This publisher’s note was adapted from the Aug. 29 edition of our members-only RESHAPE newsletter. New editions drop every week. Sign up here.
Chicago is preparing for President Donald Trump’s possible deployment of military forces to Chicago. In a show of solidarity, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson stood together Monday, surrounded by clergy, community organizers and public officials, to denounce the Trump administration’s rhetoric of Chicago as a city overrun with crime. They oppose military occupation of Chicago’s streets. Black organizers and elected leaders also stood in solidarity this week, pledging to resist.
We’ve already seen what Trump’s military occupation looks like in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Roughly, 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines were deployed to LA this summer. As of Sunday, Trump had already deployed around 2,000 troops to DC. Both moves are widely criticized as politically motivated and legally questionable. Trump’s administration continues to stretch, break, and bend this nation’s laws to their will, proving that the checks and balances of democracy are only as strong as our collective will to fight tyrannical overreach.
In their passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a Republican-majority Congress failed to rein in the executive branch’s xenophobic and dangerous plans. The bill allocates up to $170 billion for border and immigration enforcement. It will make Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the biggest police force in America while also expanding detention centers and border enforcement across the country.
To my Black Chicagoans, I know that the migrant crisis placed disproportionate strain on our communities. However, we must understand that the $170 billion in federal funding that has been allocated to harm, detain and deport migrants far outweighs the funding to provide them basic shelter and care. Those who profit from the construction of detention centers and private prisons are cashing in while simultaneously sowing discord between Black and brown people.
So, I’m writing today to make the case for multi-racial and multi-ethnic solidarity. By examining how white supremacists policies have weaponized the law to restrict Black and brown people’s ability to be full and free citizens of this nation, I hope you’ll see why it is crucial — especially for anyone committed to human rights — to set aside political games and prejudices and link arms for liberation.
HOW THE “WAR ON TERROR” LED TO THE POLITICAL REPRESSION OF IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES
When we think of ICE and immigration crackdowns today, we primarily think of it within the context of Latin American migrants; however, it was anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment that propelled the formation of ICE and the extreme law enforcement tactics we are witnessing today.
I spoke to Christopher Williams, acting professor of law at University of California-Irvine School of Law and native of Chicago’s South Side, to get clarity on how ICE was formed.
“ICE is like a relatively newer phenomenon that came around in the early 2000s as a part of a whole onslaught of policies by the [President George W.] Bush administration that were aimed to really scramble to respond to 9/11 and, you know, rooted in some really xenophobic animus, particularly towards folks from the Middle East,” Williams said.
I was in middle school on Sept. 11, 2001. I had no knowledge or exposure to Arab people or the Muslim faith. For me and many Americans, the 9/11 tragedy defined what “terrorism” was and what a “terrorist” looked like, as mainstream news and public officials spread anti-Arab narratives. Looking back at the federal government’s response to 9/11, I now see how Bush framed immigration not just as a domestic policy issue, but as a national security threat.
The United States has a long and valued tradition of welcoming immigrants and visitors. But the attacks of September 11, 2001, showed that some come to the United States to commit terrorist acts, to raise funds for illegal terrorist activities, or to provide other support for terrorist operations, here and abroad. It is the policy of the United States to work aggressively to prevent aliens who engage in or support terrorist activity from entering the United States and to detain, prosecute, or deport any such aliens who are within the United States.
— “Homeland Security Presidential Directive-2–Combating Terrorism Through Immigration Policies,” from the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2001, Book II). October 29, 2001.
The Bush Administration established the Office of Homeland Security less than a month after the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2003, two years later, the office grew into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Within the DHS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was split into three new agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and ICE.
Legal scholar Juliet Stumpf coined the term “crimmigration” to describe this growing convergence of immigration and criminal law. In her article, “The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power,” she argues:
“Only the harshest elements of each area of law make their way into the criminalization of immigration law, and the apparatus of the state is used to expel from society those deemed criminally alien. The result is an ever-expanding population of the excluded and alienated.”
Through crimmigration, powerful decisionmakers decide who will be granted the privileges and rights of full citizenship. U.S. presidents have deported, travel banned and caged Black and brown immigrants while simultaneously restricting Black Americans from the rights and privileges of full citizenship, such as the right to vote, through incarceration and gerrymandering schemes.
Under a fascist regime, I’m concerned that crimmigration threatens the pathway of full citizenship for anyone that does not fit a white supremacist definition of what an American is or should be.
THE EXPANSION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE EROSION OF DUE PROCESS IS A THREAT TO BLACK LIVES
The reports of Trump’s military occupation of Washington, D.C., should be troubling to us all. Black residents have recorded first-hand accounts on social media of federal agents, including Secret Service members and the FBI, patrolling Black neighborhoods in large groups. These entities have set up check points and vehicle searches in what looks like stop and frisk operations: handcuffing people for allegedly smoking weed and harassing people sitting on their front porches.
We must understand that the unchecked expansion of ICE has given rise to further abuses of power, including the use of military personnel as a way to police cities led by Black Democrats.
On top of all that, the Trump administration is testing and defying court orders. After first claiming to go after “illegal” immigrants who are “killers, rapists, and drug dealers,” the Trump administration quickly began targeting any undocumented person, even those in the process of legally seeking citizenship.
The Trump administration is not deporting people to their home countries; they are taking away their freedom altogether. When the feds kidnapped Kilmar Ábrego García and hundreds of other migrants, he sent them to an El Salvadorian prison. This escalation of crimmigration is unprecedented.
Recent reports say that the feds, who reportedly imprisoned Abrego Garcia because of an “administrative error” and “oversight,” are now threatening to deport him to Uganda. America’s courts and Abrego Garcia’s presumed innocence has provided no pathway for his freedom yet.
Trump has already said that he’d like to find a way to deport American criminals — yes, American citizens. He’s expanding his options of foreign prisons, recently striking a deal with Rwanda to send deportees there. America’s trafficking of people to foreign prisons should be an obvious warning sign for Black Americans and people aligned with abolitionist and multi-ethnic liberation work. Our collective freedom is on the line.
Instead of turning a blind eye to the federal government’s harm to other minority groups, we should be studying and resisting all tactics the executive branch is using to side-step judicial orders and expand law enforcement activities. Our courts are one of our most vital means of resistance. Taking away people’s ability to prove their innocence is a part of America’s racist tradition of lynching, where Black people have been condemned, hunted and killed with no legal means to object and no recourse. Black people must understand that the erosion of due process is a threat to our existence.
We cannot continue to let systems and ideologies rooted in white supremacy divide us. We have to call out injustice every time it rears its head, not just when it affects our tribe. Our failure to do so has only allowed power to coalesce in the hands of fascists who benefit from our division. Highlighting our shared struggles helps identify a shared enemy and common goal. It’s not too late to join a coalition and build.
