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Homeland Security has declined Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's request to reduce Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Chicago on Halloween to allow children to trick-or-treat without fear of encounters with federal agents.
According to Fox News, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said ICE operations in Chicago will continue as planned on Halloween.
“We’re going to be out on the streets in full force and increase our activities to make sure kids are safe,” Noem said. “Every day in Chicago, we’re arresting murderers, child pedophiles, those who have perpetuated assault and pornography against children.”
Noem added that federal agents would ensure Chicagoans can “enjoy” a “safe” Halloween, saying residents “don’t have to be the victim of a crime because of these illegal aliens that are in our country victimizing them.”
Chicago leaders have condemned the federal presence, citing months of violent interactions, especially in Black and Latino neighborhoods.
Earlier this month, an apartment raid on Chicago’s South Side left residents, many of whom were U.S. citizens, zip-tied and detained in the middle of the night. Protesters have also been tear-gassed despite a federal court order barring the use of riot-control weapons. In one recent incident, tear gas was deployed outside an elementary school.
Mayor Brandon Johnson denounced the operations as “racist” and “dehumanizing.”
“Dehumanizing is dangerous, and it is nasty and it is racist. What we cannot allow as a country, but broadly as humanity, we cannot allow people to be dehumanized. Because what it does is it opens up viciousness," Johnson said during a press conference on Tuesday (October 28).
“It is racist when you bombard into people’s homes in the middle of the night and you take Black babies out of their beds and zip tie them. That is sick. When you have Black babies being thrown in the back of vans, zip tied in the middle of the night, and masked men sticking guns in the faces of Black and Brown people — that is nasty, it’s vicious… Dr. King described it as an evil. Militarization in that formation is an evil.”
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