And from the opposite side of political spectrum. I didn’t save the link to the Time article, but here is the text:
Boston University student who claimed credit for reporting car wash workers to immigration authorities earned the praise of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the ire of his fellow students in recent days.
Zac Segal, who is the president of the university’s College Republicans club, said he had “been calling ICE for months” about workers at the Allston Car Wash, near the university campus, while sharing an article about federal agents detaining nine workers on Nov. 4.
“This week they finally responded to my request to detain these criminals,” he wrote on X on Nov. 7. “As someone who lives in the neighborhood, I’ve seen how American jobs are being given away to those with no right to be here. Pump up the numbers!”
Read more: The Trump Administration Escalates Its Battle With Sanctuary Cities: What to Know
Todd Pomerleau, a lawyer representing the workers at Allston Car Wash, said they had valid work permits but did not have time to retrieve them from the locker room before they were detained. Pomerleau said in a statement that the car wash was raided with “military-style” vehicles by armed and masked agents, according to the New York Times. One of the individuals arrested had been in the United States for 30 years, Pomerleau said.
Segal said he had received death threats in response to his post, and reposted, without comment, posts from other Boston University students that called him a “racist,” “fascist,” and a “Neo-Nazi.”
The BU College Democrats condemned Segal’s actions and said that for “the foreseeable future,” they would not collaborate with the university’s College Republicans club.
Meanwhile, the Republican club’s national group—the College Republicans of America—defended Segal, and recommended that other young Republicans follow his lead.
“We call on all College Republicans to follow in the lead of this great patriot and notify their local ICE forces of any suspected illegal activity in their communities immediately,” Martin Bertao, the national group’s president, said in a statement to the New York Times.
The clash over the raid on Boston University’s campus and beyond highlighted the deep political divide between Democrats and Republicans over President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda.
Segal, who did not respond to TIME’s request for comment, defended his actions in a post on X on Friday.
“I reported suspicious activity to law enforcement because that is what any American should do. My intention was simple: to protect my community and uphold the rule of law,” he said.
“Extremists have circulated my personal details online and sent death threats. No matter who you are or what you believe, threats and intimidation are unacceptable and should be condemned by everyone,” he added.
Many mistakenly believed Segal was British because a biography on the university’s athletics website stated he was born in the United Kingdom. Segal said in his Friday post that he was born in Florida and raised in the U.K.
The official DHS account on X responded to Segal’s post with one word: “Patriot.”
But the DHS told TIME the raid was not launched as a result of Segal’s tip.
“The operation was highly targeted and relied on law enforcement intelligence—not your silly rumor,” DHS spokesperson Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement.
The 615 detainees are from a list of roughly 1,800 arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Chicago area between June 11 and Oct. 7, and there could be more to come, Jon Seidel reports for the Chicago Sun-Times.
It’s not clear how many of the people covered by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings’ order remain in the country. The judge said he doesn’t want anyone released who poses a risk to public safety; he’s giving the Justice Department a chance to identify any such person.
But Cummings said he’s trying to restore the status quo that existed before the Trump administration recently changed its interpretation of immigration law. That policy shift imposed mandatory detention on people across the country who previously would have been given a chance for a bail hearing.
Agents detained many of the people while they were working, including 20 landscapers and four ride-share or taxi drivers. Seven were also arrested at an “immigration-related hearing,” Cummings said, and another 11 in public places like a park, gas station or Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru.
Brothers Sam, 16, left, and Ben Luhmann, 17, patrol the streets of West Chicago and St. Charles for federal agents looking to detain people on Nov. 7, 2025. The two homeschooled high schoolers started patrolling Sept. 15 after federal agents targeted their heavily Latino community. Since then, they have had numerous encounters with federal agents and have been threatened. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
PUBLISHED: November 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM CST | UPDATED: November 14, 2025 at 8:03 AM CST
With a goodbye to their mom, Sam and Ben Luhmann walked out the screen door of their West Chicago home on a recent weekday morning.
A few minutes shy of 7:30 a.m., Ben pulled their midsize sedan out of the garage as Sam stood in the driveway, adjusting the straps around his shoulders and checking his phone.
But the brothers weren’t gunning to beat the first bell at school. They were racing to find ICE.
At 16 and 17 years old, Sam and Ben for the past two months have made it their mission to follow, investigate and capture federal immigration activity across the Chicago area. It’s an undertaking the brothers say happened naturally after growing up in a household where social justice and civic duty were as much a part of their homeschool curriculum as math and science.
“If I get the opportunity to fight like this for the rest of my life, I would be totally OK with that,” Ben said.
Their efforts in the vast resistance movement against the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation in Chicago, represent the wave of youth activists who have been galvanized into action by Midway Operation Blitz, following a long tradition paved around the world by young activists, experts say. From Students of a Democratic Society protesting the Vietnam War to today’s Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg, the sense of injustice draws young people to act.
“We know in these moments … where there is deep distrust toward political institutions — where individuals and particularly young people are feeling quite dissatisfied with both political parties — that young people actually do engage in politics quite passionately,” said Matthew Nelsen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Miami who also works as a research consultant for the University of Chicago’s GenForward Survey.
Earlier this month, students at New Trier High School in Winnetka who regularly volunteer with refugees and migrants in Chicago spoke out that the school is curtailing their volunteer efforts because of the blitz. In October, hundreds of Little Village students staged a walkout in protest of the crackdown. And on Mexican Independence Day in September, students from all across Chicago Public Schools organized a rally in front of Trump Tower to denounce the raids, their cheers of “Viva la Raza” and “Viva Mexico” echoing through skyscrapers down East Wacker Drive.
“(The youth) hold a lot of power to shift the direction of the country and how it’s working,” said Kate Rice, 52, a Rogers Park-based rapid responder, who has witnessed a number of younger people spring into action. “It’s time for them to take control, especially Generation Alpha. They’re young, they’re motivated, they’re angry … and I think this is the perfect time for them to start getting politically active.”
“Just the horror of it, I wanted to be able to fight it so bad,” he told the Tribune on a recent morning patrol. Sam sat in the passenger seat with a body camera strapped to his chest, his eyes glued to his phone for any reports of activity nearby.
His parents, both Wheaton College grads, have raised him and his seven younger siblings to see the humanity in everyone, Ben said. But from more than 2,000 miles away, he wasn’t sure what he could do. Then the blitz came to his hometown.
Sam Luhmann videotapes the vehicle of federal agents outside of the Kane County Judicial Center on Nov. 7, 2025, in St. Charles. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
On Sept. 15, Ben and Sam’s mom, Audrey Luhmann, got a text from a friend calling for someone to check reports of federal activity in West Chicago. Though she’d never received nor heeded that kind of request before, Luhmann’s gut reaction was that this is what she’s supposed to do, she recalled in an interview earlier this month. So she and her eight kids, even her 3-year-old, piled into their white passenger van.
By the time they arrived, activity had long passed. But that day introduced the family to other rapid responders. Within 48 hours, Ben and Sam encountered their first attempted federal immigration arrest in real time.
“I could finally do something,” Ben said.
Since the raids hit home, Ben and Sam, who have been homeschooled their whole lives, have balanced college applications and schoolwork with patrols. They’ve documented immigration enforcement from Carpentersville to Little Village. They’ve gone toe-to-toe with federal agents, asking officers questions and checking to make sure they’re abiding by court orders. And they’ve started to compile a list of plates on federal vehicles that appeared altered.
Every day is different. Last week, the pair spent a weekday morning primarily just monitoring usual hotspots and letting fellow rapid responders know areas were clear. But by the next day, they were going door-to-door speaking with neighbors about landscapers who had been detained in St. Charles and videotaping federal agents detain a man just outside the Kane County Judicial Center.
Nelsen, the University of Miami professor, said he thinks the uptick in youth political activism in Chicago is indicative of how younger residents are feeling about the current administration’s policies. Young people are also often drawn to extra-systemic forms of political action when they’re feeling cynical about their political institutions, Nelsen said.
“If they’re not feeling trusting of the government, they may be moved to take political action in realms that they feel are beyond the state,” he said.
Citlalli Santiago, 23, is a graduate student at the University of Illinois Chicago who became part of her local rapid response group after the presidential election. She said the raids have taken a toll on her own family but that moments like this illuminate the importance of a community banding together, to stepping in where government falls short. And she’s encouraged, she added, that younger voices are among those rising to the occasion because it’s a sign that progress is possible.
“I’m really proud of my peers (and the) people even younger than me because we’ve stepped up,” said Santiago, who recently moved to Pilsen but was born and raised in West Chicago. “I do think that things need to change, and if it’s younger people driving it, then I see more of a hope for the future.”
This week, the Tribune reported that after two months, the surge of federal immigration agents that descended on the city and its suburbs as part of President Donald Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz may soon leave as the controversial mission winds down, per multiple law enforcement sources. That doesn’t mean the enhanced immigration enforcement will end anytime soon, with sources saying the feds planned to leave in place a still-to-be-determined force of immigration agents.
And as long as that effort persists, even if and when their days of daily patrolling subside, the brothers will too, they say.
Sam Luhmann, 16, left, and his brother Ben,17, second from left, videotape federal agents detaining a man outside of the Kane County Judicial Center on Nov. 7, 2025, in St. Charles. While on patrol, they encountered the vehicles of four landscapers who had been detained earlier that morning as well as documented a man being detained outside of the Kane County Judicial Center after appearing for a routine court hearing. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
When the brothers first began, they thought they’d be patrolling for a week and a half, maybe two. But as operations stretched on, they’ve grown accustomed to being prepared for anything, to watching and waiting.
“It’s been weird getting home, from filming federal agents and being threatened to be arrested by them, and then having to work on college applications,” Ben said.
Ben, a senior this year, wants to go to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Ben likes to write and produce songs, and he’d like to make a career out of it someday. Sam, a sophomore, prefers to spend his free time outside, whether that’s fishing or going for a bike ride.
But because of the patrols, the brothers have started to learn more about politics, law and policy, so that while they monitor, they know not just what they’re looking for, but why.
Lately, Ben has been delving into Jose Antonio Vargas’ “Dear America: Notes of An Undocumented Citizen.” He was assigned the book by his mom, as part of his homeschool studies.
Homeschooling all but one of her eight children, Audrey Luhmann has always tried to imbue a social justice lens in her lessons.
“Let’s study the forgotten voices, you know,” Luhmann, 40, told the Tribune on a recent afternoon after her sons returned home from another patrol. Around her, the remnants of previous lessons painted her house’s walls, from completed coloring pages of moments in history to a map of ancient Mesopotamia.
Schooling aside, Luhmann herself is no stranger to advocacy. For the past four years, she’s been an activist in the church space. She’s also been resisting in her own right alongside Ben and Sam, helping deliver Halloween candy last month to two west suburban apartment complexes hit by immigration enforcement.
At night, she and her husband, a geology professor at Wheaton College, have been sitting down with their oldest kids to digest the day’s events.
And while her own aptitude for activism doesn’t keep her from worrying about Ben and Sam as they patrol (“I’m still a mom,” Luhmann noted), she knows the pull that has kept her sons on the front lines.
Last month, Ben and Sam were out monitoring a convoy of federal vehicles in Elgin when agents circled their car and pulled the brothers over. Pounding on their windows, the agents demanded the brothers get out.
“I’ve never seen a window shake like that,” Sam recalled. Sam had been recording the confrontation but when he opened his window, an agent took his phone and then pushed him against the car with his arms behind his back, he said. The agents threatened to arrest them for obstructing their investigations and endangering other drivers on the road.
But Ben, going on more than a year and half since he passed his driver’s test on the first try, maintained they always abide by the law and try to track federal activity from a distance.
Eventually, the agents let the brothers go with a warning.
For a while afterward, Ben and Sam just sat in their car, processing. They meant to head straight home, but then more reported activity started to come through. They decided to carry on.
That’s a through line for the brothers. Should the blitz subside, Ben and Sam say they plan to redirect their efforts to supporting those affected by operations full time.
Immigration Bulletin: Get the latest immigration news in your inbox each week.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and to receive emails from Chicago Tribune.
“(I think) this really changes my perspective,” Ben said, “for the rest of my life.”
ICE is going away from Chicago! They didn’t like our winter rehearsal :), and now they want to return in March. Well, we can absolutely create a snowstorm in March!
I had a very disturbing conversation at work. One of my co-workers told us about his “buddy” who joined ICE. He was like “I just told him: don’t you dare to touch the kids,” but it didn’t seem like he was horrified with this confession. The rest of us were more disturbed, especially having two Latino co-workers present.
That first co-worker who mentioned his friend joining ICE, told us, that according to his friend, the pay was good, and he was getting three times more than otherwise (and if I recall correctly our earlier conversations, “otherwise” was police). So we are talking about three times of police pay, and also, they were getting 1.5K for each person arrested! No wonder they were snatching people off the streets! I went ahead with a speach about moral values, and others were like “how can he sleep at night?”
My Venesuelan co-worker, who voted for Trump, now uses each opportunity to tell me how much she regret it, and how instead of sending criminals out of the country, Trump is now detaining hard working good people, and my other co-workers do not even try to say something in opposition.
The Judge ordered to release most of people who were seized by ICE in Chicago.
And today was the first time in two months, that I saw a woman with a little girl tighed to her back, walking with a box of candies through the CTA car.
I didn’t know that Judge Sara Ellis recited Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago” poem at the court last week! That is so… beautiful!
Copying the article from the WBEZ website:
Carl Sandburg’s ‘Chicago’ poem finds fresh relevance in a city occupied by ICE
Known for praising the city with “big shoulders,” the beloved 1914 composition recently was recited in a ruling addressing federal immigration agents’ use of force. Literary scholars say they were “astounded” and “amazed.”
A judge’s decision to read a 111-year-old poem in court before curbing federal agents’ use of force in Chicago has brought fresh relevance to an iconic piece of local literature.
In a ruling addressing actions by federal immigration agents, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis last week recited Carl Sandburg’s 1914 composition “Chicago,” known for praising the town’s working-class roots and coining the “City of the Big Shoulders” moniker.
Literary scholars marveled at Ellis’ decision to read the piece in its entirety.
“I was both astounded and mesmerized,” said Ivy Wilson, a Board of Visitors professor of English and American studies at Northwestern University.
Paris Review Poetry Editor Srikanth “Chicu” Reddy said he was “amazed.”
“To read a poem as part of a justification or a rationale for a judgment of this importance shows how art can express the complexities of what we’re living through in ways that maybe other forms of speech can’t,” said Reddy, also a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Chicago.
Ellis’ order placed further restrictions on the agents’ use of “riot control weapons” and certain restraint techniques against protesters and observers amid the Trump administration’s deportation campaign in Chicago.
Her inclusion of the poem struck a chord with locals, who have long regarded the work as an unofficial city anthem. The piece has been taught in classrooms, performed at poetry slams and recited by politicians, including former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It has inspired a “Big Shoulders” comic series, and it is even painted on the facade of Damen Tavern in West Town.
But the poem is finding new resonance during the sustained U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement campaign in Chicago.
Ellis appeared to take inspiration from the piece’s interrogation of outsiders’ perceptions of Chicago. For example, Sandburg considers descriptions of the city as “wicked” and “crooked” alongside his view of the town as a place “with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.”
“This is a vibrant place, brimming with vitality and hope, striving to move forward from its complicated history,” Ellis said, juxtaposing her vision with the Trump administration’s portrayal, which she described as a city “in a vice hold of violence, ransacked by rioters and attacked by agitators.”
Reddy said Ellis’ comments were a fitting addendum to the piece.
“The poem reflects the complex messiness and energy and contradictions of Chicago,” he said. “And I think what the judge was saying was, this is a city, like any great American city, that has problems and a dynamic population that is debating and thinking and struggling to work through those problems. And at the same time, there are things we will resist in order to remain true to our values and our diversity.”
Born in Galesburg, Sandburg went on to become an influential poet, journalist and biographer. When the Pulitzer Prize winner moved to Chicago, he observed an economy driven by industrial workers. He then venerated the “hog butcher,” “tool maker” and “player with railroads” in the opening lines of “Chicago.”
While that first stanza is widely popular, Wilson said he is more drawn to Sandburg’s line about the city “building, breaking, rebuilding.” He interprets it as the ethos of working-class Americans, including those who came to the country both willingly and through forced labor.
“That notion is really the heart of not just how Sandburg is thinking about Chicago, but really the best of what we would call an American sensibility,” Wilson said. “And that American sensibility is not nativist, but it’s really built from the backs of immigrants, all of us as immigrants.”
Donald G. Evans, executive director of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, also described the poem as relevant to the current moment. He said Sandburg was known for his “compassion and humanity.”
“What we aspire to in the cultural community is to be like Carl Sandburg was: a person who believed in the people, and believed that everybody — from the bottom up — should have the same kind of respect and the same kind of support,” said Evans, who inducted Sandburg into the hall of fame in 2011.
“And that we should help all of our neighbors.”
The poem
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
The first thing I noticed when I returned to Chicago was that helicopters were gone! No more dreadful sounds day and night. Gone!
I might speculate that the government shutdown limited funds for helicopter raids, but I prefer to think that ICE simply does not have the time for that, as it is trying to defend itself in multiple lawsuits.
OMG, how much I love the people of my city! I worried when I observed the initial silence as a response to the Trump administration’s actions. It seemed like everyone was paralyzed by fear. I am so happy to see that everyone remembered that there is power in numbers, and 200,000 people can’t be put into custody. And I love that our governor is keeping his promise to fight Trump in court.
Just a couple of today’s examples: an ICE agent charged with drunk driving. I copied the whole article from Tribune, and note this part:
The Trump administration repeatedly has referred to drunken driving as a justifiable reason for non-citizens to be detained and deported
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is facing drunken driving charges after police said his car jumped a curb and crashed into a hedgerow in the west suburbs.
Guillermo Diaz-Torres, 33, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, will be arraigned next month in DuPage County following a one-car crash in Oak Brook on Oct. 26. Police allege he failed several field-sobriety tests, including balancing, walking in a straight line and reciting the alphabet.
If convicted, Diaz-Torres could face penalties ranging from probation to up to a year in jail. Throughout its immigration crackdown, the Trump administration repeatedly has referred to drunken driving as a justifiable reason for non-citizens to be detained and deported.
Operation Midway Blitz — the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s mass deportation effort in the Chicago area — was launched in honor of a young suburban woman who was killed by a man accused of driving drunk while being in the country without the legal paperwork.
According to police video obtained by the Tribune, Diaz-Torres told officers he had just finished working an 18-hour shift at the ICE holding facility in Broadview and was heading straight to his hotel in Lombard. Though it was nearly 2 a.m., and Broadview is less than 10 miles away, Diaz-Torres couldn’t account for his whereabouts during the roughly 90-minute period after his shift ended and said he didn’t know which direction he had traveled after work.
“I have no idea, sir,” he tells police on the video. “I’m not from here.”
One more:
A federal judge in Chicago today issued a sweeping injunction that puts more permanent restrictions on the use of force by immigration agents during “Operation Midway Blitz,” saying top government officials lied in their testimony about threats that protesters posed and that their unlawful behavior on the streets “shows no signs of stopping.”
“I find the government’s evidence to be simply not credible,” U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said in an oral ruling from the bench, describing a litany of incidents over the past month and a half where citizens were tear-gassed “indiscriminately,” beaten and tackled by agents and struck in the face with pepper spray balls.
Also:
The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Public Media petitioned U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis to release the recordings, which were filed under seal as part of a lawsuit led by the Chicago Headline Club, a nonprofit journalism advocacy organization, and a consortium of other media groups. The journalism organizations allege federal immigration enforcement officials have systematically violated the constitutional rights of protesters and reporters during Trump’s mass deportation mission, which began in early September and shows no sign of slowing down.
I watched some of them! Thinking about whether to save them here for historical records! Let’s do just one for now:
Igor told me about Palatine protests and showed his photos, and it was only later that I saw the news about the incident that prompted the anti-police rally. The news cited “about 20 people,” but since I already saw Igor’s photos, I knew there were way more people.
I am really proud of Palatine’s community, and I feel that our family contributed our small part to Palatine being vocal about any injustices.
Below is Igor’s article from Journal and Topics about the rally, and I think it explains everything perfectly. My Palatine friends, you rock!
For my friends in Chicago: some of you asked me whether the rest of the world knows how we resist, or whether, in the eyes of the rest of the world, the whole USA is a gigantic dark spot.
I am telling you: the world knows! I started to ask people at the conference whether they knew about Chicago not letting the National Guard in, and they knew! They followed our news. They knew about the whistles and about the neighborhood watch. The world is watching and wishing us to succeed!
Today was “No Kings!” Rally day, and unfortunately, I was unable to attend the rally, because I am leaving on my two-week trip today. Technically speaking, I could, but it was risky, since I was unsure how fast I would be able to get out of the Loop back to Rogers Park. I might have tried, if I had no other things to do today, but I had, and I had to see mom before departure, and if I told her that I was planning to arrive before 11, she would have a sleepless night. I know there were enough people there (Igor texted me that it was as many people as at the Women’s March in 2017, and judging by the Tribune photos, at least that!)
So now, sitting at the AA lounge at ORD, I wanted to write something that was on my mind for over a week. When “all this” started, I was horrified not only with what exactly started, but mainly with the fact that everyone seemed to be paralyzed with fear, and not protesting.
And finally, this spell was broken. I can’t tell how happy I am with people’s movement. Since I firmly believe that thoughts are material, I firmly believe that since so many people, including myself, were wishing for the court to rule in our favor against Trump, since so many people self-organized and watched out for their neighbors, this collective power of thoughts, wills and actions made the world turn around.
I’ve experienced it several times in my lifetime: if everyone stands up, no government can shut down this protest. The only time during my lifetime when it worked in Russia was in August 1991, when everyone got out on the streets, when people were unstoppable. The Communist Party activists were haphazardly burning the papers in Smolny, fearful of people banging on the gates.
Last time. The only time.
Trump is going to the upper courts, but so far, it’s a firm “no” on all levels. I know it’s not the end of it, but it’s more and more evident that he is in a war with the people, and nobody can win a war with the people, except temporarily.
Copying the pictures from the Tribune before I am completely disconnected from their website while being abroad. I look at these pictures, and my heart is filled with immense pride for my city. The best. The kindest. The warmest. The strongest.
I have several blog posts in drafts, which are just copies of articles from different Chicago newspapers. Usually, there are not that many of them in my blog, but these are unusual times, and I want to keep them for history.
The one below is from lst weeks’ Sun Times:
Members of the military are required to follow constitutional orders and disobey unconstitutional orders. But two members from Illinois see gray areas in the deployment of forces in the Chicago area to assist immigration agents.
National Guard members Dylan Blaha, left, and Demi Palecek attend a protest outside the ICE detention facility in Broadview on Friday. Blaha is running for Congress, and Palecek is running for state representative; both are Democrats.
Hundreds of National Guard members sent to Illinois by the Trump administration remain in a holding pattern following a federal judge’s order last week barring them from being deployed onto the streets of Chicago.
As some 500 military troops wait in limbo for the courts to decide where and how they can be sent into duty among civilians, two active Illinois National Guard members and one who is retired spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times about what they would do in the event they were activated.
Active-duty members are normally prohibited from speaking to the news media, but Dylan Blaha and Demi Palecek, who are both running for political office, said their views on the subject are already publicly known.
The third person who spoke out, Joe Prehm, left the National Guard in 2018 after serving 10 years. He is not restricted from expressing his views.
Palecek, 34, who is running for state representative as a Democrat in the 13th District, is a staff sergeant in the Illinois National Guard and has been a guard member for 12 years.
She said if she were called up to protect agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement she would not comply.
“Absolutely, I’d refuse. There’s no way,” Palecek said, adding she is also encouraging others in the National Guard to follow suit.
“I want all members to say no,” Palecek said. “This is against what we signed up for. We’re here for humanitarian things, we’re here to help and protect the people, not to be used and weaponized against our own communities to terrorize them.”
The issue is personal because her mother is from Mexico, she said.
U.S. service members take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. In addition, under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the U.S. Manual for Courts-Martial, service members must obey lawful orders and disobey unlawful orders, according to a U.S. military website. Unlawful orders are those that clearly violate the U.S. Constitution, international human rights standards or the Geneva Conventions.
Blaha, a 32-year-old from the Champaign area who is a Democratic candidate in the 13th congressional District, has served in the Illinois National Guard for 11 years. He said refusing orders isn’t easy and may not be the ideal path to take.
“Just being told to go and stand in front of a federal building, I would recommend it’s better for these soldiers to stay there and follow what they can,” Blaha said. “If they do ever receive an order that seems like it crosses the line, then you stand up to it. But if you step aside, you might allow someone to take charge that will comply with everything.”
However, Blaha said the legality of an order is not always clear-cut.
“A soldier is obligated to disobey unlawful or illegal orders, but there’s a big gray area,” Blaha said. “You never find out what’s illegal or unlawful until after the fact, so a lot of it is a judgment call.”
Prehm, a 10-year veteran of the Illinois National Guard who ended his service seven years ago, agrees with Blaha.
“Maybe that’s why [President Donald Trump] sent Texas National Guard rather than Illinois, because with the Illinois Guard there may be a lot from Chicago,” Prehm said. “They may be less inclined to do something or help, while Texas has nothing to do with Chicago.”
Prehm, who was deployed to Kuwait and Iraq, said he would refuse to guard ICE agents if he were still in the National Guard.
“The National Guard should not be used to protect federal agents. That should be the job of other law enforcement,” Prehm said.
On Friday, Blaha and Palecek attended a protest near the ICE detention facility in Broadview.
Wearing sweatshirts in honor of journalists who have been killed in Gaza, they both said they were happy with the judge’s ruling.
“I’m glad that the judge found that they violated the 10th and 14th Amendment and the Posse Comitatus Act,” Blaha said.
“I think the biggest thing right now is that President Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. I really hope he doesn’t and that we keep winning in the courts.”
The Insurrection Act gives the president power to send the military to states to put down public unrest and to support law enforcement.
Palecek said she had questions related to the fact that National Guard members are not being paid but would receive back pay once the government shutdown ends.
“They’re not getting paid, so are they going to chill here? Then we’ll have to pay for them to just chill here. It’s weird.”
Hettie's Reflections 