A “shadow” congressional hearing Friday about the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign in Chicago included tearful testimony from a 19-year-old woman left to take care of her special needs sister after her mother was detained.
The woman, one of six witnesses at the hearing, said her mother, who had been in the U.S. for 23 years, is currently being detained in El Paso as a result of U.S. Department of Homeland Security enforcement in Chicago. Genesis, who did not want to disclose her last name, said her mother also left behind a 16-year-old daughter who is developmentally disabled.
“I’m only 19 years old. I’m still a kid who has so much to learn and yet I feel like in the last four weeks, I’ve grown up fast, taking all of my mom’s responsibilities as fast as she was taken away from us,” the woman said. “…She [her sister] doesn’t understand why her mother is gone, or where she is and why she can’t see us. She can’t mentally focus because of all the worries. All she worries about is, ‘When will I see my mom again?'”
Led by U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Democrats have held a series of “shadow hearings” — unofficial public meetings — across the country to highlight the impact of Trump’s policies. Nineteen Democrats attended the Chicago hearing, including most of Illinois’ congressional delegation.
“This is what happens when the administration, with the full blessing of the Supreme Court, is using racial profiling to go after anyone they think could be undocumented,” Prayapal said. “They arrest citizens, green card holders and undocumented people who have lived in our country for decades. People who have lived alongside us, raising American families and contributing to the U.S. economy.”
The hearing happened as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity was reported across several Chicago neighborhoods, including Lincoln Park, Wicker Park and Ukrainian Village. DHS on Friday wrote on social media that agents are “making America safe again — one criminal illegal alien removal at a time.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Chicago, detailed an atmosphere of fear in his district, including that he helped an 8-year-old girl walk from a shelter to her school this week.
“Her second day at the school, and she’s living in a shelter and she has to have somebody white walk her to school,” Quigley said.
Rev. David Black, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, told Democrats that he fears ICE enforcement in the city will get worse.
“I believe this is only the beginning,” Black said. “We are witnessing the Trump administration testing what they can get away with as they prepare for a broader consolidation of power, which cannot be removed with free and fair elections.”
Black was shot in the head by a pepper ball by DHS agents on the rooftop of the ICE processing center in Broadview on Sept. 19. The pastor is part of a federal lawsuit filed by protesters and members of the media which claims federal agents have indiscriminately used excessive force and have “randomly singled out” reporters and protesters with chemical agents during recurring protests outside the ICE processing center in suburban Broadview.
U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis forbade agents from using gas and other “riot control” weapons without warning, but attorneys claim the feds are “simply ignoring” her order.
Black on Friday said agents are indeed ignoring the order — and he accused Illinois State Police of “oafish brutality” at the Broadview facility. After a request from Broadview police, the Cook County Sheriff’s office and Illinois State Police earlier this month established a “temporary Unified Command” outside the facility. They have since arrested dozens of protesters. Those arrested by state police are being charged on state charges.
Prior to state police assisting, protests had devolved into clashes with ICE agents who shot protesters with rubber and pepper projectiles and tear gas. ICE agents are still deploying such tactics — but now they’re focusing on the city’s residential neighborhoods.
“The temporary restraining order issued by Judge Sara Ellis should be improving the conditions of those exercising their First Amendment rights in Chicago, but Bovino and his henchman are showing mocking contempt of the rule of law,” Black said.
U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino on Thursday was the first person to deploy a tear gas canister in a Little Village raid, according to Baltazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council.
Black also urged Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to “rein in and arrest ICE officers who break the law.”
“An agent conceals his identity as a matter of routine, he is breaking the law. When he assaults someone without cause or provocation, he is breaking the law,” Black said. “When they routinely abduct people by force without due process and explicitly on the basis of racial profiling, they must be stopped.”