For Donald Trump, the “enemy from within” includes
not only undocumented immigrants, drug cartels, foreign
terrorists, liberal activists, and the press. ICE’s raid on a Chicago apartment building and the
ensuing ICE violence against civilians make clear that Trump
has initiated an unconstitutional, brutal war against ordinary Americans.
A military attack more akin to an overseas military
operation than a domestic police action unfolded in that Chicago apartment
building on Tuesday.
Families were separated, and children were zip-tied together and left traumatized. The local public radio station recounted: “Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said.
Agents approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story building, and U.S. citizens were among those detained for hours.” Neighbors also reported that “federal agents used flashbang grenades to burst through the building, and several drones and helicopters were deployed.” The local ABC affiliate station quoted a neighbor who witnessed ICE agents: “One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, ‘f*** them kids.’”
This incident was just one episode in Trump’s “Operation
Midway Blitz,” an exercise in indiscriminate and excessive force. Another raid
was “carried out in suburban Elgin, when agents led by U.S. Secretary of
Homeland Security Kristi Noem rode in a military vehicle and blew down the
front door of a home where they detained six people, including two U.S.
citizens,” WBEZ reported.
Chicago, state officials, and civil rights groups have
denounced ICE’s onslaught of abuse and excessive force. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, decrying ICE for “running around
the Loop harassing people for not being white,” enumerated the violent actions taken against
civilians, including “posting social media videos mocking and glorifying the
detention of individuals—including U.S. citizens—who are later released.” He also recounted, “Kristi Noem’s and Greg Bovino’s masked
agents threw chemical agents near an elementary school, arrested elected
officials exercising their First Amendment rights, and raided a Walmart.”
ICE’s violence escalated quickly. On Saturday, an
ICE agent shot and wounded a motorist. Following his playbook from Portland,
Los Angeles, and D.C., Trump first threatened to nationalize the Illinois
National Guard.
Pritzker swiftly responded on social media that for
Trump, “this has never been about safety. This is about control.” He reiterated
that no military troops were needed because state, county, and local forces
were protecting public safety. He also vowed, “I will not call up our National
Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people. In Illinois, we
will do everything within our power to look out for our neighbors, uphold the
Constitution, and defend the rule of law.”
With the ruling Saturday night from U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump
appointee, enjoining Trump’s invasion of Portland, Trump might be stymied in
Chicago, at least at the lower court level.
On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Pritzker summed up the situation: What happened at that building is shameful. Our Department of Children and Family Services are investigating what happened to those children who were zip-tied and held, some of them nearly naked, in the middle of the night, and, again, elderly people being thrown into a U-Haul for three hours and detained, U.S. citizens.
What kind of a country are we living in? And this raid at this building is
emblematic of what ICE and CBP and the president of the United States [and]
Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino, are trying to do. They want mayhem on the ground.
They want to create the war zone, so that they can send in even more troops....
They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it’s a war
zone.
Responding to Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s unhinged attack on Judge Immergut,
Pritzker noted that “this judge is a Trump-appointed judge” who found that
“what the government is doing, what Trump is doing, is untethered from the
facts.”
“What kind of a country are we living in?”
By Sunday evening, Trump reversed course and
threatened to send several hundred members of the Texas National
Guard to invade Illinois. Pritzker responded on social media: “I call on
Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and
refuse to coordinate. There is no reason a President should send military
troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or
cooperation.”
Trump’s unprecedented assault on Chicago and other American cities is the inevitable result of the MAGA Supreme Court’s acquiescence to the Trump regime’s violent assault on individuals who look Latino, speak Spanish, and/or work or live among undocumented migrants.
Last
month, the Supreme Court’s majority, again misusing its emergency docket,
condoned Los Angeles raids based on racial profiling. (Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s shameful concurrence
ludicrously minimized and mischaracterized ICE’s brutality.) ICE took that as a
green light to ratchet up violence and shred civil liberties nationwide.
On the flimsiest of pretexts, Trump’s regime has deployed overwhelming force against Americans, traumatized children, detained suspected undocumented immigrants (many of whom turn out to be citizens or legal residents) for days or weeks, wrecked people’s homes, and stirred up violence on the streets.
The “enemy from within” is Donald Trump. The
“violent extremists” are Trump lackeys who have turned ICE into fascistic shock
troops. This is not business as usual, or “Trump being Trump.” In response to
Trump’s brutal, racist, and unconstitutional campaign of terror designed to
desensitize Americans to police state tactics, the country must mobilize
collectively.
Lawyers can sue to protect victims and stop the invasion of our cities. Judges can block violent ICE raids lacking probable cause and—as Immergut did in Portland—halt military invasions that unconstitutionally supplant domestic police, refusing to defer when Trump’s actions are “untethered to facts.”
(Long ago, courts should have refused to grant deference to a president who perpetually acts in bad faith.) Congressional Democrats can demand oversight hearings and deny votes to fund egregious ICE conduct and misuse of National Guard forces. Legacy media outlets could even renounce the sane washing of Trump and phony equivalence (i.e., cover Trump as they would a foreign autocrat).
All Americans can respond with peaceful, robust
protest. As the ACLU suggests, you can take action such as “going to
a No Kings protest, filming ICE activity, taking a Know Your Rights training, or simply helping your
neighbors’ children get safely to school, …. [to] help protect not just our
loved ones, but our communities.”
This will not end until voters boot out MAGA lawmakers who refuse to rein in Trump. We will not be safe from a dictatorial presidency as long as the Supreme Court refuses to check executive overreach. Court expansion and repeal of its appellate jurisdiction must be on the table. Meanwhile, all Americans must defend our neighbors, our deepest-held values, and what is left of our democracy.
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