Latinos blowing the whistle on Trumpism

From the ballot box to the streets, they're rolling back support seen in 2024 election

- GUSTAVO ARELLANO COLUMNIST

CANDACE DANE CHAMBERS Chicago Sun-Times U.S. BORDER PATROL agents detain a protester in Illinois, where raids have surpassed the excesses demonstrated in L.A.

When I turned on my phone after landing at O’Hare Airport on Wednesday, texts poured in from friends and colleagues warning that I was about to enter a region under siege.

Many sent a video from that morning of immigration agents running into a day care facility in Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood to pull out a teacher. It was the latest attack against the metropolis by President Trump's deportation leviathan, whose so-called Operation Midway Blitz this fall has made its earlier occupation of Los Angeles look like a play date.

Armed agents have sauntered through downtown and manned a flotilla of boats on the Chicago River. They shot and killed a fleeing immigrant and raided an apartment building with the help of a Black Hawk helicopter. In nearby Broadview, home to the region’s main Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, rooftop migra shot pepper balls at protesters below, including a pastor. They even teargassed a neighborhood that was about to host a Halloween children's parade, for chrissakes.

From Back of the Yards to Cicero, Brighton Park to Evanston, immigration agents have sown terror throughout Chicagoland with such glee that a federal judge declared that it “shocks the con science" and issued an injunction limiting their use of force which they no doubt will ignore.

I was in town to speak to students at the University of Chicago about the importance of reporting on things one may not like. Heaven knows that's been my 2025.

But as I waited to deplane, I checked my email and found something I've sorely needed this year: Hope.

On Tuesday, Democrats won governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, telling Trump to "Turn.