Surprise ICE check-in texts strike fear in Chicago immigrant communities
Chicago organizers have been working to try to protect undocumented immigrants who have been subject to surprise ICE check-ins that sometimes lead to detentions and deportations.
At 21st Street and Michigan Avenue in the South Loop Monday, a father and his two daughters paced up and down the street outside an ICE check-in site as organizers said they waited for their wife and mother inside. She had received a text similar to others CBS News Chicago has seen that tell recipients to report to a Chicago immigration field office and that a failure to do so will constitute a violation.
The texts are sent to immigrants who have already given their information to federal officials as they work toward some sort of legal documentation. They report knowing agents also have their home addresses.
"What we've seen change in the last few weeks is people are being sent last-minute text messages, asked to come in for an appointment that's out of regular schedule, and then a couple of weeks ago we saw large numbers of people detained at their appointments," said Tovia Siegel, director of organizing for the Resurrection Project.
Siegel said that after multiple people were detained at a South Loop immigration facility earlier in June, her group has been out offering advice and support ahead of check-ins.
"Chicago is organized," she said. "Chicago has been building infrastructure for nearly a decade now to make sure people have access to the legal services they need."
She also said that level of infrastructure and organization is why President Trump singled out Chicago as he promised to ramp up deportations.
"Yeah, I want them to focus on the cities because the cities are where you really have what's called sanctuary cities, and that's where the people are," Trump said Monday. "I look at New York, I look at Chicago, I mean you got a really bad governor in Chicago and a bad mayor, but the governor's probably the worst in the country, Pritzker. But I look at how that city has been overrun by criminals. And, uh, you know, New York and LA."
As of late Monday, nobody had been detained at the South Loop check-in site. Siegel said she did not know the basis of why no one was detained or how ICE made decisions on the subject.
"We don't know," she said. "It's so unpredictable, because people were detained yesterday. It's the same group of people who received these text messages."
Meanwhile Monday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker responded to the concern that President Trump may call in the National Guard in Chicago the way he has done in California.
"I do not believe that he will call out the National Guard," Pritzker said. "I think he's seen that this has not gone well for him politically, and he's all about the politics."
Pritzker was not able to say how big of a show of force we should expect to see from ICE in the coming days. There was a promise to send in tactical units last week, but we have not yet seen what that looks like.
