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