Fearless Journalists and Vigilant Residents Tell Chicago's Story under Trump's Assault

The abuses of federal power are far worse here in Chicago. Don't look away.

Chicago is safe, beautiful and vibrant. In fact, it was just voted the best big city in America for the ninth year in a row. If the jaw-dropping images you’ve seen recently on TV or social media make it look like a war zone, that’s on Donald Trump.

• A pastor being shot in the head with a chemical projectile

• That same minister pepper sprayed in the face

• A peaceful protestor carrying the American flag through a cloud of tear gas

• A masked ICE agent pointing a huge weapon out a car window directly at a local resident

• Another masked ICE agent atop an armored vehicle pointing a long gun at a crowd of peaceful protestors

• ICE dropping a chemical agent out of a car window in the middle of a busy neighborhood

• One congressional candidate was thrown to the ground, another one gassed and a member of the Chicago City Council handcuffed all by federal agents

• Dozens of heavily armed, combat ready agents chasing a bike riding food delivery worker

• Assaulting and arresting suburban cemetery workers with tear gas

• A midnight raid with hundreds of troops using flashbangs, chemical agents and a military-grade Blackhawk helicopter; terrifying residents, zip-tying children and leaving their apartments uninhabitable

• Troops marching through the heart of downtown and floating down the Chicago River with guns drawn

I hope everyone is startled by what they see here. The small pockets of chaos and brutality captured by fearless journalists and vigilant local residents are grotesque. Some of the most shocking examples of ICE gone wild have come from Chicago residents who grabbed their phone and hit record just like Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has been suggesting. On Wednesday, he said it again: “Pull out your phones and film everything you see.”

That’s exactly what happened in suburban Berwyn this week when this disturbing incident was captured on film. It shows a masked agent aiming a weapon directly at a woman who is filming ICE activity. This photo was shared by Chicago Tribune reporter Lauren Rodriquez Presa who later added a 2nd photo showing another angle of the same incident and updated the details about who took the original photo.

Chicago’s professional news photographers have also taken some chilling images that capture the violence by ICE but also the determination of Chicagoans. One is the photo by Chicago Sun Times photo editor Ashlee Rezin of Rev David Black’s reaction as ICE shoots tear gas and pepper-balls directly at him outside the DHS immigration facility in suburban Broadview. Black is the same pastor who can be seen on this video taken by Chicago writer and activist Kelly Hayes being hit in the head by a chemical agent fired directly at him by a rooftop ICE sniper. The pastor describes what happened here.)

Another photo of this frightening time in Chicago shows the steely resolve and patriotism of the people who live here. It was taken by the Chicago Tribune’s Stacey Wescott as former U.S. Marine Curtis Evans carried an American flag through a cloud of tear gas at that same Broadview facility. Both photos ricocheted across the internet, racking up views and shares.

In addition to the incredible photojournalism, local news outlets and individual reporters here in Chicago have been doing meaningful, timely work documenting the ICE activities and impacts. Some examples include:

• South Side Weekly’s follow-up on the infamous overnight apartment raid.

• WBEZ’s Chip Mitchell’s report on ICE admitting it’s doing racial profiling here.

• Essential on the ground video updates from Independent journalists Steve Held and Raven Geary.

• The Triibe on tracking ICE movements through the city.

• Multiple news outlets with aggressive fact checks on what really happened when ICE killed Silverio Villegas González in September.

• The Chicago Sun-Times fact checking government claims after ICE shot a Chicago woman.

• CBS 2’s Dave Savini on how ICE is accused of making false 911 calls.

Chris Bury, former ABC News correspondent and now a journalism educator at Chicago’s DePaul University, told me the press here has:

“done an excellent job of covering the unprecedented surge of federal agents conducting the most aggressive and haphazard campaign of immigration enforcement in our lifetimes. Thanks to local reporting from major outlets and smaller, independent news organizations such as Block Club Chicago, Chicagoans have learned that federal agents routinely sweep up U.S. citizens, separate children from their parents, snatch hard working Latino men and women off the streets and conduct performative exercises designed for Department of Homeland Security propaganda videos.”

Many of these reporters have themselves been targeted by ICE. CBS2 Chicago reporter Asal Rezaei has crowd control munitions shot directly at the vehicle she was driving. Others have been tear gassed. At least one local journalist was detained, then released, by ICE. A group of Chicago journalists have now sued ICE and Trump over the ill treatment of the press over the past few weeks. “Four of our journalists have been shot with pepper-spray bullets and tear-gassed while covering protests outside the Broadview ICE facility,” wrote Block Club Chicago, one of the plaintiffs.

Capitol News Illinois reports that on Thursday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that “bars federal agents from arresting peaceful protesters or journalists covering immigration protests. It also bars them from using harsh crowd control methods such as tear gas and other “less-lethal” weapons and ammunition. in the suit that is working its way through the federal court system.”

Meanwhile, the national media needs to step up its coverage of what’s happening here in Chicago. There has been some solid coverage but not nearly enough. This is ‘lead story, headline news, continuous coverage, send your reporters and lead anchors here to report on what’s happening’ time. MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff is here doing on-going, live reporting. Where’s everyone else?

Chris Bury says:

“I am not so surprised that the national media have, for the most part, missed the Chicago story. Even though the major networks have bureaus in Chicago, it has historically been difficult to break through the myopia of New York and Washington D.C. based news managements. The New York Times has not given the Chicago incidents the comprehensive coverage that they deserve. The best national account I have seen came from Jonathan V. Last of Bulwark, who wrote a detailed summary of the ICE and Border Patrol incidents in Chicago.”

The national media did a decent job reporting on ICE and national guard deployments in Washington, D.C. The abuses of federal power are far worse here in Chicago, and Americans deserve to see at least as much attention paid to that as Trump’s misguided DC effort.

In the meantime, here in this most American city, our own news organizations are stepping up to tell the story. Yet another reason to support local news.

Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.” Read the original column here.

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