Amid a blitz of immigration enforcement activity in the Chicago area earlier in the day, elected officials and community leaders on Tuesday urged all undocumented residents to stay home as much as possible — and those who can to use their protections to support the city and its most vulnerable as federal operations persist.
“This is an engineered crisis,” Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said at a news conference at Daley Plaza Tuesday evening, “a spectacle designed for headlines, not for the safety of our neighborhoods. … (This administration is) targeting hardworking people who have been our neighbors for decades. People who run local businesses, sell flowers at the corner, and have shown up every day to build a better life here.”
Early Tuesday morning — just over a week since the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Midway Blitz began — Gregory Bovino, an official with U.S. Customs and Border Protection who led immigration operations in Los Angeles this summer, posted on social media announcing that his agency had “arrived” in the Chicago area.
“Operation At Large is here to continue the mission we started in Los Angeles — to make the city safer by targeting and arresting criminal illegal aliens,” he wrote on the post. Meanwhile, an Elgin man who was born in the United States was handcuffed, questioned and placed in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle before dawn.
“Whatever name they attach, we know the truth,” Stratton said at Tuesday’s news conference. “It’s a sick reality TV show to them.”
Don’t take the bait, said Berto Aguayo, policy co-chairman of the Latino Leadership Council, which organized the conference. Standing alongside elected officials and community leaders, he encouraged “all U.S. citizens and allies to use our privilege, exercise our rights, protest peacefully, record everything and alert our neighbors of (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) presence.”
He especially encouraged community members, who feel safe to do so, to frequent local businesses as “they withstand the fear and the economic impact that ICE is having in our community.”
Speaking with the Tribune after the conference, Aguayo said businesses are in a holding pattern.
“They are seeing reduced foot traffic all over the place in every largely Latino neighborhood,” he said, adding, “I think businesses are worried, businesses are scared.”
On Monday, federal immigration enforcement agents fanned out across the Chicago region, arresting at least 17 people in the city and suburbs. Agents were spotted by immigrant advocates and others at a Chicago courthouse and in cities from Elgin to Aurora, including several reported ICE sightings in West Chicago.
Amid the chaos in West Chicago, Jel Sert, a large employer in the suburb, canceled the second and third shifts at its manufacturing facility on Monday. Jennie Peters, the company’s vice president of corporate communications, confirmed the closure, saying business had resumed as usual on Tuesday.
“We run a highly regulated business where we follow the highest global health and safety standards,” she said via text message.
Jel Sert, which makes drink and dessert mixes and freezer bars, has around 1,400 employees, most of whom are based in West Chicago, Peters said. ICE did not set foot on company property Monday and to the company’s knowledge did not attempt to, Peters said.
“We will follow the law,” Peters said. “We will not allow anyone here without a warrant.”
Aguayo on Tuesday warned the economic impact of heightened immigration enforcement “will be felt by everyone alike.”
“We want to call on our neighbors … to go to your local businesses, patronize street vendors, give them your business and to encourage other people to do the same,” he said. “Go to Little Village, go to Back of the Yards, go to Belmont Cragin. Help those businesses as they try to withstand the fear and economic impact.”
tkenny@chicagotribune.com