So before I dive into an update, I want to be sure EVERYONE sees this.
LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA IS OFFICIALLY PARTY OF OPERATION MIDWAY BLITZ.
Let me repeat that. A county in the state of Indiana is officially part of Operation Midway Blitz, the ICE operation targeting Chicago.
If you thought that, because you’re in MAGA state you’re safe from ICE activity in your community, NOPE. Ice is in Indiana. Pulling your neighbors out of their homes. Hanging out by your South Shore Line stop. Harassing people who look Latino at your Home Depot.
And Hoosiers south of us, I’m talking to you, too. You might think, “meh, NWI is basically Chicago. The rest of Indiana is so MAGA Trump would never dare to do enforcement here.” Think about that for a second. When has Trump EVER failed to sacrifice his own to suit his purposes, even if that purpose is simply a vanity show of strength? You think that, after he’s run out of Latinos to deport up here, he’s just going to pack up, dust off his hands, and say “That’ll show ‘em.” No. Next, he’s headed downstate, to whichever farm is easiest pickings along I-65 and still has some workers left. Then Indy, which is tempting lib target with enough fun tourist attractions to keep the ICE agents amused (they really are having a whale of time in Chicago: if you’re going to fascist the major urban center of the Great Lakes, there’s no better time of year).
Folks, I cannot stress this enough. WE CANNOT BE COMPLACENT ABOUT THIS. ICE IS HERE. IN INDIANA. AND THEY WON’T STOP HERE. You are going to have to decide if you are okay with this happening in your backyard. MUCH sooner rather than later.
But the solution isn’t as simple as me making this podcast, or you sharing this post. FB can’t fix this, nor can simply calling your legislators, because the people we need to reach are REPUBLICANS and the independents who voted for Trump. And we are the only ones who can. We all have friends who we keep because they’re good people and we just kind of pretend we don’t know how they voted. Because not everyone who voted for Trump did so because they just love the idea of separating screaming babies from their frantic parents. They cared about jobs and the price of eggs. But they aren’t going to get the real story anywhere they are looking. It’s not on Fox News. It won’t be in their Facebook feeds, no matter how much you post it. The news is just engineered now in a way that it can’t reach them.
It’s time to go ANALOG, folks. Conversations. Talk to your grandma who voted for Trump because she’s on a fixed income and thought he’d help grocery prices go down, but her in-home aide has an undocumented sister. Talk to that guy you always see at the dog park who, yeah, he’s got a bumpersticker or too but otherwise he’s pretty reasonable. Tell them that Hoosiers are people with values, and cruelty isn’t one of them. Ask them to reach out to their representatives. Then do it again. Again. Again.
So go. Call. Talk. Repeat. Bear witness. Let the undocumented community know we see them and we care.
And now, on to my update on ICE activity in Chicago and the Region with one of my first guests, the immigration activist and attorney Laura DeBolt. It’s not an easy listen, but it’s as close to on the ground as I can get. Tune in and learn:
* YES, it is 100% perfectly legal to video record ICE arrests, yours and/or someone else’s. (tips on how to best record ICE encounters start at minute mark 33:25 and another batch at 41:00)
* NO, you don’t have to stop recording if they tell you.
* But, YES, if they tell you to back up, do it. You could get hurt if you don’t.
* The most shocking details coming out of Chicago (yes, ICE really did rappel down from helicopters into an apartment building filled mainly with black South Siders, trashed everyone’s homes, and YES, they did zip tie and detain naked black children for hours. Seems like it should be difficult to mistake a black South Side 4th grader for a tattoed adult male Venezuelan gang member, but apparently it is to ICE agents)
* Where ICE has been in NWI, and where they are most likely to go next.
* How you can best help.
Please listen folks. Please share. Please speak out. This is not who we are. And if it is, we all have to change that. Right now.
If not you, who? And if not now…
Here are some important resources:
* Know Your Rights: What To Do If You Are Arrested or Detained by Immigration
* Additional Resources from the National Immigration Law Center
And here is the earlier episode I posted on ICE. It’s been four months since, folks. Four months.
