Welcome to Chicago 312: 3 Headlines. 1 Big Question. 2 Red Flags. Every Wednesday. Subscribe here.

Wow. Luckily nothing happened in the week Chicago 312 didn't publish, just kidding.

Full transparency: I’ve been moving through serious brain fog these past two weeks while trying to get back into what’s been happening in Chicago (why this is late).

At any rate, lot happened. Here’s what we got:

3 Headlines:

1. ICE Wants Chicago to Be Afraid. It Isn’t Working.

I’m not sure I can even attempt to cover everything that has happened in Chicago with ICE in full form and back and forth wrangling of the National Guard. Even just this morning in Cicero, armed federal agents arrests unfolded along 26th Street — as is becoming disturbingly consistent, they used extreme force as neighbors responded with horns, whistles, and cowbells.

And now, they’re attempting to criminalize resistance itself. In Chicago’s expanding ICE blitz, agents have begun charging — or just threatening to charge — residents, protesters, even elected officials for documenting or alerting neighbors to raids, a strategy designed less to win in court than to make people afraid. In that vein, they also arrested a a Chicago father whose 16-year-old daughter has Stage 4 cancer. What is the point of this, besides fear and horror?

It doesn’t matter, because it’s not working — and their own crackdown shows how much pushback they are facing, how much backlash and public vitriol, as community networks scale, and rapid response networks in Chicago now extend into dozens of neighborhoods.When a rapid-response team helps someone evade detention; when a legal clinic saves a case; when community pressure forces transparency—these are victories, but they take so much capacity, usually from volunteers, and there is incredible risk, especially when it happens in South and West neighborhoods without the same amount of scrutiny or resources. As Chris said here: if you were out for #NoKings in Chicago, it’s time to join a response team.

Even intentional pushback from electeds, btw, is mixed in implementation — Pritzker today announced an independent board to review the conduct of federal law enforcement agents conducting operations in Chicago (though the Illinois State Police continue to operate at Broadview, mentioned in this Human Rights Watch report). Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias launched a hotline urging the public to report any incidents of ICE or Customs and Border Protection tampering with their plates. And, according to the Sun Times this week, the city is facing issues in real enforcement of their executive order that bars ICE from using public or private property. Apparently it doesn’t count unless the city first installs a $100 sign, a perfect snapshot of procurement and municipal struggle that I am inclined to believe there’s some sort of legal reason why the sign has to cost $100. I’m sure one of you will explain it to me in replies.

At any rate, any sort of pushback still matters from public officials, and more data collection = more opportunities to fight back in court against every egregious violation from the federal government. But there is always more than can be done — especially with so many local companies apparently profiting off of this occupation…

Why It Matters: Chicago has the resources — funding, staff, entire agencies that could coordinate response — and yet most of the actual defense work is being done by volunteers with shared spreadsheets and adrenaline. It shouldn’t be like this. But it is. And until the city matches its rhetoric with infrastructure, the only real protection comes from each other.

2. Chicago’s Budget

WTTW: Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $16.6 billion 2026 budget dropped last week. Everyone has a lot to say, including JB Pritzker, for some reason, and everyone on X as always.

The “Protecting Chicago” budget has no property-tax or grocery-tax hikes, and bridges the gap through levies on Big Tech, yachts, and giant employers to pay for schools, parks, and mental-health care.

This includes a $21 per-employee “head tax” on firms with 100+ workers and a 14 percent cloud-computing levy projected to raise $433 million.

As you can imagine, this has drawn fire from the business lobby as “job-killing” (which is why Pritzker is getting involved). But those two measures, along with the TIF sweep, are what keep Johnson’s budget “Trump-proof,” as Ald. William Hall put it.

Whatever else, finding new ways to tax the rich instead of raising fees and fines is a good thing.

Why It Matters: Listen to this WBEZ piece or this Ben Joravsky podcast with Julie Dworkin and Ishan Daya of the Institute for Public Good for more, especially on why progressive revenue matters.

3. $170 Billion for ICE, $0 for Families

Axios Chicago: Checking in on the political theater of the government shutdown - if Congress doesn’t cut a deal by November, 1.9 million Illinois residents — about 14 percent of the state — could lose access to SNAP, the program that keeps families fed when wages or jobs collapse. That’s 45 percent of households with kids and 37 percent with older adults. The average monthly benefit is $370 — barely a week’s groceries for a family, but losing it would be devastating for most people who are using it in a brutal economy.

Why It Matters: SNAP is a last thread in a social fabric shredded by decades of austerity. Every budget cut since the 2010s has been justified as ‘temporary belt-tightening’ — the shutdown feels like Trump and Republicans trying to normalize the fact that there’s no belt left. This is how they paid for militarization and corporate subsidies.

1 Big Question: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Chicagoans have built an entire ecosystem of defense and care on almost no institutional support: neighbors documenting raids, volunteers keeping families fed, organizers holding the line. If you’re feeling worn out, you’re not alone.

If you’re not plugged in yet, pick something small and real — join a response team, donate to a legal fund, check on your neighbors — feel free to DM or email if it feels overwhelming.

Everything in this moment is designed to make you feel like you’re already too late — but that’s how this status quo gets normal, and how it wins.

And if you’re already deep in it, chill out. I hope you can feel like you can still take a breath. Take a weekend. Hand off your shift. Eat a meal that isn’t in a car. The people who burn out fastest are the ones trying to save everyone at once. What everyone keeps telling me this week is what I will say to you: this is still just the beginning. We need to be planning for the marathon not the sprint.

2 Red Flags Stressing Me Out Today: 

1. ICE is a Domestic Army, With Domestic Army Level Spending

   Real News Network: Federal procurement records show that ICE increased weapons spending by 700% this year—including purchases labeled “guided missile warheads.” The new ICE budget — $170 billion tucked into the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — makes the immigration enforcement apparatus the 13th largest military in the world, bigger than those of Australia, Italy, or Canada. And with all this in place, it’s even more overtly becoming a domestic army. This Real News Network piece has lots more on why this matters and how it’s showing up in Chicago.

2.  Transit Crisis in Cities Across the Country

   Heatmap: We’ve talked about it again and again but without a state funding deal, the CTA, Metra, and Pace face deep service cuts next year — the kind that hollow a city out from the inside. Chicago isn’t alone in this, Heatmap reminds us in this piece exploring the transit funding crisis in Chicago, Philly, and the Bay Area. Every delay means fewer routes, longer waits, and another neighborhood quietly disconnected from work, school, and care. Chicago’s cliff isn’t just local — the end of real functional transit is a viable national endgame for all of these cities…

Resources: 

People said that this list of resources and organizations was helpful, so I’m going to share it again. The more conversations I have, the clearer it is to me that a weekly news roundup isn’t necessarily the best format for Chicago 312 moving forward (IE, there are way more incredible, well trained independent reporters doing that kind of work with strong connections to community listed below). But these are the people working hard to cover everything happening right now:

• Unravelled Press — Independent, on-the-ground investigative journalism in Chicago on policing, state violence, and accountability.

• Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) — Deep in organizing, advocacy, and support for immigrant communities across Illinois. Staying in touch with them is also one of the best ways to get trained + connected to rapid response support for those facing detainment.

• Heather Cherone (WTTW) — Smart, fearless reporter covering Chicago politics with the best budget analysis.

• The TRiiBE — One of the only outlets that will say the quiet part out loud when it comes to how segregation shapes everything that happens in the city.

• Chris Sweat — Chris is the rare indie reporter who is everywhere, has excellent analysis, and is truly kind and supportive to everyone in movement journalism.