Copyright Chicago Tribune
As the telltale signs of autumn envelop us, familiar sights have cropped up in Midwestern neighborhoods. Much as golden and crimson leaves adorn the trees, we’ve decorated our homes to suit the season. Some of us have opted for a more subdued nod to the harvest, setting out pumpkins and potted mums, while others have gone whole hog on Halloween. We know many young families who turn after-dinner walks into a bona fide neighborhood tour, hunting for the best-decorated houses to ogle. Larger-than-life skeletons — some as big as trucks, torsos erupting from the ground — have become suburban staples alongside massive Bluey inflatables, not to mention life-sized zombies and scarecrows that jump out at you when you walk by. This is what life is meant to be like in the fall around these parts. There’s comfort to be found in the predictable and thus we welcome a moment that deserves protection. Nothing should interfere with trick-or-treat rituals or other neighborhood festivities. So we were glad to hear U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis express a similar sentiment this week. “I do not want to get violation reports from the plaintiffs that show that agents are out and about on Halloween where kids are present and tear gas is being deployed,” she told U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino Tuesday. Had you just woken up from a deep sleep, you’d be amazed that such a judicial pronouncement was even necessary. But as Halloween 2025 arrives, this is where we live now. Ellis’ comment followed an incident on Oct. 25 where federal agents deployed tear gas in Chicago’s Old Irving Park neighborhood as children were preparing to march in a Halloween parade to a nearby school. Self-evidently, this is not normal; nor can we allow it to become so. Thanks to politicians’ collective failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform, children in our neighborhoods have been thrust into the center of a political firestorm that has nothing to do with them. They — all of us — deserve a break. Ellis is not the only one calling for peace this weekend. Gov. JB Pritzker sent a letter Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asking that she suspend enforcement operations from Friday to Sunday in and around homes, schools and other places where Halloween celebrations are taking place. That is a very reasonable request. And yet Noem said Thursday that federal officials won’t be pausing operations over the weekend. Good grief. Regardless, this Halloween, Chicago reclaims its neighborhoods. Tonight, at least, we say Chicago and its suburbs should have a peaceful, normal evening. A twilight where children roam freely, dressed as their favorite characters, gorging candy with their friends. Where neighbors gather around bonfires, drinks in hand, discussing the banality of the everyday. Where people whose children have grown up experiencing the joy of the doorbell ringing over and over again don’t have to worry it has come to a sudden end. Halloween in America celebrates childhood; it’s a night devoted solely to whimsy and fun. Far more than our commercialized (and often overly stressful) Christmas. Kids and community are the whole point of Oct. 31. Politics has no role Friday night. As the season turns, officials at every level should remember that their words and actions ripple into the lives of ordinary families who just want to live in peace. On this one night, let’s remind ourselves what normal feels like — neighbors greeting neighbors, children safe, joyful and riding a sugar high, and no headlines to spoil the afterglow.
