‘Whistlemania’ as la migra raids the Windy City

the small-town feel of Boyle Heights and the fierce pride of South L.A., then mixin murals and nationally known Mexican restaurants: Carnitas Uruapan, Taqueria El Milagro.

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RESIDENTS watch federal agents driving in a caravan through the Chicago neighborhood of Brighton Park.

(SCOTT OLSON Getty Images)

It’sa charming barrio, andit’s been under siege, like many other neighborhoods in the Windy City.

Immigration agents have staged operations in the parking lots of local schools before grabbing undocumented immigrants and citizens alike. When Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino swung by in late October, he tossed a tear gas canister toward a group of protesters filming him, a move so reprehensible that a federal judge issued an injunction banning such force the morning Iwas in Little Village.

Now, the rumor was that Bovino was cruising around with a caravan.

He’s the man the Trump administration tasked with its deportation deluge in Southern California this summer before moving on to Chicago. InL.A., Bovino mostly mugged for the cameras, like the time he oversaw an invasion ofan emptied MacArthur Parkin July with the National Guard parked on Wilshire Boulevard. Bovino said it ‘was necessary to stop transnational gangs, but he nabbed no one.

InChicago, Bovino has dialed the cruelty and spectacle to 1. Residents have responded in kind ina way I haven't seen in Southern California. Sure, Angelenos have organized block patrols and group chats and enlisted the help of politicians and nonprofit leaders just like Chicago.

But we don’t have the whistles.

They've become the fall soundtrack of the Windy City to the point organizers are holding “Whistlemania” events to hand them out by the thousands. Chicago has aradical legacy that predates L.A. by decades — anarchists and immigrants were fighting back against government-sponsored thugs when L.A. wasstilla relative cow town.