In These Times & Workday Magazine -When Trump moved to make an example of Chicago, sending federal immigration authorities to the city on Sunday, Chicago’s immigrant rights community was braced for it. The city’s vast networks of workers’ centers, unions, and community organizations have spent months preparing, disbursing flyers and cards, and sending the message to residents: Don’t talk to ICE. The two-hour training at Arise Chicago’s offices yesterday night was the organization’s sixth in-house training that month, and just one of numerous actions taking place across the city to defend immigrant residents.
It’s one thing to know, intellectually, how to handle ICE, and another to have the muscle memory, so that you follow the plan in a stressful situation. To that end, Jorge Mújica, strategic campaigns organizer, did some boisterous role playing, in which he banged on the door and marched into the room pretending to be ICE. “Where are you from?” he shouted as he pointed at attendees, many of whom laughed at his lively presentation. Moises Zavala, workplace justice campaigns organizer for Arise Chicago, advised attendees to go home and practice with their families: “After dinner, do role playing: ‘What’s your name, where are you from, what’s your address?” (The answer, as always, was: Don’t talk to ICE.)…
At the Arise Chicago office in the West Town neighborhood, the mood was not one of defeat; all of the people who spoke with In These Times and Workday Magazine wanted to underscore that their community is trying to fight fear with preparation and organization. “Obviously there is nervousness,” Klein said, as Arise Chicago members ambled into the office and greeted friends with smiles and hugs. “But we don’t see our community being paralyzed.”
…. On January 25, four Chicago-based organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court, charging that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago is a bid to crush the sanctuary movement and violates activists’ First Amendment rights. Antonio Gutierrez is an organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit. “We urge other groups to potentially think about similar lawsuits in their own cities,” Gutierrez says.
“Don’t open the door, remain
silent if you’re arrested, tell your children not to open the door, and don’t
sign anything,” Zavala told the crowd, most of whom are members of Arise
Chicago, which organizes primarily Polish and Latino immigrant workers in low-wage
industries like food production, manufacturing, domestic labor and
food service. More
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