Feds target unhoused Chicagoans
Since September, at least six unhoused Chicagoans have been abducted by federal agents. That number is likely higher, but the social invisibility and isolation already faced by people experiencing homelessness make their disappearances harder to track.
“While we have heard several reports that we are working to verify, we don’t have an exhaustive list or count of all incidents involving people experiencing homelessness,” wrote Melissa West, staff attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow with the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH), over email Monday. But CCH, alongside other homelessness service providers, is investigating four additional reported abductions of approximately 19 people:
- Over the weekend of September 27–28, 11 unhoused people were detained in Logan Square, according to a tip the organization received. “We are continuing to investigate,” wrote West.
- Two independent eyewitnesses told street outreach workers that at least four unhoused people were arrested by federal agents around Belmont and Kimball early in the week of September 29.
- CCH was also notified of a raid targeting unhoused people who were “congregating in a public space” near Milwaukee and Belmont on Thursday, October 2.
- “We have also heard of the possible detainment of four individuals at an encampment in Cicero,” wrote West.
Two individuals were taken from outside a shelter in Budlong Woods on September 25 but were later released; the four snatched from outside a shelter in Bronzeville on October 1 remain in custody, their status unknown.
“We are encouraging anyone who has information, or believes that they witnessed these raids at the locations mentioned above—or any other similar incidents—to reach out,” West wrote. CCH’s federal response hotline is 312-641-4148; witnesses may also call the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights at 855-435-7693. —Katie Prout
Free speech (when we say so)
For weeks, federal agents have needlessly and violently ramped up attacks on anti-deportation protesters, legal observers, and journalists alike outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Broadview, Illinois. But rather than address the hordes of masked soldiers running roughshod over civil liberties, state and local leaders are instead seeking to further constrain protesters…