By Heather Schlitz
CHICAGO (Reuters) -The immigration agents’ tear gas grenades clinked and then exploded against the concrete, shrouding the block in plumes of white gas. The dozen or so residents at the scene only screamed louder.
“We don’t want you here,” yelled Rae Lindenberg. The 32-year-old, who works in marketing, ran out of her apartment when she heard the shrill sound of whistles. “Get out of our neighborhood!”
The squad of agents had appeared in Lakeview last month, an upscale neighborhood dotted with dog daycares, medical spas and vegan restaurants, hopping over a gate to chase down a construction worker who was handcuffed and shoved into a vehicle.
When Courtney Conway, a 42-year-old lifelong Chicago resident, heard about the chase through Facebook groups and text message chains, she hopped on her bike to join the protesters.
“We are not a violent city. This is not a war zone, and I think these guys are terrorizing us and trying to incite us,” said Conway. “We want them out. We want them to stop kidnapping our neighbors.”
CREATING A ZONE DEFENSE
Chicago, a city of 2.7 million, has long been known as a patchwork of close-knit neighborhoods. And since the city took center stage of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in September, those neighborhoods have mobilized against enforcement efforts, sometimes block-by-block.
That hyperlocal effort, spun off into dozens of chats on social platforms, has helped create a type of zone defense that – activists say – has slowed down immigration agents and in some cases forced them to withdraw without making an arrest.
When asked for comment, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said: “Our officers are highly trained and in the face of rioting, doxxing and physical attacks they have shown professionalism. They are not afraid of loud noises and whistles.”
Over 3,000 people have been detained in Chicago since early September, according to DHS.
In Facebook groups and on Signal chats, tens of thousands of residents regularly crowdsource information on immigration agents’ last-known locations, neighborhoods being targeted that day and — importantly — the license plates, makes and models of the rental cars used by agents, which can change daily. Some ICE-spotting Facebook pages in Chicago have up to 50,000 members.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents prowling city streets in unmarked cars are often trailed by drivers honking their horns and cyclists blowing their whistles on an almost daily basis.
In some neighborhoods, confrontations between CBP and ICE agents and protesters have grown increasingly heated. Immigration agents have tear-gassed at least five neighborhoods in the past month, according to a Reuters tally, crashed their car into another vehicle at least once, arrested protesters trailing immigration agents, used Tasers on people during violent arrests, pointed guns at people and shot two people, including one fatally.
The Cook County Department of Public Health said it does not track injuries sustained during confrontations with federal agents and five city hospitals called by Reuters said they had not treated any protesters.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis directed agents to use body cameras and issue two warnings to protesters before using tear gas in a case brought by protesters, clergy and journalists.
HELICOPTER WATCH GROUPS
Hours after the confrontation in the Lakeview neighborhood, dozens of parents stood guard outside a school in Bucktown, another North Side neighborhood favored by families and young professionals, after hearing ICE and border patrol officers were in the area. Some parents set up an informal checkpoint next to the school to check cars for immigration enforcement agents.
And in Little Village, one of the city’s biggest Latino enclaves, businesses and residents locked their doors after activists warned them of approaching ICE and border patrol vehicles and at one point, surrounded vehicles to prevent them from making arrests.
“The community defended the neighborhood today,” said Baltazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council.
Some protesters specialize in watching out for Black Hawk helicopters the agents use to surveil neighborhoods, which don’t appear on flight-tracking apps and are often a harbinger of a raid.
On a recent Saturday morning, Brian Kolp, an attorney and former prosecutor, ran out of the house in his pajamas when word spread throughout the Old Irving Park neighborhood that immigration agents in balaclavas had grabbed a worker and a protester and shoved them into their car. Other residents came out in Halloween costumes.
“People were yelling, and it was chaos,” said Kolp. Soon after, he said, agents tossed tear gas grenades into the street and left.
(Reporting by Heather Schlitz in Chicago. Additional reporting by Jim Vondruska and Emily Schmall. Editing by Emily Schmall and Suzanne Goldenberg)
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