We recently celebrated Easter week, when Christians around the world remember the resurrection of a man who proclaimed, “Whatever you did for the least of my brethren, you did for me.”
The recent beating of a server in a Pilsen restaurant should move our Illinois leadership and people to demand an end to the violence and cruelty visited on our vulnerable neighbors — a cruelty encouraged by the administration of President Donald Trump. The president is inflicting trauma on hardworking men and women trying to make it in a difficult world.
Two patrons who refused to pay a $50 bill at El Taco Azteca restaurant assaulted the server, breaking her finger and bruising her. We are deeply concerned for the server. No one deserves such treatment.
But this incident is not surprising in the new brutal reality for Chicagoans who are not part of Trump’s favored ethnic and religious groups. Members of our community live in fear and experience trauma because the White House’s immigration orders have made anything permissible.
Imagine what migrant parents — whose children in fact may be American citizens — endure each day. Mom and dad are afraid to take their children to school for fear that, if immigration agents arrest them, nobody will be present after school to pick up the kids. Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez’s office has received numerous reports from local schools and child care centers about children who simply have stopped attending.
Parents are also skipping work for fear of arrest, leading to the impoverishment of many Chicago families.
And recent actions by the Trump administration have heightened the fear in the community and created a constitutional crisis. Trump has invoked a 1798 law, intended to be used if the United States was invaded by a foreign enemy, to deport planeloads of Venezuelans to a Salvadoran “gulag” prison. Trump defends the use of this act even when — as in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego García — the administration deports someone in error.
The same undermining of due process rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all U.S. inhabitants has occurred with the illegal detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Though not charged with a crime, Khalil may be deported because Secretary of State Marco Rubio thinks that his pro-Palestinian activism undermines the U.S. foreign policy goal of combating antisemitism around the world.
If leaders such as Trump and Rubio can do whatever they please to America’s people, we now live in a state of lawlessness.
The fear and anxiety caused by this lawlessness and its resultant uncertainly will, no doubt, cause serious physical and mental health problems in our immigrant communities. Adding insult to injury, Trump and his allies in Congress plan to cut funding for Medicare and Medicaid. These cuts include terminating health coverage for undocumented seniors.
Our neighbors and friends across Chicago tell us we need more than lip service opposition to Trump.
We need to come together immediately — as a city and state — to address this crisis. We call on all our state and local officials to uphold the dignity, security and health of our residents. This means dedicating resources and energy to the well-being of every person — citizen or not.
Our officials need to have a serious discussion about defending the population from the blatant acts of terror and lawlessness that immigration officers are committing on our people. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are kidnapping legal residents off the streets and tossing them in private prisons even for acts of constitutionally protected free speech.
If someone kidnapped a child, police departments would stake out major streets and highways to apprehend the kidnapper. How is the behavior of these often-masked ICE agents any different from that of a criminal kidnapper? Our officials should deploy local law enforcement into migrant neighborhoods to deter such kidnappings and violations of human and legal rights.
As Trump moves to cut federal funding to Illinois, we need additional resources devoted to the care of physical and mental health needs of thousands of Illinois residents. The pandemic proved that our collective well-being depends on all of us being healthy. The way to fund any gaps created by Trump’s authoritarian attempt to punish Illinois could be implementing a 3% surcharge on annual income of more than $1 million, as a significant majority of Illinois voters supported in a referendum in November.
Trump wants us to be afraid and thinks he can silence the opposition. But our great state has many courageous and dedicated elected officials who have fought back against Trump’s cruelty.
This is a moment for the deepest patriotism, where “we the people” and our representatives must defend our national heritage. We urge Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson to lead a statewide discussion on protecting the safety and well-being of all Illinoisans. Defend the least of our brethren, and our democracy will be resurrected.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez represents Chicago’s 25th Ward. He is chairman of the City Council’s Housing and Real Estate Committee and a former teacher. Caise D. Hassan is a Chicago resident and president of Granada Center for Human Rights.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.