If you considered the last season of your go-to dystopian anime show to be gritty, wait until you catch a glimpse of what’s going down in Chicago and Los Angeles. America has entered a new era where enforcement of immigration is no longer about pushing paper and more like an operation in a state of war, with Black Hawk helicopters, flash-bang grenades, and tanks thundering through middle-class suburbs.
It began with President Donald Trump’s executive orders that intensified immigration enforcement, but it surged when federal agents started deploying military-style raids in cities nationwide. Chicago’s South Shore community awoke to the beat of helicopters and the spectacle of almost 300 federal agents rappelling onto rooftops, arresting suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Newsweek quotes that “Midway Blitz was designed to take away the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens—killers, rapists, gang members, child molesters, and terrorists—from Chicago streets,” but to ordinary residents, the raid was less a precise strike and more an incursion.
The militarization extended even further. In Los Angeles, ICE raids incited days of demonstrations, and demonstrators were driven to a fight with federal agents clad in riot gear. Tear gas, flash-bangs, and less-lethal bullets were shot into crowds, and armored cars rolled through the downtown area as the city went on tactical alert. The activation of 2,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines to Los Angeles was a historic scale of escalation, federal soldiers whose intent was to protect federal property and employees. According to U.S. Northern Command, “The military task force is safeguarding federal property and federal personnel in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.”
The federal-state standoff is a political circus. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta have sued protesting Trump’s deployment as unconstitutional, claiming it’s an unconstitutional power grab and violation of the Tenth Amendment. Newsom was not afraid, denouncing the use of Marines inside the United States as “dictatorial” and “un-American.”
Trump doubled up and branded protesters as “insurrectionists” and vowed to make state officials who interfere with federal actions into arrestees. The language is inflammatory, but the court battles are no less intense, with courts now being asked to compel settlements and uphold constitutional protections.
For residents of these neighborhoods, it is personal. Families are being broken up by surprise raids. Children zip-tied and taken from parents, and communities forced to clean up from doors kicked in and things smashed around. The TRiiBE describes that “hundreds of masked agents pounding on doors and yanking families out in the middle of the night.holding naked babies,” is the new normal of Chicago’s South Shore. In Los Angeles, the human cost is equally pressing, with families protesting outside detention centers, holding signs for loved ones who might never come home.
The economics and logistics of deporting hundreds of thousands are also coming under scrutiny. Experts argue that mass raids and deportations would decimate local economies, clog already backlogged immigration courts, and leave millions of families in limbo. According to the Center for Migration Studies, “Gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion in 10 years.” The reality is that foreign-born workers are an essential workforce in food processing and construction industries, and exporting millions of them abroad would result in labor shortages and rising inflation.
In the midst of the chaos, calls for reform are spreading far and wide. Legal activists, community organizers, and even some police officers are promoting alternative avenues to legal status, like the Ellis Island Non-Immigrant Visa proposed, which would permit poor immigrants to work legally and ultimately seek permanent residence. The case is far from over, but this is for sure: the immigration enforced by the military has turned America’s cities into war zones, and the battle of who belongs—and who gets to judge—has no end in sight.