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In Chicago, ICE actions are triggering a new wave of political activism

VPM | By Eric Westervelt and Jessica Pupovac

Published September 21, 2025 at 12:14 PM EDT

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

Chicago has a long, proud history of activism and is considered by many the birthplace of community organizing. So it’s no surprise that there’s fierce opposition in the city to increased immigration enforcement. On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement – or ICE – said it made 400 arrests since it launched Operation Midway Blitz two weeks ago. Resistance in the city is attracting many who are becoming politically active for the first time, as Jessica Pupovac reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) No more suspicion (ph)…

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) No more suspicion (ph)…

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: …(Chanting) From fascist politicians.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: …(Chanting) From fascist politicians.

JESSICA PUPOVAC: Outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, armed federal agents in tactical gear and gas masks recently stared down about 50 demonstrators. Jose Richter (ph) stood toward the front, wearing a pro-Second Amendment hat. He was in his work clothes, a black security guard uniform with an American flag on the sleeve.

JOSE RICHTER: I do security at Navy Pier.

PUPOVAC: Have you been to many protests?

RICHTER: No. This is my first one.

PUPOVAC: Richter is a U.S. Army veteran, born in Mexico and adopted by a U.S. family as a child. He has legal status but said he’s standing up for those who don’t.

RICHTER: I never seen this, how they discriminate if you’re Latino and looking at you like a criminal. That’s not right. My old friends, they got deported already. They went to court. Not even 10 minutes, they were out of the courthouse, sent back to Mexico. And it shouldn’t be like that. We’re not in Russia. They need to stop it.

PUPOVAC: The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration has sparked a wave of new organizing here and inspired many first-time activists like Richter and Kevin Naglich. Naglich used to work in cybersecurity. Now he’s devoting most of his time to resisting Trump’s second-term agenda, including his call for mass deportations.

KEVIN NAGLICH: Right out of the gate, this time was, you know, attacking all these pillars of democracy. I was just like, OK, well, I can either sit around, feel bad and do nothing or try to make a difference, and I chose the latter.

PUPOVAC: So he got to work. In February, Naglich started a northwest Chicago chapter of the progressive pro-Democracy group Indivisible. He says it’s already attracted more than 3,000 members, most of them brand new to activism. And he’s not alone. Other groups are forming networks to support their immigrant neighbors, canvassing door to door, helping them get their IDs and guardianship paperwork in order and walking children of immigrant parents to school if they’re afraid to leave their homes. Others are protesting almost daily – outside a suburban hotel where ICE agents are believed to be staying, at the naval base north of Chicago where they train and at this ICE processing facility just west of the city.

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RACHEL COHEN: And I am so proud to be a Chicagoan. I am so proud…

PUPOVAC: Attorney Rachel Cohen is another new activist.

COHEN: And I am so proud to be in a community that shows up and says absolutely not.

PUPOVAC: Earlier this year, Cohen was a corporate finance attorney at one of the country’s largest firms. But then her former firm pledged $100 million in pro bono legal services to causes backed by Trump after the White House threatened sanctions. She said that capitulation kept her up at night, and eventually it changed her life. She publicly quit her job in March and has since devoted herself to resisting the president’s agenda, plugging into local efforts and sharing what she learns with her growing TikTok following.

COHEN: When you get off your couch and you stop scrolling and you plug into the community, you realize that things are very bad. But there are so many people who also see that for what it is, and you’re motivated to keep going and keep showing up.

PUPOVAC: ICE agents have continued making arrests in Chicago and the suburbs this week, though it is unclear exactly how many. A DHS spokesperson told NPR the number is in the hundreds across Illinois. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin this week blasted what she called the demonization of ICE agents by the media and, quote, “leftist groups and sanctuary politicians.” She says it puts ICE agents at risk and undermines public safety and national security. But Cohen and other activists here say they have no intention of stopping.

For NPR News, I’m Jessica Pupovac in Chicago.

(SOUNDBITE OF SHOOK’S “WIND ON THE WATER”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Eric Westervelt

Eric Westervelt is a San Francisco-based correspondent for NPR's National Desk. He has reported on major events for the network from wars and revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa to historic wildfires and terrorist attacks in the U.S.

For a decade as a foreign correspondent, Westervelt served as NPR reporter and bureau chief in Baghdad, Jerusalem, and Berlin. He's covered the Pentagon, the war in Afghanistan, and the U.S. invasion and troubled occupation of Iraq, including the insurgency, sectarian violence, and the resulting social and political tumult.

He has reported on the ground from North Africa during revolutions there, including from Tahrir Square during fall of Egypt's Mubarak, the front lines during the civil war and NATO intervention in Libya, and the popular uprising in Tunisia. He's also reported from Yemen, the Arabian Gulf states, and the Horn of Africa, including Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the Somalia border region.

Westervelt was among the first western reporters to reach Baghdad during the 2003 U.S-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein embedded with the lead elements of the army's Third Infantry Division. He was also among the first western reporters to enter the Gaza Strip via Egypt during the 2008-2009 Israeli ground offensive in the coastal Palestinian enclave known as the Gaza War.

Westervelt has reported extensively across the U.S. on big stories and breaking news, from mass shootings to natural disasters and police use of force. He helped launch NPR's innovative, award-winning education platform NPR Ed, and serves as a guest host for NPR news shows.

Westervelt is currently helping to launch a collaborative team that covers America's criminal justice system, including issues and reform efforts surrounding prisons, policing, juvenile justice, and the courts.

He's been honored with broadcast journalism's highest honors, including the 2002 George Foster Peabody Award for coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the aftermath; the 2003 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for coverage of Sept. 11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan; and 2004 and 2007 DuPont-Columbia Awards for NPR's in-depth coverage of the war in Iraq and its effect on Iraqi society. Westervelt's 2009 multimedia series with the late NPR photojournalist David Gilkey won an Overseas Press Club Award. He also recently shared in an Edward R. Murrow RTNDA Award with NPR Ed for innovative education coverage.

In 2013, Westervelt returned to the U.S. from overseas as a visiting journalism fellow at Stanford University with the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship

As Jerusalem bureau chief, Westervelt covered the failed diplomatic efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and the social, political, and cultural news across Israel and the occupied West Bank. He reported from the front lines of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah known as the Second Lebanon War. He was on the ground for multiple Israeli-Hamas battles in the Gaza Strip and the Fatah-Hamas civil war and battle of Gaza City that led to the current political split within the Palestinian Authority.

While based in Berlin, Westervelt covered a broad range of news across the region, including the Euro debt crisis, the rise of far right nationalists, national elections, and more.

Prior to his Middle East assignments, Westervelt covered military affairs and the Pentagon out of Washington, DC, reporting on the major defense, national security, and foreign policy issues of the day. He began his work at NPR on the network's national desk where his coverage spanned the mass shooting at Columbine High School, the presidential vote recount following the 2000 election, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks reporting from the Ground Zero recovery in New York City, among many other stories.

On the lighter side, Westervelt also produces occasional features for NPR's Arts Desk, including for the series American Anthem, as well as Rock Hall Award profiles of blues great Freddie King and an exploration of roots rock pioneer Roy Orbison for NPR's 50 Great Voices series. His feature on the making of John Coltrane's jazz classic "A Love Supreme" was part of NPR's project on the most influential American musical works of the 20th century, which was recognized with a Peabody Award.

Before joining NPR, Westervelt worked as a reporter in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, reported for the broadcast edition of the Christian Science Monitor, Monitor Radio, and worked as a news director and reporter in New Hampshire for NHPR.

Westervelt grew up in upstate New York. He's a graduate of the Putney School and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College. He was a recipient in 2013 of a J.S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.

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