Noem Calls Illinois Governor Request for Weekend Pause in Chicago Abductions“Shameful”
This week's news on the Battle for Chicago
This week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker asked (nicely) for a halt in abductions during the Halloween and Dia de los Muertos weekend.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem today called the request shameful.1
There’s more news, but if you don’t feel like checking it all out, these two paragraphs by Block Club Chicago News Editor Stephen Montemayor will give you a feel for the mood in the city:
The tear-gassing of an Old Irving Park block by immigration agents has reverberated all week around Chicago. Late yesterday, as I stood in my deli’s dairy aisle, I overheard a pair of what looked like old friends briskly turn to that subject after embracing by the milk case.
It was one of several operations that flouted a federal judge’s order. It also canceled an annual Halloween parade scheduled to start minutes later. That same judge this week noted that federal agents’ tactics were traumatizing children in Chicago in ways that will take great time and effort to undo, if ever.
The latest news in the Battle for Chicago:
Here’s some of what is happening on the front lines:
Illinois lawmakers have moved to create avenues for lawsuits by people who’ve been abducted, and to ban abductions near courthouses
“I’m prepared for this law to be challenged, but I think we still have an obligation to try to do something,” said Illinois Senate President Don Harmon of Oak Park on Thursday. “There is no need for the same people who are charged with protecting our constitutional rights to violate our constitutional rights in the process.”
Per the Chicago Tribune:2
Under the bill discussed in committee, individuals could sue officers for knowingly violating the state or U.S. Constitution during civil immigration enforcement. The bill would also codify a 1,000-foot “safe zone” around courthouses, free from civil arrests, in an attempt to limit potential disruptions to court activities.
Violators who arrest individuals improperly at or near a courthouse would face civil damages for false imprisonment and $10,000 in statutory damages, according to the bill. A judge can also issue an order preventing arrest under the provision, the bill said.
Immigration judge releases Chicago dad of 16-year-old cancer patient
The arrest of 40-year-old Ruben Torres Maldonado drew widespread outrage in the Chicago area because of the hardship it posed to his family. The man’s daughter, Ofelia Torres, had just finished treatments at Lurie Children’s Hospital when her dad was abducted at a Home Depot. Maldonado and his wife also have a four-year-old son.
Immigration Judge Eva Saltzman, in acknowledging Maldonado’s typical immigrant work ethic of working 36 hours per day, and the unlikelihood of his leaving the area, granted him a bond for a later hearing, then said:
“I wish you much luck in the future and I wish your daughter a full recovery.”3
Illinois Governor Pritzker tries to fend off an attempt by the Trump regime to starve 2 million Illinois residents by directing $20 million in state funds to Illinois food banks
Illinois officials have said they expect two million Illinois residents to be in an official food emergency next week with the loss of SNAP benefits. Governor Pritzker signed an executive order on Thursday to pump $20 million into local food banks.4
This doesn’t come close to the $350 million in monthly SNAP benefits that the USDA, taken over by the Russell Vought Project 2025 regime, has illegally refused to release (even though it has been released in prior shutdowns).
The USDA, in a clear violation of the Hatch Act, posted this on their website, but nobody believed a word of it:5
Republicans control all three branches of government.
Reports on the Battle for Chicago
Terry Moran, one of the many journalists who’ve had to leave mainstream media sanewashers, and, like me, a Chicago native, visited Chicago and issued this report:
Here’s a piece of it:
In Rogers Park, I met moms who stand watch outside their children’s schools, orange whistles around their necks. Three short blasts mean ICE is nearby; three long ones mean someone is being taken.
Hundreds of volunteers patrol the blocks, record arrests, call lawyers, and keep families connected. “It’s not about getting in the way,” one woman told me. “It’s about making sure no one disappears.”
At churches, priests gather parishioners and lead prayers for those detained. In one extraordinary scene outside an ICE detention facility, Catholic priests led a eucharistic procession to the gates, and asked permission to offer Holy Communion to those held inside. They were turned away. But the people in detention could hear them; the singing, the prayers, the voices outside saying: you are not forgotten.
Thanks, Terry. Bring me back a slice of your favorite deep dish.
Father abducted while trying to drop his son off at school remains in custody
Imagine being a fourteen-year-old boy driven by your dad to school when a bunch of masked goons in SUVs with tinted windows squeal up behind you, slam into your vehicle, and abduct both of you. That’s what happened to Rosario Carrillo Lopez, the father of the boy, as he was being tailed by ICE lunatics, who had begun stalking them at their home.6
The goons decided it would be cool to make a scene at the boy’s school, so they did. The boy, who is a U.S. citizen, is still in Lake County Juvenile Detention Center. His mother, who was abducted from her home as part of the same operation, is now in El Paso, Texas. Lopez, who owned a fencing company (he’ll probably lose it), is still being held in Hammond (Indiana) City Jail.
The mom and dad leave behind Arnoldo Carrillo and his sister Sarai, who are both adult citizens in their early twenties, to find a way to keep their home while their parents and 14-year-old brother are imprisoned without due process.
Nazi Commander Bovino catches a break from an appeals court
In a move that surprised no one, the Trump regime pushed back on a court order requiring a daily report from Gregory Bovino, the Nazi-ish Border Patrol Commander leading the charge in Chicago. Believe it or not, this is his “look.” The photo is real. He posed for it and everything. It is not AI. Holy shit, right?
Some people like turtlenecks, Bovino, named after a cow, likes Nazi uniforms.
An appeals court granted a temporary stay on an order that would have required nightly reports by Bovino, including bodycam footage.7
The judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, had said on Tuesday to Bovino in a long scold of his childish but dangerous antics, “Kids dressed in Halloween costumes walking to a parade do not pose an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer.” Then, in case he pretended not to hear her, she said, “They just don’t. And you can’t use riot-control weapons against them.”
I mentioned the Old Irving Park incident at the top of this post. This is what went down, as reported by Block Club Chicago:8
The judge was referring to developments over the weekend, when federal agents unleashed chemical irritants on Chicago residents for the fourth day in a row, including in Old Irving Park and Avondale, according to witnesses and rapid response teams.
The incident in Old Irving Park happened just before dozens of costumed kids planned to march down the street in a Halloween parade.
You may not be familiar with all of the different neighborhoods in Chicago,” the judge said. “Old Irving Park is a fairly quiet neighborhood [with] a lot of families, a lot of single-family homes. And these kids, you can imagine their sense of safety was shattered on Saturday. And it’s going to take a long time for that to come back, if ever.”
The parade was cancelled because of the danger posed to children by the Trump regime.
Trump regime plans to further militarize ICE by infesting it with more CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) field officers
I refer to all immigration agents as ICE, but much of the militancy of the anti-immigration effort comes from people like Greg Bovino and the Customs and Border Patrol. Media outlets are reporting that Himmler wannabe and likely Nosferatu descendant Stephen Miller is unhappy with the pace of arrests because it’s fallen under 3,000 per day.9
Known to foam at the mouth, Miller has reportedly spilled several gallons of spittle on the floor while screaming that ICE isn’t arresting fast enough, hence the shakeup.
I did a long hit piece on Miller back in September 2024. Maybe if more people had paid attention to this kind of stuff, we wouldn’t be in this pickle:
Meet Stephen Miller — the Last Man Standing
If you work with Donald Trump, you’ll likely get fired. He even starred in a reality TV show about it. If you don’t get fired, you’ll probably quit because the man who brags about sexually assaulting women is insufferable.
As more Chicago area gig workers and day laborers are snatched off the streets, local businesses have started to fight back
Here is a typical day among many Chicago businesses fighting back against the regime, according to the Chicago Tribune:10
In Chicago — which Gleeson described as “one of the most organized places on the planet in terms of worker advocacy” — many businesses have posted signs that warn federal agents they won’t be let in without a warrant.
Some employers have taken things a step further: After feds were spotted on 26th Street in Little Village last week, at least two nearby restaurants stationed workers in their entryways to let diners in one by one, relocking the front door after letting customers in.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Police Department, faced with trying to police battles between the citizens it is paid to protect and the regime trying to terrorize them, has found itself in the crossfire.11
A star is born
The Trump regime may have thought they were showing their big and powerful side by charging protesters who march at the Broadview, Illinois ICE abduction center with conspiracy,12 but instead they made a star out of Kat Abughazaleh, a congressional candidate who has been a leading voice in the efforts against ICE in Broadview and elsewhere in the Chicago area.
She has rightly become an American hero and is now most likely assured of winning a seat in Congress, where hopefully she will torment the regime for two years if it’s still around somehow for that long (Droopy looks like he’s about to drop dead any minute).
I won’t bother presenting the regime’s side of things in this absurd prosecution, since it is certain to be filled with lies. The end result is going to be Kat with a fistful of dollars and an attitude when she gets to Washington, D.C.
Students stage school walkouts in Little Village
Students in Little Village staged walkouts from their schools, then walked for two miles carrying signs, an upside-down American flag, and a large replica of the preamble of the American Constitution.13
And we thought that the kids were ghosting us during the protests. Nope, they’re right here in the thick of it. They’re just handling it their own way.
More chemical weapons attacks in Irving Park and Avondale
The regime launched chemical weapons against protesters in the Irving Park and Avondale neighborhoods. According to the Chicago Tribune:14
Videos from one scene, at North Kildare Avenue in Old Irving Park, showed a group of neighbors marching down the street, filming and blowing whistles as they cussed out federal agents, who were wearing Border Patrol insignia and all masked, some wearing sunglasses. One of the white SUVs they got inside didn’t have license plates displayed.
Stormtroopers attacked them with teargas, generating a whole lot of ill will against the regime.
See the videos here (gift 🎁 link).
ICE goons threaten to arrest a woman filming abduction attempts
No freedom of speech in TrumpWorld. A Skokie woman was threatened with arrest in Evanston, Illinois by two border patrol agents unhappy that she stopped her car to film an abduction.15
It is not illegal to film stormtroopers if you don’t interfere with their nefarious actions, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.16
She was acosted on two separate occasions by ICE goons during the same short round trip from Skokie to Evanston.
Chicago Christian leaders protest ICE insurgency as ‘Antithetical to the Gospel’
More than four dozen Chicago-area ministers gathered in front of the Broadview ICE stormtrooper facility to protest the regime’s attacks in Chicago. One of them, Rev. Jason Lydon of Second Unitarian Church of Chicago, prayed:17
“In the name of all things holy and good, liberation must be attained. We lift up a vision of compassion, mercy and love. Mercy, we cry. Freedom, we seek. Justice, we demand.”
A few weeks ago, a Chicago-area priest was shot in the head with pepper bullets sprayed from a stormtrooper firing from the rooftop of the Broadview facility. He was just standing around, not even saying anything. But they wanted to make a point.
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Footnotes
“No Halloween, Dia de Los Muertos Reprieve from Immigration Blitz in Chicago.” 2025. Blockclubchi.org. 2025. https://newsletter.blockclubchi.org/index.php?action=social&chash=83187550749e6b8024a097630f9d4722.4594&s=9a69ce019286170d90aca00333e66079.
Olander, Olivia. 2025. “Illinois Lawmakers Push to Tackle Constitutional Violations in Immigration Raids, Ban Courthouse Arrests.” Chicago Tribune. October 30, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/30/illinois-lawmakers-push-to-tackle-constitutional-violations-in-immigration-raids-ban-courthouse-arrests
Pratt, Gregory Royal. 2025. “Immigration Judge Releases Chicago Dad Whose 16-Year-Old Daughter Is Fighting Cancer.” Chicago Tribune. October 30, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/30/immigration-judge-releases-chicago-dad-whose-daughter-is-fighting-cancer-i-wish-you-much-luck-in-the-future-and-i-wish-your-daughter-a-full-recovery/
Lourgos, Angie Leventis. 2025. “Illinois SNAP Recipients and Pantries Brace for Halt of Federal Food Stamp Funding amid Shutdown: ‘a Crisis.’” Chicago Tribune. October 30, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/30/snap-benefits-illinois-food-pantries/.
“USDA.” 2025. Usda.gov. October 22, 2025. https://www.usda.gov/.
Colias-Pete, Meredith. 2025. “Dad, Mom and US Citizen Son, 14, Still in Custody after Immigration Raid on Gary Home.” Chicago Tribune. October 29, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/29/dad-mom-and-u-s-citizen-son-14-still-held-in-custody-after-gary-immigration-raid/
Meisner, Jason. 2025. “Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino’s Daily Report in Federal Court Canceled by Appeals Court — for Now.” Chicago Tribune. October 29, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/29/bovino-daily-report-federal-court-canceled/
Bloom, Mina. 2025. “Border Patrol Boss Greg Bovino Must Report to Court Daily about ICE Tactics, Federal Judge Says.” Block Club Chicago. October 28, 2025. https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/28/judge-blasts-border-patrol-boss-greg-bovino-for-violating-excessive-force-order/.
The. 2025. “Trump Administration Plans Shake-up at ICE to Speed Deportations.” Chicago Tribune. October 28, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/28/trump-administration-ice-shake-up/
Soglin, Talia. 2025. “Gig Workers and Street Vendors and Day Laborers Hit by Feds in Chicago Immigration Crackdown.” Chicago Tribune. October 27, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/27/day-laborers-street-vendors-immigration
Kubzansky, Caroline, and Jeremy Gorner. 2025. “‘Chill the Hell Out.’” Chicago Tribune. October 26, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/26/cpd-federal-immigration-enforcement/
Montemayor, Stephen, Madison Savedra, Quinn Myers, and Ariel Parrella-Aureli. 2025. “Feds Charge Kat Abughazaleh, 5 Other Politicos and Protesters with Conspiracy Tied to ICE Demonstration.” Block Club Chicago. October 29, 2025. https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/10/29/broadview-ice-protesters-including-congressional-candidate-slapped-with-federal-conspiracy-charges/.
Perez, Kate. 2025. “Students Walk out of Little Village Schools, Hold March in Protest of Recent ICE Activity.” Chicago Tribune. October 28, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/28/students-protest-ice/
Perez, Kate, Alice Yin, Gregory Royal Pratt, and Stacey Wescott. 2025. “Federal Immigration Agents Deploy Tear Gas on Northwest Side Streets as Chicagoans Bellow, ‘Get out of Our City!’” Chicago Tribune. October 25, 2025.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/25/chicago-tear-gas-irving-park/?share=icccre0hvtarot0thggg
Requena, Richard. 2025. “Immigration Agents Threatened to Arrest Skokie Woman for Filming Them, She Told Village Board.” Chicago Tribune. October 27, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/27/immigration-agents-threatened-to-arrest-skokie-woman-for-filming
“Know Your Rights: Federal Forces Being Sent to Chicago.” 2025. ACLU of Illinois. August 28, 2025. https://www.aclu-il.org/en/know-your-rights-federal-forces-being-sent-chicago.
Lourgos, Angie Leventis. 2025. “Local Clergy, Faith Leaders Decry Trump’s Immigration Crackdown: ‘Antithetical to the Gospel.’” Chicago Tribune. October 25, 2025. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/25/local-clergy-faith-leaders-decry-trumps-immigration-crackdown/
“It is not illegal to film stormtroopers”
I imagine you never thought you’d ever write those words a year ago.
I don’t know how long it will take, but I expect a deep investigation into the ICE agents in the future, who they are, their records, how many were at the Capitol on Jan 6, etc.
I had a dream a couple days ago I was yelling at Kristi Noem and called her an incompetent cunt. You weren’t in this one. 🤣
That pic of Bovino is hideous and hilarious at the same time. I hope the screams of “Lock him up” haunt him at night. If not, maybe a destiny with prison for his full time gig cosplaying for Trump and Miller will be his fate.