Originally from notes written Tuesday, October 21 2025

What I need you to understand is that it was relentless. Sightings miles apart at the same time, reports, misreports, they were at a Home Depot, a mall, the post office, six different intersections. Car makes and models rapid-fire. A Kia, a Ford, a Silverado, an Audi (an Audi??), a dizzying number of license plates. Too much to keep straight, so you look at every car and you wonder.

There's noise, so much noise, but there's also signal and the signal was that they were here that they were everywhere. Smash and grab jobs happening across the city nearly simultaneously. But the things being stolen aren't jewels, they're lives. Off streets, from yards. One roofer plucked off a ladder. A landscaper thrown to the ground, tackled by a half-dozen men in camo with weapons. Sixteen people on this day. Sixteen people disappeared, from just the northern side of the city and suburbs. More across the entire city.

What I need you to understand is that nobody is letting them go quietly. The Feds' every movement is announced by a chorus of whistles, by a parade of cars honking in their wake, neighbors rushing outside to yell to film to witness these kidnappings that are unfolding in front of us. Neighbors running towards trouble.

What I need you to know is we are organized.

What I need you to know is that you need to get organized.

What I need you to know is they are coming.

What I need you to know is you can stop them.

They come not for the "worst of the worst," as they so repeatedly claim, because that would mean they would be coming for themselves. They are coming for people just trying to get by. Landscapers, roofers, tamale women, Lyft drivers waiting in a lot at Ohare, the people standing outside a Home Depot hoping that today might be better than yesterday.

A report rang out that a child was hiding, and people converged. Whistles around necks, a half-dozen in moments. One heard whistles when dropping her own child off at school. Another rode up on a bike. Everyone unsure of what to do except to do what any parent would do: ensure a child is safe.

The child was safe.

This is how it works: We protect each other, period. These are our neighbors, our friends, our family. We do the things we have to do to ensure that as many of us can make it to tomorrow as possible. Not everyone does. I need you to understand that we tried.

For some, living far away from Chicago, this may sound overwrought. I need you to understand that it's not. This is every day here. Every day, in any part of the city. As I write this, the onslaught is happening across Lincoln Park, one of the richest parts of Chicago, while yesterday it was in Little Village a working class Mexican neighborhood on the West Side. You never know when it's going to happen. You only know that it is going to happen. Life is lived on the edge now.

I need you to understand that we'll still be here when it's over.

I need you to understand that, eventually, it will be over.

It will be over because we are here.

I need you to understand they can't take us all.

A couple places to give your time and your money

ICIRR

Pretty much everything involving witnessing ICE and alerting neighborhoods is running through the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) Family Support Network and Hotline.

• If you spot ICE (in and around Chicago) you can call the ICIRR FSN hotline at 855-435-7693. If you're in the greater Chicago area, put that number in your phone.
• You can get alerts from the ICIRR's Eyes on Ice text network by signing up here. (note: this is Chicago-area specific)
• ICIRR also runs Know Your Rights trainings regularly, which are open to anyone.

If this seems like a very long list of things, it is. And I am positive they could use your donation

Whistles/Pilsen Arts & Community House

A huge amount of organizing is going on around the distribution of whistle kits, the amazingly effective on-the-ground street-level alert system for neighborhoods.

• While the actual instructions for what to do with a whistle are very simple (short bursts if you see ICE, long blows if they're actively detaining someone), the Pilsen Arts & Community House has created a little zine that has become the iconic symbol of the rapid response effort.
• There are "Whistlemania" and whistle assembly events happening across the Chicago area pretty much all the time.
• If you are in a city that Trump has been threatening, the best time to start buying whistles was yesterday and the next best time is right now. They're getting harder to come by because so many people are ordering them.
• People are also 3d-printing whistles, if that's your thing.

As with ICIRR, the Pilsen Arts & Community House could very much use your money.