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

What To Know This Week — ICE is storming apartments with helicopters, Border Patrol is snatching families in Millennium Park, and Trump is threatening to send in the National Guard, again.

BUT DON’T WORRY — your alder is ON IT, probably holding a press conference about a CTU tweet.

3 Headlines:

1. ICE: No One in Chicago Wants You Here

Since I last wrote this:

Reporters and protesters at Broadview, where ICE is detaining those that have been arrested, have been charged with federal crimes; and a journalist at Unravelled Press was detained. A CBS reporter also had chemical weapons shot at her unprovoked.

Greg Bovino, the chief U.S. Border Patrol agent, told the Sun-Times/WBEZ that people were being targeted based on how they look.

Donald Trump declared a very 1984 sounding war on the ‘enemy within,’ proposing the military use Chicago and other Democratic cities for military training, ‘very soon’.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers in Millennium Park detained a family while their children were playing in the Crown Fountain — they’re now being held at O’Hare.

On the Southwest Side, rapid-response organizers were tailed, kettled in cars, had a gun aimed at them, and were hauled to Broadview for filming agents.

Congresswoman Delia Ramirez sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about thes hooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez by ICE in Franklin Park.

Border Patrol stormed a South Shore apartment building with long guns and a Blackhawk helicopter, detaining families, children, half dressed people, into trucks in the middle of the night.

And now Trump plans to send at least 100 National Guard forces to Chicago “protect” ICE.

But Chicago is fighting back:

In DuPage and the western burbs, Cristóbal Cavazos and the People’s Patrol have trained 180 volunteers to spot, document, and challenge ICE activity.

Mass protests and general righteous heckling of ICE agents has followed them, particularly as they take over downtown and wealthy neighborhoods like Gold Coast for optics.

Broadview has launched three criminal probes into ICE agents’ tear gas, illegal fencing, and hit-and-runs at the detention facility.

And this happened:

Why It Matters: Every raid has been met with neighbors filming, marching, raising hell. People in Chicago, regardless of politicians, are building patrols, filing lawsuits, digging in. They want us to give up, to be too overwhelmed to fight —but, if you will be ok with the cliche — there really are more of us than there are of them. And none of them, apparently, can run faster than a bicycle.

If you need more info on taking action, what to do, how to follow, check out the bottom of this article) from Francia Garcia Hernandez.

2. Who Gets to Stay on the South Side?

The Tribe: Remember last week? I don’t, really. But it did happen! And though it feels like 18 years ago at this point, there was a key moment at Wednesday’s late night City Council meeting: a major victory on housing from the movement for a CBA, or community benefits agreement, for the Obama Presidential Library.

The Jackson Park Housing Pilot Ordinance reserves city-owned land for affordable housing, creates property tax debt relief grants, expands tenant notice before eviction, and sets up a tenant purchase program. It’s the first real policy victory against displacement tied to the Obama Presidential Center — a fight Black South Siders have been waging since developers and city officials first started eyeing the land.

The pilot covers a limited slice of South Shore, and residents are still demanding an Office of Tenant Advocate and a rental registry to make sure the protections stick.

Here’s the ordinance text, for the nerds.

Why It Matters: But just as this fight sees a breakthrough, another threat looms: City Council already greenlit zoning for the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, a Silicon Valley-backed megaproject. Organizers are already warning: without hard-won guardrails like the CBA, “quantum” will be a new wave of high-tech gentrification.

3. O’Neil Burke Is Making Chicago Crime Worse

Injustice Watch: State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has gutted Cook County’s Conviction Integrity Unit. Ten months in, it hasn’t exonerated a single person — even though Cook County leads the nation in wrongful convictions.

Every year the CIU fails, people remain in prison for crimes they didn’t commit — and the detectives who commit the crimes keep getting rehired and promoted.

Why It Matters: Kim Foxx’s office cleared more people than any CIU in the country. But most were minor drug cases. Burke, who campaigned on “tough on crime” with FOP support, has now shrunk the unit, barred defense voices, and locked the review process behind even tighter rules. A CIU that exists only to protect the office from lawsuits isn’t tough on crime.

1 Big Question: Is the Right Wing Media Flywheel Falling Off?

ABC 7: The Chicago Teachers Union posted a memorial for Assata Shakur last week. Within 24 hours, a handful of alders — Ray Lopez, Debra Silverstein, Gil Villegas, the plus the usual suspects online, like Illinois Policy— turned it into a headline issue. They even got it together enough to hold a press conference, demanding Brandon Johnson denounce CTU.

While federal agents were literally detaining their constituents, these few City Council members were so desperate to get their names in the news without doing anything, they fed the national culture-war outrage cycle.

Obviously I love to talk about the ways that the local news right wing online world circulates lies and rage bait about what’s happening in our city — but I think this particular moment was interesting, because the cracks in the propaganda machine are starting to show.

It’s one thing to talk constantly about how much unions suck when nothing else is going on.

But when you’re holding a press conference over nothing at the same time your constituents are being terrorized by an armed unaccountable federal police force — what are you doing?

if you are a moderate, or even just disconnected, political official, everything about that right wing flywheel will make you think this person and the hate they inspire is a reflection of what your constituents believe. But if you buy into that, or what you see on X, you will lose on Election Day.

More on Assata Shakur and why mentioning her at all made both Lopez and DeSantis have a panic attack is here.

2 Red Flags Stressing Me Out Today: 

1. Social Platforms Are Playing God with Abortion Censorship

EFF: Abortion is already under siege in courts and legislatures—now social media companies are piling on. EFF’s investigation shows that posts about FDA-approved pills, safe storage, and where to access care are being flagged as if they were drug sales. Which is wild when you consider that while the worst content you’ve ever seen continues to spread freely.

Why It Matters: Social media companies are erasing factual, legal information about abortion while pretending their policies protect it. Taking down accurate, legal information that people rely on to make urgent decisions about their health isn’t… new, but it’s not a good sign. More and more, social media has less ability to really be a place of any kind of social change.

2. What Is NSPM-7? Don’t Ask House Democrats

Ken Klippenstein: Earlier this week, Trump signed a national security directive (NSPM-7) that labels “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “anti-Americanism” ideas as indicators of terrorism. Not an executive order — a secretive presidential memorandum, the kind usually used for nuclear war or mass surveillance.

More than 3,000 nonprofits signed an open letter blasting it, warning it’s a direct attack on free speech and organizing. But coverage has been almost nonexistent — Newsweek picked it up days later, most outlets still haven’t touched it.

Why It Matters: We’re already seeing ICE militarize Broadview and Franklin Park, assault protesters, and frame it as “crime control.” NSPM-7 is the national playbook for that same repression. We will keep watching it as the shutdown continues…

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