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Trump unleashes raids in Chicago: hunt for migrants in sanctuary cities

The new policy of forced repatriation strikes at America’s democratic heart: the shadow of ICE and mass deportation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have begun in Chicago, marking the start of Donald Trump’s new policy of forced deportations. According to ICE’s own announcement, the operation involves the cooperation of federal agencies such as the FBI and DEA, with the stated goal of ‘protecting public and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our cities’.

Coordinating these raids on the ground, described by many critics as a ‘direct attack on sanctuary cities’, are Tom Honan, nicknamed the ‘border czar’ for his hard line against immigration, and Emil Bove, acting deputy justice minister. The presence of high-level figures underlines the symbolic and political weight of this initiative: Chicago, a Democratic stronghold and known for its pro-migrant stance, was chosen to send a clear message.

The operation did not go unnoticed: migrants’ rights associations attempted, at the last minute, to block the raids through a legal challenge. Activists claim that Trump’s plan represents an attempt to target sanctuary cities, which are seen as an obstacle to his migration vision, and openly violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution.

‘They are turning Chicago into a symbol of their repression,‘ the associations’ lawyers declare, denouncing the use of the city as a laboratory for a migration policy described as ‘cruel and unconstitutional’. Despite the attempt to stop the raids, the president seems determined to continue what he called a ‘mass deportation’, with the ambitious and contested goal of expelling millions of people from US borders.

As the city lives with bated breath, fear grows in migrant communities and the cry of alarm rises from civil rights organisations: ‘Today it’s Chicago, tomorrow it could be any city in America’.

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