that kinds of stops. These
guys are executing their jumpouts. Right. It's not like officer
friend and like pulling you over a license and registration please.
You know, it's like really violent and they're in on
mark cars and they're like trying to suffice people. So
(04:48):
that is you know. Also, what we're expecting to see
alongside like the ice operations is these fed teams crawling
through the city. You know, I don't know when they're
going to be doing what where, but like I said,
the Chicago Land area, you know, the suburb everything around,
it's very big. Yeah, you know, there's every indication this
(05:09):
isn't going to be centralized just to like downhunt.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Chicag Yeah, And like I think there's something that's kind
of hard to understand if you're not from Chicago, but
like even just the city proper is massive. Yeah, right,
Like it takes like I mean, I haven't driven it
in a long time, but like I think, I think
if you're trying to go from like the top of
like the North Side to like the bottom of the
South Side, that's like hour and a half two hour drive, right,
(05:33):
It's massive, right, And this.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Naval station where they're basing operations isn't even in the city.
It's two hours north than of different county. Yeah, so
there are a lot of questions right now. I don't
have the answers. Nobody's gonna know until it starts. But
you know, there are a lot of questions now just
kind of like how far into the city are there
even going to go? You know, it's obviously you know
(05:56):
what we've seen out in Los Angeles with these like
larger like workplaces like car washes and home depot and stuff,
it's really difficult to imagine them executing something like that
in the city. I'm not going to say they couldn't try,
but they would obviously need a lot of backup from
Border patrol. Yeah, to try something like that, even in
the suburbs, which is what we saw in La you know,
(06:17):
that's who showed up those first few days when they
were like tear gassing the fuck out of everybody and
it was just like crazy. You know, that was Border Patrol.
So what our eyes are on is something like that.
And to your point about the National Guard and the press,
you know, it's part of the issue is like the politicians,
the electeds, like they can't say no to the fence.
(06:38):
They can't say no to Ice, like Ice is coming,
DHS is coming. No matter what they do, the guard
is a little more of like a political football for them,
and and Pritzker can push back, and there's like you know,
the arguments about sending one states troops into another, and
so there's more legal options, you know, all this stuff, right,
But the FBI already has field office here, I already
(07:02):
has field offices here. You know, Like there's there's just
I think also just a disconnect there because of like
the way the news reporting works is like, well, we're
reporting on what the public officials are saying. Governor Pretsker
did say pretty clearly actually like well DHS is coming.
You know, Ice is going to do these operations and
we don't improve it, but we can't stop it.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, And I think before we get more into that,
I want to pivot to talk about what the presence
of ICE has been in Chicago already. And I want
to kind of like roll the clock back to right
before kind of like I think, like the literally the
weekend before the big confrontations in LA started, there was
(07:46):
a pretty big raid at a check in and a
bunch of stuff happened with that. I was wondering if
you could talk about that a bit.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Yeah, it was around the time when things popped off
and early I don't remember precisely, but around then.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah, I think it was like right before.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yeah, you know, they have these stuck in sights where
people have to go and some of them are on
like electronic monitoring and some non and they check in
with ICE, and so it was like an ambush, right
Like people showed up and then they were like, oh,
we're actually like kidnapping you. And it was very very
ugly of course, you know, like agents ripping people away
(08:20):
from their families and friends. And we had some local
electeds like trying to get in the way of the van,
and Chicago police of course showed up. And then there
was this whole back and forth over whether the police
really assisted.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
ICE or not.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
And I mean they were there and they did crowd control.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, they definitely did.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Like you know, it's it's very interesting what's happening with
CPD and ICE right now, because like, at the end
of the day, cops are lazy above all else too write,
you know, and so there's this kind of tension of like, well,
we support what ICE is doing and ideologically, like, of
course the cops are aligned with ICE, but they also
(09:01):
like don't want to get out of their car, you know,
so it's kind of any any excuse they have not
to do something, they will take. So it's not that
we've seen them assisting with like enforcement removal operations, but
of course if there's a protest, they're going to show
up and police that. And then also, like data sharing
is a huge issue there. I mean, like with fusion
(09:22):
centers and with like block license plate data visas everything.
There's just the information is is so porous between local
cops and the FEDS that it's just kind of absurd
on a space to even think that they're like not
sharing information. Some of these cops are on task forces
and they have like group chats together, you know, with
DA and FBI agents, right, so it's all it's all connected,
(09:46):
it's all porous. They're already working with the Feds, you know,
it's just they can't visibly be seen assisting with immigration enforcement.
But yeah, that was that was a really stramotizing day
for community. Like an organ er here who was well
known was taken and she was a grandmother, so she
(10:06):
had a family here too. You know, so it was brutal.
And then around that time that that was happening, also
I started escalating russ at the Immigration Court downtown, which
went on for a while and ultimately was stopped by
protesters continuing to show up and just have a presence there.
You know, these guys are terrified of being docks terrified.
(10:28):
I mean, they just they really don't want to be filmed.
And it's been a very different situation here in our
courthouse versus New York's because I've seen so much photography
out of the New York Immigration Court. For whatever reason,
they allowed photos there, but they don't inside of ours.
But you know, protesters started showing up there. I mean,
we had been their documentary what.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Was going on.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Slowly people started trickling in, showing up and protesting, and
eventually people started then taking it to like actually walking
the driveway that they were using a private parking garage
belonging to the building, and so they were like going
underground and then like waiting and then using the great elevator.
It was like the whole operation. But ultimately the building
(11:09):
put their flick on and ban them. You know, they
got a lot of complaints from tenants. People didn't like
that the protests were going on shore, but people also
were like in the building, people were ICE using our
frad Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Used the power against them, deploy every weapon.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Exactly, exactly exactly. It was. It's kind of like, uh,
you know, diversity of tactics thing there where It's like,
the people who owned property in this building, aren't you
super aligned with the like people trying to block ICE stands,
But at that moment they joined Yeah, and you know,
so so that that was happening. And like while all
(11:49):
of this is happening, of course ICE is still doing
more dispersed traffic stops, arresting people at their homes. It's
it's been happening. It's happening all over out in Elgin,
out in Waukegan, which is up by the base of operations,
you know, where they're setting up all of these operations
for what's coming this week. Waukegan, North Chicago and that
(12:10):
area of the county. There are a ton of imfants
and they're not surrounded by necessarily like super progressive, super
friendly people. Some can be I mean, the politics in
the North Shore, it's very like purple like it's weird.
It's like you can have super progressive people, but then
also like it can be out in the boonie somewhere
you'll see like Trump science. So it's it's not as
(12:33):
sympathetic as being in Enoughtown Chicago for sure. Yeah, and
so there's a lot of concern from people up around
the base about what's going to happen in those communities
because there's much less coverage, too much less eyes on them.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I want to I want to talk more about sort
of what enforcement has been looking like in outlying areas
and what it's going to look like. But first we
need to go to ads and we are back, so
(13:10):
I wanna I kind of I want to follow the
train that you've been on about the stuff in the
center of the city versus the stuff in the outlying
areas and across Chicagoland in general, which is also just massive,
unbelievably large geographic area. It has unbelievably large numbers of people,
and also the concentrations get way smaller really quickly, And
(13:34):
I think, I don't know, it seems like the resistance
inside of the city proper had been pretty effective in
a lot of ways, just in the sense of like
shutting down the courthouse raids for the most part. But
what have things looked like up near like Wakegan and like, yeah,
in the sort of outlying areas in terms of like
(13:56):
resistance and in terms of cooperation.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Yeah, I mean I've seen videos out of those places,
you know, really harrowing scenes like traffic stops where they're
separating people from their families, showing up at people's homes.
Usually what's happening is we're not hearing you got it
until after the facts. And in the city there are
(14:21):
like quid response groups going by different neighborhoods. But I
think in general sometimes it just doesn't feel very rapid
because it's people are are vetting, they're verifying. There's a
lot of false alarms. You know, there's a lot going on.
So that's what I've seen that's happened out out in
the Burns. You know, it's kind of, like I said,
kind of a black hole for news out there too.
(14:43):
It's not always easy to get information. You know. We
also had a case of like an ice agent detaining
a woman with her child at like a well, it
wasn't an agent, it was a contractor contact are working
for Ice detaining an arrest tee out at an hotel
by Ohare Airport. That's something that that people aren't concerned
(15:07):
about in a more general sense too right now, because
we actually literally just this morning, we're looking at a
letter from the mayor of broad View, Illinois, which is
where our processing center is, outlining how they're going to
be operational seven days a week for the next forty
five days, which to me implies like thousands of arrests
potentially happening, and that facility is not set up. It's
(15:30):
not a long term detention center. Yea Overnight detention is
banned in Illinois, so people have been kept there longer
than they technically are allowed to even with like without
some huge surge happening. So it kind of thinking about
what's potentially coming and then using that center, it kind
of follows that, yeah, there could be more contractors keeping
(15:50):
people in hotels like dispersed around, like there's just not
enough space at that facility to keep up with that.
And so because there are also in the like ice
logistics chain, because like people have to be they can't
be kept here long term, so they have to go
to Gary Airport to fly out somewhere or detention center
(16:11):
in Indiana or Wisconsin or Michigan.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So I guess there's a couple of things, kinds of
sort of resistant stuff I want to ask about. I remember,
like got back in like twenty eighteen. I remember there
was a bunch of efforts to like block deportation flights
out of the airport. Has up been still going no,
I mean.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
There was a protest at Gary Airport very early on
in the year. Actually it was like right after Trump
was inaugurated. I think I know a photographer was arrested
some protesters. It was really random. It was like towards
the end of the protest, Gary police just decided to
like grab and arrest the few people. And since then,
(16:51):
I have not heard of any more protests or attempt
or attempts at intervention at Gary Airport. I mean, obviously
it's not Chicago thin Gary, so you know, the smaller
community there people will have to travel to. I don't
know if deportation, if any deportation flights are leaving from O'Hare.
I don't believe so, but don't quote me on that.
(17:12):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yeah, And it's ALTI like I feel like O'Hair is
kind of a soft target for that in the sense of, like,
I mean, it's annoying to get there, but like there
is just a rail line that runs it directly into
O'Hare and you can flood it with a bunch of
people pretty easily, like what happened to like the beginning
of Trump.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
One, Right, we haven't seen anything like that yet.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, yeah, But it's also like I wonder if they're
still thinking about that in terms of like the flight logistics,
in terms of flight running stuff primarily through Gary.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Oh I see, yeah, that might be why.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah. The other thing I'm wondering about is like, Okay,
so I guess it looks like right now with the
information we have, that they're planning to run their operations
out of that military base. But everything that I've seen
has been talking about like the National Guard operating out
of that base. But do we know where the FEDS
are supecially operating out of.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
The Feds are operating out of the base. The National
Guard will will potentially operate out of the base if
they come, but we don't have a lot of details
on like un National Guard employment. And the other thing
to keep in mind is like the National Guard are
all younger people. Typically is a lot of young people
and they have like families and things. So that kind
(18:28):
of information, like a deployment right of like platoon or
several platoons whatever, the worst of National Guard, it's not
going to stay secret for very long, right like, because
we would know. So I have not seen anything yet
as a twelve thirty noon on Wednesday indicating that the
National Guard specifically has rolled into that base. That could
(18:51):
change at any point, you know, I don't know what's
happened in the last hour that I have checked the news.
But what we do know is that the DHS Operation
Customs and Border Protection, the FEDS that are coming, they
are setting up abasive operations at that naval station, and
the Navy said that they denied them lodging and that
(19:12):
they have to stay elsewhere like hotel.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Wise.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I don't know how that will work because that's like
several hundred people. I guess they're going to have to
disperse a lot around the suburbs in order to do that.
And I don't know the reason for the denial for
the lodging. It could simply be they literally don't have space.
You know, people are actually like training there, like military
and Navy and stuff. It's not like it's just empty,
so they might not have had capacity for that, but
(19:37):
supposedly they're going to be doing office space there. I
think the letter also mentioned they can do laundry there,
emails like stuff like that. But but yeah, I mean
that's that's like something that of course people have eyes
on because if you can locate a hotel where people
are saying, you know, that's like a pressure point.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah. I think I think that's an interesting point that
comes back to something you were saying earlier, which is
like it really looks like this is a lot of
this is going to be targeted on the places close
to the base, just because like if they're really like
two hours out from the city, it's like pretty difficult
to do raids further right into the city just onto
(20:23):
logistical level, and just like I don't know, just just
in terms of like dealing with Chicago traffic.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I don't want to exclude it as a possibility.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, it's definitely possible, but it's like I.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Just think when we look at inner city or urban policing,
there are certain tactics that like local police use that
we see the FEDS also using right like these unmarked cars,
more covert operations, trying to move really quickly and get
in it and out because they know that it's such
a denser area and if rapid response shows up, people say,
(21:00):
showing up, then can get unsafe you know, for them
as cops. And so we just we do know that
those tactics work. We know that this is how they've
been doing operations so far. With more DHS agents and
more customs and border production backup, could they try for
something bigger in the city, I mean yes, Like we
(21:22):
don't want to rule that out, trust me, Like it
definitely could happen. But I think given the numbers that
they are trying to reach at this point, what we
have to prepare for is being really dispersed and just
kind of everywhere, you know, like and like that traffic
like you mentioned, you know, it's yeah, it's like obviously
if they're driving like three in the morning or something,
(21:43):
they're not going to face as much traffic up ninety
ninety four. But like, yeah, there's also the like covertness
of it too, Like you can't just drive a bunch
of military vehicles down the highway for an hour and
a half and not be sighted or spotted right like,
so then you'd be giving like you're giving people more
opportunities potentially intervene. So I don't know. I mean I
(22:06):
think like we'll see them in the city for sure,
we'll see them in the burbs for sure. Whether or
not we're going to see like teams of like border patrol,
you know, in like full riot kit marching through like
Pilsen that I don't know. I think it's something that
probably they want to do. I'm sure those dudes would
be amped as fuck to like, you know, be in
(22:28):
downtown Chicago, like harassing people, you know, beating on people.
But from an operational security standpoint, like for them, it
is like so dangerous.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, so I.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So so, speaking speaking of dangers, we're going to go
to these ads and then we're going to come back
and talk about Oh god, is rumors the right word
to describe something that the governor is saying about the
targeting of the Mexican Independence State Parade?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
But maybe not rumor, maybe maybe just statement.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, I will, we'll figure we'll figure out the verbiage
when we returned.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, we are back.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
So one of the things that Governor Pritzker has said
is that Stephen Miller, I'm gonna I'm gonna read this quote.
This is an NBC. I'm gonna read this quote, just
that Pritzker said at a conference, we have reason to
believe that Stephen Miller chose a month of September to
come to Chicago because of celebrations around Mexican Independence Day
that happened here every year. And yeah, you know, he
(23:41):
further said, it breaks my heart to report that we
have been told ICE will try and disrupt community picnics
and peaceful parades. He said, Let's be clear, the terror
and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone
living here. So yeah, I guess I want to start
by talking a little bit about these parades themselves, because
they are absolutely massive event in Chicago. There's like a
(24:01):
big one in Pilsen, but also like I'm just all
over the city. There's just a bunch of people driving
around with Mexican flags, rocks, There's people celebrating. It's really cool.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, it turns into more of like a like a
widespread like car caravan thing.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Ye, there'll be a lot. Yeah, like the you know.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
I like, here's the thing. I know, traffic jams are
annoying to like anybody, but when it's in celebration of something.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You know, yeah, it rocks. Like take the train that day,
it's great.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
I mean, I understand the arguments for like, well, ambulances
need to get through things like that, but I think
there's a lot of power in people taking the streets
and like, you know, the cars are just the easiest
way to get massive amounts of people around. And then
there's a lot of like there's a street culture here
around like street takeovers too. And this happens outside of
(24:58):
like Mexican Independence Day, where like some some people will
take over an intersection and do donuts send and set
off fireworks.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And like yeah, yell at the cops and whatever.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Right, it's fun, it's cool, it's it's goods like that
happens in cities, and I think when it comes to
living in a city, it's like, yeah, you you're trading
certain things for other things and and and stuff like
that happens. And so with Mexican Independence, say, it's like
we we we can have like sustained nights where that
is just going on and on, like the loop will
(25:31):
be jammed up, like everyone will be jammed up. And
of course there's like the public safety people who like
whine about it and and you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Know, yeah, this is also like a big like like
white people of the city get really fucking pissed about this,
like every year vers like oh no, no, no, no, look
at the Mexicans. Like it's just like and like like
the most racist shit you've ever heard in your entire life.
And there's people sort of below that who will couch
it and like, oh, public safety, and I'm gonna be
(26:02):
really fucking mean to these people, which is like if
you're if you're pissed off at a bunch of people
like basically doing their own parade, you are not fit
to live in a city, Like get the fuck out
of here, Like, fuck off, go back to the suburbs,
you dip shits. You're fucking losers. You're not fit for
urban life, like you light dick the shit rules.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
Yeah, it's yeah, the reaction to it is like so
so over the top, and it's the kind of thing
where like when when Trump is like talking about the
National Guard and responding to crime in Chicago or disorder,
you know that's the kind of.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Thing I could see him like ordering them into respond to,
you know, especially if there's like there's like a shooting
or something that happens towards the tail end of one
of these celebrations, which again, you know, it's like that
that's a risk anytime large amounts of people gather anywhere
in our personal violence freaking out right, like again, is
thing that happens, and the direct cause of it is
(27:03):
never like people partying. The direct cause of it is
usually like somebody's that a beat with somebody, or somebody
drank too much and lost impulse control, you know, whatever
the reason might be. Yeah, So I think that is
like I think that's what Pritzker is alluding to. It's
kind of like the car caravan and stuff when he says,
like Stephen Miller is bringing ice to interrupt family picnics,
(27:24):
Like I don't I don't know where he's getting that information, Like,
I don't know that that is like specifically going to happen.
You know, I think given what we've seen out in LA,
unless I've missed anything, it doesn't seem like they've attacked
any like festivals or like like public gatherings like that,
Like in a direct way.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
I think like logistically it's just maybe not as easy
to necessarily like grab people with questionable immigration status at
that kind of stuff. And if you go to like
a place where you know, like the car wash or wherever,
they have intel that it's like undocumented people are working here,
it makes more sense. So I don't want to rule
out that something like that could happen, but I think
(28:04):
I think there's a whether it happens or not. It's
like part of it is also the intention is to
have this chilling effect, like to make people afraid to
celebrate or come out, to cause that terror. You know.
It's kind of like we had a situation a couple
months ago where some FEDS who claimed they were with
(28:25):
like a financial crimes task force. It wasn't even ice,
but I don't know what they were doing, and they
were meeting up at a boat house parking lot in
Humboldt Park like a week before all these cultural celebrations
in the area, and people got really freaked out because
it was just like, what the fuck are you guys doing,
And they like went into the museum and were like
(28:45):
questioning workers and asking you the bathroom and I mean
just being assholes, it sounds like. And then they laughed,
and then there were like all these questions swirling about,
like well what was this, Like were they seeking intel
before these fests? And you know, keep made sure to
like we wanted, we wanted to still have these fasts,
but we want people to show up and even bigger numbers,
(29:06):
like powering numbers. Everybody show up, and that's what happens.
And you know, they didn't attack the fest, and you
know that was a really weird situation because it wasn't
ice and we didn't know what was going on. But
I think ultimately, like yeah, giving in and like staying
home and refusing to show up obviously just plays right
into their hands.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And I wanted to kind of pivot a little bit
from this into the way that Pritzker has sort of
been framing this, where he's talking about how if anyone
throws a sandwich at the guard, this is going to
be used as like the excuse to do a crackdown,
and like I think, yeah, they're gonna they're gonna do
the crackdown anyways, Like I don't think that's like, I.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Mean, this is the central kind of point of conflict.
I think in like a lot of movement space discussions
right now too, especially among kind of like older liberals
and like the young generation. And part of it is
is like, yeah, there's this insistence that well, he's looking
for a reason to send in the National Guards, so
don't give him more. But it's like border patrol is
(30:12):
the reason. Yeah, you know, like they're going to show up.
And I don't know how it's gonna go down, if
it's going to be walking again, if it's going to
be in Chicago, whatever is going to happen. But if
somebody throws a water bottle at those DHS agents, that's
enough of a reason, you know for them to say
there's there's unrest, like and who triggered that? The cops?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, and like it's CPD, Like I have I have
watched CPD do this ship to people where nothing happened, right,
like it was just people standing there.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
And you know, right, our Attorney General said the same
thing in a statement last night, like make sure you
protest peacefully within the law. The Cook County Board President
Tony Prokwinkle said this money still around you, No, I
mean all the like you know, Illinois Democratic God, big
(31:04):
dog people like they're.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
All, yeah, all the machine mother fighting the same thing.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
I mean, like honestly, mayorv. Johnson kind of was a
little more fiery in his rhetoric, but he's still only
going to go so far, you know, like they're politician.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, they can't.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
They're not going to come out and say like, oh,
that's physically resist ice. I think we all w yeah,
but it is like it is a very dangerous way
to frame resistance, like to say, yeah, well, don't provoke him.
You know. It's kind of like living with an abuser
or a bully and then blaming somebody for fighting back.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, And I think there's also there's really it creates
really changers and hammocks on the ground. I mean, like
I still remember, like one of the things I'm sort
of haunted by from this from twenty twenty was in
Atlantic or someone like the person who burned the Wendy's Down. Yeah,
there was like a whole there was like a whole
thing where people were like, this is a federal infiltrator
(31:59):
and they in order to the Feds, which doesn't make
any sense, by the way, Like if your logic is
this person is a FED and we turn them over
to the FEDS. Nonsensical, but like this, this is the
thing you see a lot in these kinds of protests,
Like people will just like hand people over to the FEDS.
And then it turned out that that she was the
girlfriend of of a fucking guy the police had shot. Yeah,
and that shit just like happens. Yeah, And I don't know,
(32:23):
like that's like, that's like the consequence of this O
this kind of stuff is like these people, the peace
of police people feel like they are in power to
hand people over to the actual police. And I just
want to sort of like take a second to talk
to like directly to people who are listening to this
who agree with this stuff, which is okay if you
are facing a fascist regime, right, regardless of whether you
(32:45):
agree with what someone is doing or not, do you
think it's a good idea to hand them over to
the lead, to the legal executors of that regime? Like
would you would you hand someone over to the SS
because they resisted the SS know what you didn't approve of? No,
what are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Right?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
I don't know? And I think this ties back to
something from we're talking about the beginning of the week
of like the extent to which people have become convinced
that like the ICE agents are all like proud boys
or something, because they can't imagine the institutions that they
had supported for so long, right, suddenly being fascist and
it's like no, actually, like these organizations have always bent
(33:26):
this way, and they're they're organs of the state, which
means they're going to be subverted to enforcing the regime
of fascism, right.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
And you know, I think I think a lot of
people who kind of and I'm not talking about the politicians,
but like regular people who kind of share in this
sentiment of like they're scared. They don't want to provoke
or like make things worse. You know, I think their
their hearts are in the right place, Like they're coming
from a place of like, well, we just don't want
people to get arrested. We want people to be safe.
(33:54):
Like I think by and large, that's the motivation. But yeah,
it's just kind of like a very shallow under standing
of like how resistance actually looks and works in real life.
There's also just like a worry for a lot of
people that like, well, that kind of stuff might endanger
others who want to show up with kids or families,
(34:15):
and I think there just needs to be like a
separation in space. Obviously, not every protest or every resistance
is for everyone, but at the end of the day,
like some of these discussions kind of just fall to
the wayside once things get to a certain point, because like, yeah,
if border patrol rolls through your town, you're you're not
(34:36):
gonna be able to control how everyone responds to that. Yeah,
like that that's a point at which you can see
a more spontaneous response. And and so like this sort
of like top down movement organizer level like control of
like the protests and how it's going to go kind
of falls apart anyway, because by that point, like no
(34:58):
one's in control of any.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a bunch. It's a
bunch of people running out of our houses being like fuck,
fuck the fucking like the immigration authorities, right, you know.
And I don't know. That's the thing that gives me
hope in the situation is that, like I'm going to
retreat to the metaphysical level for a second, where like
one of the things I don't know almost spiritually that
(35:22):
I believe in is cities that cities are more than
sort of some of their parts. Yeah, and obviously like
they're they're broken down into all of these things, and
you know, like like they're like there's something there right
in Chicago is something that I believe in, and I
believe in the people there, and I believe in their
(35:42):
capacity to resist this and to drive these people out
because they can be driven out. And you know, with
with enough organization and enough spontaneity and enough cost imposts
on their logistical operations, they can be ran out of
a city. Yeah. I think the power of a city
it's not something that's clear until it's manifested, and you
(36:06):
never know when it's going to manifest, but when it does.
If you look at the entire federal deployment, even if
they bringing the National Guard, like we're talking about less
than three thousand people, there are millions of people in
the city.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
This is a fucking flea in an ocean, and the
flea is relying on the waves staying calm so it
doesn't get drowned. And this is the thing that can happen.
These people can be ran out of cities, they can
be chased out, their operations can be made impossible, they
can be rendered impotent, and they can be made to retreat.
And you know, that's just the thing I'll say, is
(36:42):
it like the experience of watching these people break and run,
because they will break and run. They can and they
will and you can do it is the most amazing
feeling in the entire world, because you know, however powerful
they look, they are beatable and they know and that's
why they operate with this sort of you know, these
(37:04):
like fear shock tactics because they know that if you're
not afraid of them, they can be defeated.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
There have always been more of us than there are
of them.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Yeah, like that's always.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Been true, and they do rule by fear, and Chicago
will fight back. And there's so much knowledge and history
here of our urban black and brown communities resisting the police.
Even to this day. I see on TikTok every night
videos of crowds hassling the cops or pushing them out
(37:37):
of their hood.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
I mean, like, this is it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Happening right now. There are communities who do this work
right now. The schallenge, of course, remains building solidarity across
the borders of the neighborhoods.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, but I don't think this is an insurmountable thing.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
No.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
I have never been in a place where where people
fly the flag of their fucking city that you like,
it's not real.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
We're basically a small nation state at this point, So
this is going to get really weird really fast.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, and it's like, I don't know, like the US's
record of military occupations is not good and we can
hand them another l Yeah. So, Raven, is there anything
else that you want to say? And also where can
people find your work?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Nothing else to say? Our work is who've mostly even
posting on Blue Sky honestly, which I always like kind
of cringe, But we just you do a lot of
live reporting. It's the only functional way to do it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, it's it's really good. By the way, this is like,
it's it's a kind of coverage that I think is
becoming more and more important as things go on, and
it's really the only way right now to get good
on the ground coverage of people of how these actions
are actually unfolding. And it rocks I've I mean, we've
(39:00):
we've been there together at events at protests before, and
like I could, I could I could personally vouch for
the coverage being good and yeah, yeah, and it's also like,
I mean, we have a lot of people on this show,
but like it really matters when the people who are
covering a social movement are people who actually are in
(39:21):
them and understand how they work and like have been
in these places, and so yeah, I think it's I
think it's really really important work. And I think people
should go support y'all because it's it's great and it's
going to be more and more necessary as the occupation unfolds.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
As the occupation unfolds, what a what a bleak, what
a what a terrible world? But another world is possible.
That's the most important.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, yep, remember, yeah, And the only way to do
it is by building it, and you can do that
right now.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
I also do think a lot about too, how like
the first well not the first police uprising, but like
kind of the the opening of this like era of
what's going on was the George Floyd Uprising, which didn't
happen in Great Lakes in the Midwest, in Mineapolist. Yeah,
I think there is there's something about this legion specifically,
(40:22):
we're generally not like the first to pop off just
because one of as many people as in New York
or Los Angeles. But there's such a rich history of
like resistance to the police here. I mean, you had
Ferguson in Missouri, which is like kind of Midwest, kind
of South, but like these communities have such a strong
history of norm what it's like to live as like
sun downtowns too, and some of them still are with
(40:44):
these like majority of white police departments. So it's it'll
be something to watch how things unhold here specifically.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, and the uprising in Chicago was like one of
the mission times anywhere in the country. Like they ran
the cops out of the center of the city, like
they they lost control for days of like the giant
shopping district in the middle of the city. That is
like the thing that like the Chicago business glitzy self
image is like based off of They just lost it
(41:14):
fully because people ran them out, and you know we
did it to them once, we could do it again.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Yeah. Well, and I think public opinion against ICE is
much worse than like CPD. I mean, like not that
public opinion against CPD is great, but obviously things with
ICE are reaching like a fever pitch right now.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, people hate them.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, so you know you're not. I don't know if
there's ever been an occupying army that people didn't hate.
But like, it's just not going to go well for
you when the locals hate you, like, it's just not
it not going to go well.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, And I think you know. The history, as said before,
was the history of American occupations is littered with defeats.
Fucking hand them in other one Amen.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
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