Keep photographing what they are doing. The court order from Judge Ellis (fun fact - law school classmate) requires body cameras and visible ID. If they aren't wearing them as required, and those violations start piling up, she will hold them accountable.
Second idea - it is time to pass legislation barring anyone who is involved in this shitshow from ever working in a state law enforcement agency. And it is not just about punishing them. It's about keeping our citizenry safe once they leave ICE. The tactics they are using now - high speed pursuits, racial profiling, excessive force, indiscriminate use of tear gas, brandishing weapons on unarmed civilians - will be part of their law enforcement DNA after they leave ICE. It keeps citizens from being victimized by their conduct and our local units of government from having to shell out millions of dollars to settle the civil rights lawsuits that will inevitably follow them after they leave ICE and use their "law enforcement experience" as a way to open the door for them to get hired at local police departments, sheriff's offices and the like.
Our local police are trying to walk an incredibly difficult and fine line between enforcing the law (across the board) and risking escalating the situation for community members as well as for members of the force themselves, many of whom are BIPOC and/or immigrants or have immigrants in their close families, and/or running afoul of our country's legal structure. I strongly encourage folks to educate yourselves as much as possible about this legal structure (along the lines that Steve D. writes below, including his point that we've been here before as a country) before criticizing or judging, especially given we have a leader like Chief Stewart. Also to focus on one's own activities to ensure one is not risking escalating the situation or feeding a narrative that will set the efforts back even more, which is part of response training and a core lesson of the civil rights movement (and others like it).
You can start by looking up legal experts in police use of force and federalism and search out their more layperson pieces (some blog), as well as read news articles on recent Supreme Court decisions around ICE/Border Patrol "enforcement" from whichever outlets you trust. And you're likely to find that there is no right or wrong, clearcut answer in these situations, which is basically what I learned when I went to law school and was told that my education would be about gaps, conflicts, and ambiguities. Which is why it's even more important not to assume and criticize at the outset, but to seek to understand the many factors that folks in positions like police leadership are trying to balance in this moment
In my opinion, is totally fine to use ChatGPT as a first pass at gathering high-level info to then further follow-up on yourself, which includes individually checking all of the sources to which the ChatGPT summary links. There is a big difference between doing this and simply accepting the results that you get from ChatGPT, which I agree should NOT be done. Also, saying ChatGPT in this response was a rhetorical point in reply to the prior comment, which itself made light of using ChatGPT (I read the original reply as saying using it in the manner I say it should NOT be used, i.e., taking the results as-is).
Good to know, thanks Tom! I just edited my original reply to remove the reference to ChatGPT given your deletion of your comment (and to make it read more generally about looking up various sources of information).
Where I’ve landed is to continue publicizing the tactics we are seeing from ICE in Evanston to my social media in hopes that it reaches people in different geographical locations and with different political beliefs. I want to convey how atrocious Trump’s ICE is acting and I don’t think people nationwide understand who the targets are, because they aren’t criminals.
There’s a video going around of Bovino walking in his fatigues with a huge automatic weapon, at a corner in NW Evanston, where ICE was questioning a landscaper. Maybe seeing this totally oversized response will help reframe what is happening here beyond the Trump rhetoric - an effort to intimidate and scare liberal voting populations using insane amounts of federal tax dollars with innocent hard-working people as casualties. So even if one believes the Biden administration created a huge problem at the border and Trump needs to fix it, this isn’t the right response.
Tom, thank you for prompting this discussion. I am with all here who say we are struggling to know what to do. I believe a presence in the streets is critical, but provoking incidents WILL offer the regime the justification to crack down harder and more broadly. We need more information sharing and a forum like this is a good place to start. Again, much appreciation for sparking the conversation and debate.
Yesterday I felt so much frustration - I literally didn't know how to write on this subject. I could spend a month "educating myself" on this subject and still not really know how to write on it.
So you have to start somewhere, which is, let's vent and explore the problem space. I appreciate everyone who has commented.
I've learned a lot in the last 24 hours. Stay tuned.
I've come to the conclusion (maybe its my bias) that our best weapons is not engagement and fighting but transparency, organization, and legal focus. The pen is mightier than the sword, but we need leadership that can recognize this instead of engaging in the sabre rattling as leadership did at that Vigil yesterday.
The Roundtable has a harrowing account from the person who was detained by these monsters. Apparently they drove around with them for hours slamming their breaks hoping to get into another confrontation with someone rear-ending them.
The key point from the interview is that the person said the ICE agents seemed both totally inexperienced (they didn't even frisk her when they took her in their car!) and scared of situations where there were a lot of people whistling and peacefully expressing their views about their presence.
What this tells me is that the more people who can come out, witness and document ICE activity, and express their views to these bastards the better. We need rapid and and mass responses.
Here's an idea (maybe it already exists) – There should be a database somewhere for citizens who were detained on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant by ICE or Border Patrol to report that interaction. That would paint a clearer picture of just how much racial profiling is going on. It would add to evidence that ICE is NOT prioritizing criminals, as they claim. Instead they are confronting anyone who looks like an immigrant in their eyes.
As for EPD, I don't know what they can do other than try to calm down volatile situations. I am not in favor of confronting ICE agents and instigating reactions from them. That plays right into their hands. Instead – keep a distance and film them. Document their use of unregistered vehicles and excessive force in arresting people. Document them speeding through residential streets and blowing through crosswalks and stop signs. Document them peering into the windows of elementary schools (a claim I heard about from the rumor mill on Friday, but have not seen any video evidence of).
I wrote to Pritzker, Fine and Gabel today asking them to organize the Illinois State Police and local police forces to arrest federal agents who are either violating the US Constitution or state law.
Having said that, unfortunatley there are real problems with the way federalism works. Federal law is supreme over state law, and if we have state law enforcement actively blocking federal agents enforcing federal law (no matter how brutally or illegally they are doing it) we are running enormous risks.
As a country, we've been here before. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 passed by Congress allowed for slave catchers to enter free states and kidnap "escaped slaves" (many of whom were legally free) and take them to the South - without any real due process. Many northern states responded with "Personal Liberty Laws" which in essence attempted to override this law and restore due process protections for all their state residents.
A few Southern states pointed to these Personal Liberty Laws as justification for the decision to secede (which, of course, they only made after realizing they were losing control of Congress and the Presidency).
Yeah I don’t want a standoff between local police and federal agents in front of the elementary school. That would be bad.
But I do think we can do more than we are doing now, which is kind of why I made this post. Besides just recording incidents, what things can the city and EPD do that regular joes cannot? What kind of training can we get the EPD to handle and deescalate these situations, along with guaranteeing rights of those arrested?
imho this whole shitshow is intended to provoke a response. Does anyone actually believe that the goal is to get criminals off the street? One way or another they will get their escalation -- either someone will get hurt, protesters will get violent or EPD will be forced to intervene. At which point, Trump will call it an insurrections, and then all bets are off. I don't think I am being overdramatic. My only hope is that maybe this will just die down like Trump's other initiatives. Maybe it's just another smokescreen to keep the attention away from his immense grifting.
to illustrate my point (from the NY Times piece that Tom linked): “This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of violence and obstruction,” the D.H.S. statement said. “Over the past several days, we’ve seen an increase in assaults and deliberate vehicle rammings targeting federal law enforcement during operations. These confrontations highlight the dangers our agents face daily and the escalating aggression toward law enforcement.”
First off Democrats should demand they nominate presidential candidates with broader appeal. Democrats only have themselves for not stepping in earlier when Biden decided to run for president. As for EPD, they have a tough role here, be kind. They are doing their best. If a guy rams a car into a police enforcement vehicle, you deserve to be slammed to the ground. I feel so sickened by what is going on, I really think the best message to bring is how anti-Christian this whole situation is and to turn religion back in their face. Start saying bible verses and telling to the ICE agents and saying they are going to hell. Let them think about their actions, I am sure many of them are religious, although Christian In Name Only!
I feel out of my depth on this, but it strikes me that we are seriously lacking in real-time intelligence about ICE activities. We have some bottom-up networks that have emerged, but EPD seems better suited for monitoring, tracking, and reporting organized recklessness than a citizen initiative.
Would it be possible for EPD to provide an escort for all ICE vehicles in our city? If we don’t know which vehicles those are (again, an intelligence failure), would it be possible for us to set up checkpoints along city borders to identify ICE vehicles as they show up in our city?
I think what I’m really not clear on is whether there’s any legal or chain of command reason why EPD can’t actually help or interfere with ICE or if we are just disorganized.
Yeah I don't know the answer. I realize this post was harsh on the EPD and I know a lot of good people in the department. I imagine they're probably not super trained in how to deal with this stuff, have to call in the right people to the place, and want to genuinely avoid a confrontation with ICE over someone who is maybe being arrested without a warrant. I am sympathetic and part of why I made this post was to encourage discussion on what our options are, because right now, we're not doing anything.
I agree with you completely. EP has completely failed Evanstonians. Where were they when an ICE agent pulled a gun on the crowd yesterday? The quote from the DN is pretty telling. Their strategy is nebulous at best, complicit at worst.
I would like to hear something from the Evanston Chief of Police. Have they absolutely no power to protect citizens of Evanston? What happened to that couple that ICE arrested/kidnapped yesterday in front of Chute? It was a traffic accident. I was told that ICE slammed on the brakes to create the accident.
These purported ICE agents should be questioned by the Evanston Police, asked to identify themselves, wear a badge and be told no masks in Evanston. We don't know who these people are. They could be kidnappers. They need to be stopped.
I don't understand for the life of me why the police aren't doing their job. Where is the Chief of Police? Where is the Mayor? Where is the City Manager?
I really struggle with what to do here, and I’m terribly uncomfortable with a do nothing approach… but respectfully, I fear greatly that all the local politicians (perhaps to also include Johnson and Pritzker) are only making this situation worse. Some friends are running into the streets and even chasing ICE around the town based on Bliss and PTA based training with a whistle that is IMO even more likely to traumatize more kids, and end up with additional people hurt and charged with a crime. These well meaning folks are NOT properly trained for this, nor should they be risking themselves, and the impacts to their families, for what amounts to little more than the additional noise of citizen Facebook videos that both sides will point at as proof they are justified.
Are similar events happening in other Chicago suburbs at this scale? In Naperville, Barrington, or Downers grove? How about Milwaukee, Atlanta, or Detroit? I’d genuinely like to know as I fear all this chest puffing and encouraging of citizen policing is as much about political aspirations as anything that is actually wise or helpful under these dire circumstances.
I subscribe to the Chicago Sun Times, which is nonprofit. I always read the reports on ICE actions. In my opinion, Chicago and Evanston are prime targets. I have friends in Logan Square. Their children, ages 8 and 5, go to a public school that is diverse. An ICE agent tear gassed their playground a few weeks ago. Little Village and other neighborhoods with significant numbers of people of Hispanic heritage have also been targeted even though they may have lived here for generations. It’s vicious hatred and racism. There are frequently helicopters present. I also think many of these ICE barbarians are those who went to prison for January 6 but were pardoned by our current president. It’s traumatizing for children and all of us. I also agree with you on that it is very dangerous for parents and neighbors just running in to the streets to take matters in to their hands is really dangerous. Our overworked police will arrive as soon as they can.
This is long. You might delete it. After reading the Live Blog from Evanston Roundtable yesterday, and watching the video I agree the response from EPD was very weak and quite alarming. The EPD does not have adequate staffing, training and the proper equipment to deal with the continued presence of ICE in our community. Do they have equipment to handle riots, such as respirator masks to deter the impact of tear gas, bullet proof vests, other items necessary in riot situations? Where would the funds come from to even provide all of the needs of the Police Department? Personally I feel the City Council needs to work with the finance staff to rewrite our budget for 2026 to provide significantly more funding for EPD at the sacrifice of maybe the parks and rec budget. Our personal safety is more important now when our children are afraid to go to school or a neighborhood park.
Do our schools need to become fortresses, with high fences to prevent unlawful invasions by the ICE barbarians? After Sandy Hook, I am aware of schools in my childrens' school district (not here - I lived elsewhere at the time.) that put up black chain link fences about 9 feet high.
I live near the reconstruction of Ryan Field. It's only a matter of days until ICE shows up there, going after construction workers. I sent an email to Daniel Biss yesterday expressing my concerns about the safety of construction workers there and on the NU campus. Haven't heard back. I've not seen a response from JB Pritzker either.
There is a food drive on Sunday at ETHS with volunteers apparently organized to deliver food to those in our community who are impacted by the cut-off in SNAP benefits and/or are too frightened to leave their homes due to the color of their skin. This reminds me of The Diary of Anne Frank. It's making everyone in my family physically ill.
I am afraid a forceful response from EPD (or other targeted cities) is exactly what Trump wants, so he can escalate. If this is reminding you of Gestapo, KGB, etc., just imagine how much worse it can get. State and city leadership better come up with some kind of political/legal strategy.
I agree. There needs to be urgent communication with Governor Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul to determine the appropriate legal recourse. Daniel Biss should just put his campaign for Congress and appearances at protests aside. This communication should be his first priority. That’s my opinion. Whether Biss will do this is debatable!
I’m very concerned there’s been no notice of this specific incident by campus officials nor any substantive information as to the safety of folks across Evanston & Chicago campuses.
Keep photographing what they are doing. The court order from Judge Ellis (fun fact - law school classmate) requires body cameras and visible ID. If they aren't wearing them as required, and those violations start piling up, she will hold them accountable.
Second idea - it is time to pass legislation barring anyone who is involved in this shitshow from ever working in a state law enforcement agency. And it is not just about punishing them. It's about keeping our citizenry safe once they leave ICE. The tactics they are using now - high speed pursuits, racial profiling, excessive force, indiscriminate use of tear gas, brandishing weapons on unarmed civilians - will be part of their law enforcement DNA after they leave ICE. It keeps citizens from being victimized by their conduct and our local units of government from having to shell out millions of dollars to settle the civil rights lawsuits that will inevitably follow them after they leave ICE and use their "law enforcement experience" as a way to open the door for them to get hired at local police departments, sheriff's offices and the like.
The impression I get now, from the action on the street and TV ads is that these are the guys who couldn't cut it in law enforcement to begin with.
This gives them "law enforcement experience" which opens the doors in a lot of places. I
Our local police are trying to walk an incredibly difficult and fine line between enforcing the law (across the board) and risking escalating the situation for community members as well as for members of the force themselves, many of whom are BIPOC and/or immigrants or have immigrants in their close families, and/or running afoul of our country's legal structure. I strongly encourage folks to educate yourselves as much as possible about this legal structure (along the lines that Steve D. writes below, including his point that we've been here before as a country) before criticizing or judging, especially given we have a leader like Chief Stewart. Also to focus on one's own activities to ensure one is not risking escalating the situation or feeding a narrative that will set the efforts back even more, which is part of response training and a core lesson of the civil rights movement (and others like it).
You can start by looking up legal experts in police use of force and federalism and search out their more layperson pieces (some blog), as well as read news articles on recent Supreme Court decisions around ICE/Border Patrol "enforcement" from whichever outlets you trust. And you're likely to find that there is no right or wrong, clearcut answer in these situations, which is basically what I learned when I went to law school and was told that my education would be about gaps, conflicts, and ambiguities. Which is why it's even more important not to assume and criticize at the outset, but to seek to understand the many factors that folks in positions like police leadership are trying to balance in this moment
In my opinion, is totally fine to use ChatGPT as a first pass at gathering high-level info to then further follow-up on yourself, which includes individually checking all of the sources to which the ChatGPT summary links. There is a big difference between doing this and simply accepting the results that you get from ChatGPT, which I agree should NOT be done. Also, saying ChatGPT in this response was a rhetorical point in reply to the prior comment, which itself made light of using ChatGPT (I read the original reply as saying using it in the manner I say it should NOT be used, i.e., taking the results as-is).
I deleted my own comment for the reason I was being unhelpful here. Thanks for this
Good to know, thanks Tom! I just edited my original reply to remove the reference to ChatGPT given your deletion of your comment (and to make it read more generally about looking up various sources of information).
I suspect people already have been seriously hurt, like the guy they were body slamming in front of Chute yesterday.
Where I’ve landed is to continue publicizing the tactics we are seeing from ICE in Evanston to my social media in hopes that it reaches people in different geographical locations and with different political beliefs. I want to convey how atrocious Trump’s ICE is acting and I don’t think people nationwide understand who the targets are, because they aren’t criminals.
There’s a video going around of Bovino walking in his fatigues with a huge automatic weapon, at a corner in NW Evanston, where ICE was questioning a landscaper. Maybe seeing this totally oversized response will help reframe what is happening here beyond the Trump rhetoric - an effort to intimidate and scare liberal voting populations using insane amounts of federal tax dollars with innocent hard-working people as casualties. So even if one believes the Biden administration created a huge problem at the border and Trump needs to fix it, this isn’t the right response.
100% agree
Tom, thank you for prompting this discussion. I am with all here who say we are struggling to know what to do. I believe a presence in the streets is critical, but provoking incidents WILL offer the regime the justification to crack down harder and more broadly. We need more information sharing and a forum like this is a good place to start. Again, much appreciation for sparking the conversation and debate.
Yesterday I felt so much frustration - I literally didn't know how to write on this subject. I could spend a month "educating myself" on this subject and still not really know how to write on it.
So you have to start somewhere, which is, let's vent and explore the problem space. I appreciate everyone who has commented.
I've learned a lot in the last 24 hours. Stay tuned.
I've come to the conclusion (maybe its my bias) that our best weapons is not engagement and fighting but transparency, organization, and legal focus. The pen is mightier than the sword, but we need leadership that can recognize this instead of engaging in the sabre rattling as leadership did at that Vigil yesterday.
The Roundtable has a harrowing account from the person who was detained by these monsters. Apparently they drove around with them for hours slamming their breaks hoping to get into another confrontation with someone rear-ending them.
The key point from the interview is that the person said the ICE agents seemed both totally inexperienced (they didn't even frisk her when they took her in their car!) and scared of situations where there were a lot of people whistling and peacefully expressing their views about their presence.
What this tells me is that the more people who can come out, witness and document ICE activity, and express their views to these bastards the better. We need rapid and and mass responses.
Here's an idea (maybe it already exists) – There should be a database somewhere for citizens who were detained on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant by ICE or Border Patrol to report that interaction. That would paint a clearer picture of just how much racial profiling is going on. It would add to evidence that ICE is NOT prioritizing criminals, as they claim. Instead they are confronting anyone who looks like an immigrant in their eyes.
As for EPD, I don't know what they can do other than try to calm down volatile situations. I am not in favor of confronting ICE agents and instigating reactions from them. That plays right into their hands. Instead – keep a distance and film them. Document their use of unregistered vehicles and excessive force in arresting people. Document them speeding through residential streets and blowing through crosswalks and stop signs. Document them peering into the windows of elementary schools (a claim I heard about from the rumor mill on Friday, but have not seen any video evidence of).
I wrote to Pritzker, Fine and Gabel today asking them to organize the Illinois State Police and local police forces to arrest federal agents who are either violating the US Constitution or state law.
Having said that, unfortunatley there are real problems with the way federalism works. Federal law is supreme over state law, and if we have state law enforcement actively blocking federal agents enforcing federal law (no matter how brutally or illegally they are doing it) we are running enormous risks.
As a country, we've been here before. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 passed by Congress allowed for slave catchers to enter free states and kidnap "escaped slaves" (many of whom were legally free) and take them to the South - without any real due process. Many northern states responded with "Personal Liberty Laws" which in essence attempted to override this law and restore due process protections for all their state residents.
A few Southern states pointed to these Personal Liberty Laws as justification for the decision to secede (which, of course, they only made after realizing they were losing control of Congress and the Presidency).
Yeah I don’t want a standoff between local police and federal agents in front of the elementary school. That would be bad.
But I do think we can do more than we are doing now, which is kind of why I made this post. Besides just recording incidents, what things can the city and EPD do that regular joes cannot? What kind of training can we get the EPD to handle and deescalate these situations, along with guaranteeing rights of those arrested?
imho this whole shitshow is intended to provoke a response. Does anyone actually believe that the goal is to get criminals off the street? One way or another they will get their escalation -- either someone will get hurt, protesters will get violent or EPD will be forced to intervene. At which point, Trump will call it an insurrections, and then all bets are off. I don't think I am being overdramatic. My only hope is that maybe this will just die down like Trump's other initiatives. Maybe it's just another smokescreen to keep the attention away from his immense grifting.
to illustrate my point (from the NY Times piece that Tom linked): “This incident is not isolated and reflects a growing and dangerous trend of violence and obstruction,” the D.H.S. statement said. “Over the past several days, we’ve seen an increase in assaults and deliberate vehicle rammings targeting federal law enforcement during operations. These confrontations highlight the dangers our agents face daily and the escalating aggression toward law enforcement.”
First off Democrats should demand they nominate presidential candidates with broader appeal. Democrats only have themselves for not stepping in earlier when Biden decided to run for president. As for EPD, they have a tough role here, be kind. They are doing their best. If a guy rams a car into a police enforcement vehicle, you deserve to be slammed to the ground. I feel so sickened by what is going on, I really think the best message to bring is how anti-Christian this whole situation is and to turn religion back in their face. Start saying bible verses and telling to the ICE agents and saying they are going to hell. Let them think about their actions, I am sure many of them are religious, although Christian In Name Only!
I feel out of my depth on this, but it strikes me that we are seriously lacking in real-time intelligence about ICE activities. We have some bottom-up networks that have emerged, but EPD seems better suited for monitoring, tracking, and reporting organized recklessness than a citizen initiative.
Would it be possible for EPD to provide an escort for all ICE vehicles in our city? If we don’t know which vehicles those are (again, an intelligence failure), would it be possible for us to set up checkpoints along city borders to identify ICE vehicles as they show up in our city?
We have those cameras at the city boundary which could be actually used for something useful besides tracking women who had abortions!
Also, we are all out of our depth on this. This post I made is not of my usual quality because I literally have no idea where to start on this story.
I think what I’m really not clear on is whether there’s any legal or chain of command reason why EPD can’t actually help or interfere with ICE or if we are just disorganized.
Yeah I don't know the answer. I realize this post was harsh on the EPD and I know a lot of good people in the department. I imagine they're probably not super trained in how to deal with this stuff, have to call in the right people to the place, and want to genuinely avoid a confrontation with ICE over someone who is maybe being arrested without a warrant. I am sympathetic and part of why I made this post was to encourage discussion on what our options are, because right now, we're not doing anything.
I agree with you completely. EP has completely failed Evanstonians. Where were they when an ICE agent pulled a gun on the crowd yesterday? The quote from the DN is pretty telling. Their strategy is nebulous at best, complicit at worst.
It was a interpol red alert for an organized crime person from Poland.
Do you have evidence of this?
I would like to hear something from the Evanston Chief of Police. Have they absolutely no power to protect citizens of Evanston? What happened to that couple that ICE arrested/kidnapped yesterday in front of Chute? It was a traffic accident. I was told that ICE slammed on the brakes to create the accident.
These purported ICE agents should be questioned by the Evanston Police, asked to identify themselves, wear a badge and be told no masks in Evanston. We don't know who these people are. They could be kidnappers. They need to be stopped.
I don't understand for the life of me why the police aren't doing their job. Where is the Chief of Police? Where is the Mayor? Where is the City Manager?
Biss was at the press conference yesterday afternoon and spoke. The Daily Northwestern had detailed coverage of the entire event. https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/10/31/top-stories/evanston-community-mobilizes-amid-increased-ice-and-border-patrol-enforcement-on-halloween/
I really struggle with what to do here, and I’m terribly uncomfortable with a do nothing approach… but respectfully, I fear greatly that all the local politicians (perhaps to also include Johnson and Pritzker) are only making this situation worse. Some friends are running into the streets and even chasing ICE around the town based on Bliss and PTA based training with a whistle that is IMO even more likely to traumatize more kids, and end up with additional people hurt and charged with a crime. These well meaning folks are NOT properly trained for this, nor should they be risking themselves, and the impacts to their families, for what amounts to little more than the additional noise of citizen Facebook videos that both sides will point at as proof they are justified.
Are similar events happening in other Chicago suburbs at this scale? In Naperville, Barrington, or Downers grove? How about Milwaukee, Atlanta, or Detroit? I’d genuinely like to know as I fear all this chest puffing and encouraging of citizen policing is as much about political aspirations as anything that is actually wise or helpful under these dire circumstances.
I subscribe to the Chicago Sun Times, which is nonprofit. I always read the reports on ICE actions. In my opinion, Chicago and Evanston are prime targets. I have friends in Logan Square. Their children, ages 8 and 5, go to a public school that is diverse. An ICE agent tear gassed their playground a few weeks ago. Little Village and other neighborhoods with significant numbers of people of Hispanic heritage have also been targeted even though they may have lived here for generations. It’s vicious hatred and racism. There are frequently helicopters present. I also think many of these ICE barbarians are those who went to prison for January 6 but were pardoned by our current president. It’s traumatizing for children and all of us. I also agree with you on that it is very dangerous for parents and neighbors just running in to the streets to take matters in to their hands is really dangerous. Our overworked police will arrive as soon as they can.
This is long. You might delete it. After reading the Live Blog from Evanston Roundtable yesterday, and watching the video I agree the response from EPD was very weak and quite alarming. The EPD does not have adequate staffing, training and the proper equipment to deal with the continued presence of ICE in our community. Do they have equipment to handle riots, such as respirator masks to deter the impact of tear gas, bullet proof vests, other items necessary in riot situations? Where would the funds come from to even provide all of the needs of the Police Department? Personally I feel the City Council needs to work with the finance staff to rewrite our budget for 2026 to provide significantly more funding for EPD at the sacrifice of maybe the parks and rec budget. Our personal safety is more important now when our children are afraid to go to school or a neighborhood park.
Do our schools need to become fortresses, with high fences to prevent unlawful invasions by the ICE barbarians? After Sandy Hook, I am aware of schools in my childrens' school district (not here - I lived elsewhere at the time.) that put up black chain link fences about 9 feet high.
I live near the reconstruction of Ryan Field. It's only a matter of days until ICE shows up there, going after construction workers. I sent an email to Daniel Biss yesterday expressing my concerns about the safety of construction workers there and on the NU campus. Haven't heard back. I've not seen a response from JB Pritzker either.
There is a food drive on Sunday at ETHS with volunteers apparently organized to deliver food to those in our community who are impacted by the cut-off in SNAP benefits and/or are too frightened to leave their homes due to the color of their skin. This reminds me of The Diary of Anne Frank. It's making everyone in my family physically ill.
I am afraid a forceful response from EPD (or other targeted cities) is exactly what Trump wants, so he can escalate. If this is reminding you of Gestapo, KGB, etc., just imagine how much worse it can get. State and city leadership better come up with some kind of political/legal strategy.
I agree. There needs to be urgent communication with Governor Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul to determine the appropriate legal recourse. Daniel Biss should just put his campaign for Congress and appearances at protests aside. This communication should be his first priority. That’s my opinion. Whether Biss will do this is debatable!
You would probably be shocked to learn how well-equipped the Evanston Police Department is.
There are not enough police officers in our community to handle this invasion by ICE.
I’m very concerned there’s been no notice of this specific incident by campus officials nor any substantive information as to the safety of folks across Evanston & Chicago campuses.
Thanks Tom, among my many worries the health of our kids is at the front of my mind.