If this goes down as planned, and apparently it will unless we hear further, a lot of misery will be caused in the City of Chicago. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Donald Trump will have his border czar, Tom Homan, conduct a mass raid on illegal migrants in Chicago on Tuesday. Why Chicago? Glad you asked. Chicago’s mayor is Brandon Johnson, a Democrat with whom Trump has had a high-profile feud over the years. Illinois’ governor is J.D. Pritzker, another Democrat where there’s no love lost between him and Trump. So this is perfect tribal warfare.
Stick it to a blue state and make people suffer. MAGA is salivating. The prose you are about to read is commentary I never thought I would live to see in an American newspaper, any newspaper, let alone one as established and storied as the Wall Street Journal. This is a new era, friends, and it is not a glad one.
I just don’t think we’ll truly know how intense it is until we’re seeing things happen.
— Timothy Bellman (@Timothy_Bellman) January 18, 2025
The Trump team intends to target immigrants in the country illegally with criminal backgrounds—many of whose offenses, like driving violations, made them too minor for the Biden administration to pursue. But, the people cautioned, if anyone else in the country illegally is present during an arrest, they will be taken, too.
The transition team had been contemplating cities to target in a day-one operation as a way of making an example of so-called sanctuary cities, which adopt policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities. They settled on Chicago both because of the large number of immigrants who could be possible targets and because of the Trump team’s high-profile feud with the city’s Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Though it isn’t clear how many people the operation will actually target, Trump’s team is planning to work with several right-leaning media outlets to amplify its efforts.
Tom Homan, the administration’s incoming border czar, appeared to preview the operation during a visit to Chicago last month.
“We’re going to start right here in Chicago, Illinois,” Homan said at a holiday party on Chicago’s North Side. “And if the Chicago mayor doesn’t want to help, he can step aside. But if he impedes us, if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien, I will prosecute him.”
In response to Homan’s comments at the time, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said “I’m going to make sure to follow the law. I’m concerned that the Trump administration and his lackeys aren’t going to follow the law.”
Do you believe you read any of that? Again, I remind you, this is some day when the Wall Street Journal version of an upcoming event plays like dystopian fiction. Ten years ago prose like this was limited to conspiracy theory sites, now it’s our mainstream reality and this is just basic reporting.
And Pritzker is absolutely correct. Trump and his lackeys very likely will not follow the law. That’s one gigantic issue. The other gigantic issue is how completely out of the 1930’s this entire subject matter is. The only difference is that we’re not hearing this in the beer halls of Munich, we’re seeing it broadcast on flatscreen wall TVs which are the twin of the telescreen in 1984.
Large immigrant centers, such as New York, Los Angeles, Denver and Miami, are also in the incoming administration’s sights, and more targeted raids could come. To help carry them out, the Trump team is weighing a broad mix of changes to give sheriffs more power, with rewards for jurisdictions that cooperate, and financial penalties against those that hold out, people involved in the planning said previously. Homan, for example, has publicly threatened to throw the mayor of Denver—who has loudly protested Trump’s immigration plans—in jail.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that local officials in 2020 banned cooperation with federal immigration authorities, who are prohibited from using county property, databases and personnel without a federal warrant. “We are here to protect the communities we serve, not to enforce immigration laws,” the department said.
So you see where the conflict between Trump and the Golden State has yet another theater of combat opening up. The head of the Coalition For Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles was quoted, “If the intent is to instill a sense of terror and persecution, that’s what the Trump administration is doing very well.” Oh yeah. That’s putting it mildly.
Does anybody in Trump world want to remember the plain reality of how the U.S. economy has become increasingly dependent on immigrant labor, particularly in the food, construction and service industries? And we could have crops rotting in the field? Not to mention foreign imports being tariffed to death? So between the two, how are we going to function?
But that’s not Trump’s concern right now. He’s concerned with spectacle. That is the one and only guarantee I’ve been willing to make about what will happen with Cantaloupe Caligulia in office, is that there will be spectacle and Trump’s getting going out of the gate. But bear this in mind: Trump actually deporting 15 million people and him making a show of deportation for the cameras are two very different things. That’s the point of all this.
And then expect Big Brother/Mad King Donald to crow about it all on your telescreen. MAGA will be thrilled, like they were about the idea of the wall. This is going the way of the wall: an initial flurry and then MAGA gets burned once again.
Which is not to underplay the misery of what is about to take place. This is going to be ugly like the kids in cages was ugly. Since I’ve already depressed you, let me throw out this observation: Hitler took power in Germany in January and Dachau was up and running in March.
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who’s going to rebuild Palisades and alameda?
I certainly hope Chicago’s mayor defies this illegal action and maybe the Governor should order HIS National Guard to stop Homan’s little thugs.
Maybe it’s time that the Blue States remind Trump that HIS party is the one that’s all about “smaller government” and that this little raid smacks of “big government intrusion.”
You’re correct about Dachau…what most don’t know is he first rounded up his political opponents, then he got around to the rest of us…er…I mean the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, intellectuals, and GRUMBLERS. Springtime for Hitler in America…or at least a cheap imitation.
WOW. This is depressing. Wonderfully written post!