Immigration crackdown inspires uniquely Chicago pushback that's now a model for other cities

GOOD ARTICLE

AP
By SOPHIA TAREEN and CHRISTINE FERNANDO
Updated 11:14 AM EST, November 16, 2025

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As an unprecedented immigration crackdown enters a third month, a growing number of Chicago residents are fighting back against what they deem a racist and aggressive overreach of the federal government. The Democratic stronghold’s response has tapped established activists and everyday residents from wealthy suburbs to working class neighborhoods.

They say their efforts — community patrols, rapid responders, school escorts, vendor buyouts, honking horns and blowing whistles — are a uniquely Chicago response that other cities President Donald Trump has targeted for federal intervention want to model.

“The strategy here is to make us afraid. The response from Chicago is a bunch of obscenities and ‘no,’” said Anna Zolkowski Sobor, whose North Side neighborhood saw agents throw tear gas and tackle an elderly man. “We are all Chicagoans who deserve to be here. Leave us alone.”

The article notes that residents use whistles to broadcast the presence of ICE agents.

https://apnews.com/article/chicago-immigration-protest-arrests-agent-police-whistles-df72b2ba4e57befc085d692d227363b8