'Dying a slow death': Neighborhoods collapse under weight of Trump's ICE onslaught
The Trump administration's immigration raids are starting to crash the economy of immigrant-heavy villages.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the massive crackdown in that city is already taking its toll in key neighborhoods, with restaurants in particular taking a hard hit.
"On a recent Wednesday, only a handful of people were nervously standing at the bus stop on Hamlin Avenue across from Carnitas Uruapan," said the report — the long-popular restaurant finds itself full of empty tables during lunch, as staff screen prospective visitors to keep out immigration agents. "Federal immigration agents, accompanied by Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, had swarmed one of Chicago’s oldest and largest immigrant communities — known as 'Mexico of the Midwest' — and neighboring Cicero, arresting at least seven people, including U.S. citizens, and clashing with residents who filmed them. The security camera at Carnitas Uruapan had caught what appeared to be an ICE agent trying to enter — but the door was locked."
“Lately, we have to keep an eye on the door just to make sure we’re only letting people in who look like they’re a regular diner,” the owner, Marcos Carbajal, told the Tribune. He added that weekday traffic plunged up to 50 percent with all the chaos. “We are dying a slow death.”
Trump's crackdown on Chicago comes as he has also sought to deploy the National Guard to the city, ostensibly to enforce law and order, as city and state officials push back hard and decry what they see as a federal takeover.
Meanwhile, protests have mounted everywhere immigration agents are carrying out operations, and some peaceful protesters have faced sudden and stunning violence from federal officers, with a pastor praying outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility being shot in the head with a pepper ball. Federal judges have accused Border Patrol officials of defying court orders to avoid use of riot control munitions on protesters.