CORRECTION: MBJ’s “ICE on Notice” Executive Order

I write 2-3 headlines for each section, from “objective as hell to the point of tedium” to “real clickbait” to help me understand the stakes of each story, usually ending up running with a final headline in the middle.

But in this week’s 312 I went too far — in spite of the title, MBJ’s “ICE on Notice” Executive Order does NOT mandate that CPD arrest members of ICE.

Here’s a graphic from Alder Jesse Fuentes’ office with a better breakdown of what the EO entails. Or, for the real nerds, read the executive order for yourself here.

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Welcome to Chicago 312, a newsletter on Chicago municipal politics, institutional power, and how the city actually works. This is the weekly roundup: 3 Headlines, 1 (Collective) Big Question, 2 Red Flags. If someone forwarded you this - subscribe here.

This week, Brandon Johnson issued an executive order to prosecute ICE for crimes committed in Chicago, the city swept $1 billion in TIF funds, and Marimar Martinez—shot five times by Border Patrol last October—is doing what Renee Good and Alex Pretti can't: speaking out.

Also: most of you have finally left X, though some of you are staying in the posting mines. Check out the very informal poll below.

Here's what else happened this week.

3 Headlines:

1. Mayor Johnson v. O’Burke Fight Over “ICE on Notice” Executive Order

Block Club: Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Saturday directing Chicago police to investigate and document crimes committed by federal immigration agents, creating a framework for CPD to identify, document, and refer federal agents for prosecution when they violate state or local law. Johnson's order says that, under "direction of the Mayor's Office," CPD will refer evidence to Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke's office for prosecution. Her track record suggests she's more interested in expanding police power than holding law enforcement accountable—including the CPD officers she'd need to rely on to document ICE crimes in the first place.

Why It Matters: Chicago's sanctuary law has never had teeth because there's been no enforcement mechanism when CPD violates it. This order attempts to create that path—directing CPD to document federal crimes, then referring for prosecution.

The O’Burke drama reveals the gap between a mayor's executive order and the prosecutor who'd actually have to file charges. You don't build a career defending police power and then suddenly start prosecuting federal agents because the mayor wrote you a memo!

Johnson can direct CPD to investigate all he wants, but O’Burke controls whether anyone gets charged. That tension—between the mayor's political will and the prosecutor's institutional independence—is where sanctuary policy either becomes real or dies.

2. Chicago's $1 Billion TIF Sweep Is a Record (But It Could Be Worse)

Newswire: Chicago just completed the largest TIF sweep on record: $1 billion in excess Tax Increment Financing funds distributed to local budgets. CPS gets $552.4 million. The city gets $232.6 million. Park District, City Colleges, and Cook County split the rest.

Quick TIF refresher (full breakdown from City Bureau's Newswire here): TIFs isolate property tax revenue from a "blighted" area and dedicate it to economic development in that geography. Under state law, excess funds not obligated for projects must be released annually to other government entities. That's the "sweep."

This year's sweep is massive because Johnson changed the rules. Previously, alders could indefinitely hold TIF dollars for projects "in planning." Now they can only reserve money for projects nearly ready for city review, and only for up to a year. That freed up hundreds of millions sitting idle—money that was supposed to fund development but was just parked in alder slush funds.

Why It Matters: Who has the political will to just... fund schools directly? Money that was locked up for phantom luxury developments that never happened but somehow still needed $1.3 billion reserved just in case"—like the $1.3 billion in TIF subsidies approved for Lincoln Yards, the 55-acre project in Lincoln Park that collapsed—is now going to schools. Johnson took property tax revenue that was sitting in wealthy areas and redirected it to departments that need it.

The tension is whether this leads anywhere. He clawed back $1B through a rule change. What about next year? Does he push for sustainable progressive revenue—wealth taxes, corporate taxes, more SMART-style extraction taxes—or does the city keep playing TIF sweep games every budget cycle, celebrating when failed luxury projects finally release cash that should have gone to schools in the first place?

So, until then, even playing shell games with TIF sweeps is better than nothing.

3. Marimar Martinez: "I Am Their Voice"

WBEZ: Marimar Martinez—the Chicago woman shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum last October—spoke to the Sun-Times and WBEZ this week about her shooting, the federal government's failed prosecution, and the role she sees for herself after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.

"Living," Martinez told the Sun-Times, is the opportunity she's been given that Good and Pretti weren't. "I am their voice. I am here for a reason."

Why It Matters: When Good, Pretti, and Silverio Villegas Gonzalez were killed, federal authorities called them domestic terrorists, and they couldn't defend themselves for the awful echo chamber of propaganda that followed. Martinez can. Agents use force, lie about circumstances, label survivors or victims as terrorists, then either prosecute or let the label do the work of discrediting them. Martinez surviving and speaking forces accountability that others can't demand.

1 Big Question: Are You Still on X?

I finally left X earlier this month. For someone who's spent years analyzing how right-wing media weaponizes platforms to manipulate local narratives, staying felt important, but the recent changes, made it impossible to justify, especially while no longer actively doing any kind of right wing social listening work.

It didn’t help that X made me insane—the troll baiting, the constant calculation of whether engaging was worth it.

I was curious how people who think seriously about movement strategy are calculating the tradeoffs of staying versus leaving. So, I asked some of you.

The raw, very anecdotal data shows that, of the 25 people that responded, 67% are totally off X (though only 53% of the people who mentioned running political, brand, or media accounts are totally off X).

Everyone is calculating different tradeoffs, but of the people responding, there was a pretty even split between people running brands, accounts for organizations, agencies, and people with their own use cases.

Here's more of what you said:

Jordan Esparza (HeavyButLite): "I don't post on X but I use it sparingly these days. If you can claw through the clearly manufactured ultra right wing agenda being pushed onto feeds, the jokes are still top tier. Black Twitter is still alive, moving like its own living organism in the cosmos of the web. It's sad to see what the platform has come to overall. It used to be my main platform for sharing my photos and political thought, now if I were to post, it wouldn't reach anyone as I suspect accounts like mine who are not tweeting sensationalist nonsense about how we need to exterminate the 'illegals' are effectively being suppressed. Or, maybe I feel off. Porque no los dos?"

Anonymous: "I left a long time ago. I left because I had somewhere to go—Bluesky. I left not because Elon was running it (he had been for a while when I bounced), but because my UX got to be so bad due to pushing bluechecks (who are primarily rightwingers). The final straw was when Elon said openly that they weren't going to seek out and censor CSAM. I am not running the risk of seeing that in my feed—seeing bigots frothing at the mouth was bad enough."

Tiffany Walden (co-founder and editor-in-chief, The TRiiBE): "The TRiiBE stopped posting on X shortly after the 2024 presidential election. Engagement has always ebbed and flowed on the platform, based on whatever the algorithm was told to do at the time. But during and following the 2023 Chicago municipal election cycle, our team noticed an increase in derogatory and sometimes threatening comments from people (or bots?) under our posts on X. The posts were harmful to the mental health of our team members who manage our social channels. Some of our contributors were even doxxed on X. We also heard from readers that they were no longer seeing our posts on X. The platform no longer felt like a safe place for constructive dialogue with our readers. We also didn't want to support Elon Musk. So we took a gamble and stopped posting on X."

Anonymous: "I'm not posting on X, but I have kept it because when it comes to breaking news—if it's a story I feel like I personally need to be tuned into, on a hyperlocal level especially—there is still no platform that has it beat for speed and not censoring video :( I probably check it once a month. It feels Bad now. It was the funniest place on the internet and i miss what it was."

Mattenloe.bsky.social: "I originally joined Bluesky the same day as AOC back in April of 2023. I had to hustle for an invite code! I used it off and on for a while at the same time as Twitter, but most of my friends were still on Twitter and it was less significantly and less obviously a cesspool back then. And then the 2024 election happened and it became obvious that continued support of the platform was not doing anyone any favors. I've really enjoyed Bluesky and I think it continues to get better with time, generally. The Chicago scene in particular is really vibrant, and seemingly growing."

Anonymous: "X the everything app remains a focus because perhaps more than any other demographic, reporters and pundits have stuck to it through all of Elon's havoc. Staying on Twitter for the rare occasion when a post breaks through to the broader discourse gives us some semblance of influence in the 'conversation.' In lieu of allowing the right-wing trolls and bots enjoy sole control over where the discourse goes, we'll be staying in the posting mines." 🫡

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Next question: How are you thinking about the relationship between online organizing and offline resistance? Send me 2-3 sentences by next Tuesday at 5 PM CST. Anonymous or with your name, I don't care.

2 Red Flags: 

ChatGPT Is Now an Abortion Referral Source

Mashable: AI is restructuring how people access abortion information, and nobody planned for it. Abortion organizations are flooding the internet with accurate information, monitoring chatbot outputs and building SEO strategies, but they're competing against companies with GDP-sized budgets and ideological motives to restrict access.

Why It Matters: The people building these tools are ideologically opposed to abortion access and financially aligned with a presidential administration that wants to ban it nationally. OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft all contributed to Trump's inauguration. Their products now mediate whether someone in Texas learns they can get abortion pills by mail.

Jeffrey Epstein's Other Legacy: He Broke the Internet

Garbage Day: Garbage Day published a piece this week about the release of further Epstein files that showed how Epstein funded experiments in social media manipulation and algorithmic content distribution — digital spaces that became foundational to how we experience the internet now.

Why It Matters: It’s a reminder that the internet's architecture was built by people with specific ideological and financial interests around control, extraction, and avoiding accountability.

Also, someone said to me recently “I like the 312 because it’s a bunch of Chicago headlines and Garbage Day” and… they’re right.

That’s it this week.

Thank you to everyone who responded to the X question. I loved reading your answers. and I learned a ton, so I’m going to keep doing this.

Thanks for reading, thanks for learning with me, and stay safe out there.

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