(HICAGO AGAINST ICE.

“LA MIGRA,
LA POLICIA,
LA MISMA|

PORQUERIA” &
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W REPORT-BACK FROM
HE DEMONSTRATIONS

OF JUNE 10
Trump's November 2024 victory and the frst days of his second admin-
itration saw il of the carnivalesque street protests that accompanied
his rise to power in 2016, Some comrades said this was evidence that
most people were demoralized, demobilized, and resigned to adjust their
lives to living under a new regime rather than fighting back. We had a
different hypothesis: we believed that hundreds of thousands of people,
and maybe more, were biding their time, waiting for the chance to take.
their shot. With hardly any extra-parliamentary fascists to ightin the
streets, and little sense milling around outside various Trump Towers
brandishing clever signage, what was the issue, where were the targets,
and what was the best oppartunity to hit back at Trump and the program
he represents in & meaningful and effective way?

Marches on Tesla dealerships—and the more promising destruction
of Tesla cars and infastructure —provided one such path, though this
remained firmly within the bounds of a consumer boycat, if a fiery
one. Indivisible and 50501 protests recalled the bad old days of 2017
endless open-air group therapy sessions and, for the most part, repeated
the messages of that time point for point: We demand a miore competent
steward of capitalsn's blood-soaked drive toward planetary suicide.

‘Then came the scenes in Los Angeles: bold and decisive collective
action to interrupt Trump's bumbling effors at the “largest deportation
in American history” The action was not symbolic, but direct and eflec-
tive, The risks were not taken to speak truth to fascism, but to practically
impede its unfolding plans. And the enemy was not just Trump ot his
Stormiront-addled federal goons, but the local cops, blue city lites, and
the entire social order that makes the global South a place people seck to
flee while rendering sub-minimum wage migrant labor both economical-
y necessary and cruelly disposable,

As we watched the uprising in LA unfold, federal employees were
meeting to coordinate resources and personnel and help put it down,
They were worried about a “Portland-type incident’—federal overreach
that provoked months of bitter street fighting in 2020 and eventully
it the government humiliated. Across the country, these anxieties have
been fulfilled. The Trump administration’s suppression of the LA rebels
has repeated the heavy-handed overcommitment that turned Portland's
protests into a months-long uprising, with the National Guard deployed
and Marines trained in crowd suppression techniques on standby:. And
in the cities where homegrown police response tends away from outright
brutality, the administration is doing its best to make up for lost time.
In response to the previous days’ unrest, the Trump administration
announced on the night of the tenth that they intend to deploy Strategic
Response Teams—the militarized ICE units whose mass rai
anti-ICE demonstrations in Paramount, California into a citywide upris-
ing-—in New York, Philadelphia, Northern Virginis, Seattle and Chicago.
Los Angeles provided a path forward for people waiting for the right
‘moment to fght. Maximizing the potential of this moment and helping
o steer its unfolding into & more generalized revolt against capitalist
Society is the responsibilty of all who seck liberation, This requires a
willingness to experiment, take risks, and reflect honestly on what is
working and what isn't, What follows is one such attempt, based on our
experiences in Chicago. In the wake of the battle of Los Angeles, we say:
Ithas tostart somewhere, it has o start sometime. What better place than here,

s turned the

what beter time than now?

“Fuck ICE?”

On June 10, Chicago took ts best shot at matching the momentum
begun in Los Angeles. The previous day, a dozen people were abducted
during their court sppearances on the fourteenth floor of a building in
Chicago's downtown Laop neighborhood. Anonymous actvists called

a series of demonstrations at the site’s parking exits for June 10, hop-

ing to intercept ICE vans before they made their way to a processing.
center elsewhere in the same neighborhood or out o the state o federal
detention centers. Protesters arrived at 55 East Monroe Street at 9 am
and aggressively questioned every van that let the parking lot, Worried
that the crowd would only grow during the 3 pm demonstration and
that clashes over deportation vans would provide a flshpoint for serious
unrest, the city's immigration courts decided to close for the day, at both
55 East Monroe and the other location in the Loop, a federal building at
101 Ida B. Wells Drive, which also houses the ICE field office.
The 3 pm demonstration went shead as planned. Initally, turnout
was small and faily obedient, and we weren't sure anything was going

to happen. A representative from the building came out and demanded
that we stand off of the building’s “private property! gesturing to a faint
line separating one shade of concrete from another. The crowd complied.
But being forced off of most of the sidewalk created an opening as the
demonstration grew: By 3:30, the crowd had taken the street, and some
participants floated marching to the other ICE hub in the Loop, the ield
office on 1da B. Wells, which was sil in operation even though ts court
was closed. The rest of the crowd followed thern,

As the march approached the field offce, a bike line came into view,
backed by a row of CPD cars and a couple strands of yellow caution tape.
‘With the numbers we had, it was possible that under different conditions,
with a tighter-knit and better-skilled crowd, we could have forced the
police back. But the march was too slow, too spread out, and ot coordi-
nated enough to do so; one participant yelled “be water” and suggested
turning asound, and the rest of the crowd complied.

At this point, directed more by responses 1o police harassment than
clear strategie priorities, the demonstration turned into 3 march to
nowhere, We walked for three hours, led in @ maze by CPD bike lines—
repeatedly passing by the Metropolitan Corrections Center, while the
crowd chanted “free them all” and people on the inside tapped on the
glass, and Federal Plaza, where a demonstration called by the Party for
Socialism and Liberation was sated to oceur at 5:30, at & comfortable
distance from any local ICE infrastructure. A few protesters a the front
tried to rush forward through bike lines as they formed, but the rest of
the crowd wasn't prepared to move with them.

Protesters disagreed about which tactics were acceptable. Some
‘people dragged trash cans into the street; others, seemingly not under-
standing the value of road obstructions for staving off a direct charge
from police and hostile (snd potentially murderous) motorists, stopped
o putthem back in their correct place and pick up whatever trash had
spilled. Some peaple wanted to square offwith the police at the routine
bike lines that dirceted marchers down certain streets and away from
police and ICE infrastructure; others felt obliged to protect the police
from the protesters. It wasn'tclear,at this point in the day, which side.
would predominate, or on which lines the difference broke. But despite
the best efforts of peace police and professional activists, every time the
Chicago Police Department attempted to snatch someone off the side of
the march, a hundred people sprang into action, throwing CPD against
the wall and physically tearing arrestees away from then.

A the hours dragged on, the march's numbers dwindled to just over
a hundred. During long stretches, we marched in silence, CPD, intend-
ing to capitalize on this demoralization, funneled the march closer and
closer to the PSL demonstration on the plaza, eventuly confning the
protesters that were willing to take the street to the bike line and forcing
the other hundred to mach through the PSL rally: Like before, this
attempt to push the march offits prior footing encouraged it to develop
rather than dispersing it

“PSLhop in!”
“The autonomous marchsfinal pass by Federal Plaza happened at 5:50,
vty minutes into the PSL rally and well bfore their regulr pro-
gramming would have intended to stat moving. But twenty minutes of
speeches seemed o have worn on the crowd. The masch, ontained to
the bike lane and pushed up onto the plaza, chanted “Whose strects?
Our stectst” and “PSL hop int"—and a the handfulofsragglers pushed
through the crowd, hundreds of atendees joined in. Dozens of young,
peaple, many in keffiyehs, pushed through nto the bike lane and surged
orth through s policebike line that vas atemptng, too slow, o turn
the march west i another hugecirle. The standing demonsrators
found themselves moving with the crowd. The Party for Socialism and
Liberation ollowed ansiously behind.

By 6:00, working people across Chicago were pasing thiough the
Loop, while offce employees and service workers slong the impromp-
1w masch route who had just clocked out ound themselves down the
street from a steadily growing march. As we headed northeast towards
Trump Tower, lodged at the front segment of the march, we igured our
demonstraion had grown by afew hundred. But as we passed by a buld-
ing-mounted news broadcast, we realized that e had underestimated
ur own success:a helicopters v footage showed that the stret was
full,for a dozen blocks, o thousands of people. Wed found ourseles at
the front of an unplanned, unpermitted march, thousands strong and
still growing.
“Fuck 121"

Eventually, the march made its way to Michigan Avenue. Some march-
ers, remembering the layout of the city’s downtown ICE infrastructure,
reminded those at the head of the march about the immigeation court at
55 East Monroe, and started an “ICE s that way!” chant, gesturing to the
turn as it spproached. Hundreds peeled off of the front of the march, but
the courts parking entrance was barricaded, and the front of the march
wasnt ready to break into it so the breakaway cut further into the Loop.

As we marched under the elevated rail tracks, CPD began to set
bike lines up, intending to force us back towards Millennium Park. On
the way to the first bike line, the composition of the front of the crowd.
changed sharply: frontliners equipped with gear thatd been collecting
dust since 2020 pushed up to the front, oining less equipped people
fresh off work to break the firs police bike line with force, scattring.
CPD and prompting cheers from the rest of the crowd. Two subsequent
bike lines broke voluntarily when confronted by the breakaway.

‘The endless snake maches that followed—diverging and recombin-
ing, and soldiering ever forward in search of a mission—call to mind the
post-Ferguson moment in 2014, before the original Black Lives Matter
‘movement was decisively enclosed by the non-profit industrial comples.
Except this time, marchers were outited with the acumen and tactical
gear of a decade of street battls around the world. Tactics like the de-ar-
rest were common sense to many who have lived through recent strug-

gles, some of whom cannot understand why any self-proclaimed radical
would stand around watching their comades taken to jail. Alternatively,
there was a pronounced gap between the equipment of the marchers—
some of whom came in full bloc and frontlner gea, equipped with items
ik leaf blowers, which are useful o redirect tear gas which CPD hasrit
used in sixty years—and the content of the march itself, which was most-
Iy an exercise in collective jaywalking. These would-be frontliners were
in search of an opening that has yet 1o be created. The most ambitious
edges of the rest of the day’s protests would experiment with breaking it
open.

After the third bike line retreated, we were folded into what we initial-
Iy assumed was the larger PSL march—but which was actually another
breakaway that had been forced away from the field offce at Ida B. Wells.
‘Organizers with the PSL and FRSO contingent tried to lead the crowd.
into a large park, presumably to finish the battery of specches that our
autonomous march had cut short, but again, hundreds of people decided
otherwise and the thousands behind them followed their lead, passing
by the park and taking both sides of Lake Shore drive. On the way 1o the
highiway, protesters tagged CTA buses stuck in the crowd: “FUCK ICE”
“FUCK CPD."

Portland is Everywhere

“The main organized contngents e the majorityof the day’s patici
pants back to Daley Plaza, where they held a “dance party” meant 0 sal
the marches and send people home. For the most pat that worked,and
numbers dwindied. But a few hundred people decided tostart marching
posiion of thisleg of the march was difeent from the high point of the
daysasthe sun went down, the immigration eourt-bound breakaway was
mostly made up ofyoung Latino people, backed b frontlners snd peo-
Bl n black bloc regalia As it raveled through the heart of the Loop, this
breakaway made good on the heitant miliancy ofthe day’s first march
4 paddy wagon,taring open s back doors o iberate ther Kidaapped
frend, ony o be siopped by an additonal metal brrir. Projeciles
forcef, clpsing anything we have sen in Chicago sinc the 2020 up-
ng, Throughout the nlght,buse,cop cas, paddy wagons, and Teslas
were smashed and tagaed.

elesipped over from protes nto uprling by eeaking wit the usaal
termsthat ditatethese American antiregime stuggles—singl-lsue
agitation that dosss't generalze o antpathy toward all cops and the
social order they uphold. The class and racal geography of Los Angeles,
along with its infamously brutal plice and sherfs departments,lent
thermsevesto the protet’expansion ato an ant-polce revolt The most
promising momentson June 10 tended toward a smilar path in Chic

0 Theirsucees will b determined in the weeks come by whether
afpeople ready to iberatethei iends rom polce and ICE custody by
Whatever meansthey deem necessary

‘We can't substitute ourselves for that missing proletarian component,
bt we can help set the conditions for its emergence, Tactically,this
Looks like spreading skills and knowledge about stre tactics—spreading
illustrations of street formations,tips for barricade-building, and ways to
break through bike and riot lines; holding trainings when possible; and
encouraging Lrainees to train their ow friends. Some technical problems
protesters encounter will require new technical solutions—for example,
the paddy wagon'sinternal barrier. Instead of an excessive focus on gear
and equipment, which specializes them as a specific detachment of pro-
testers, would-be frontliners should draw up and share specific informa-
tion about how certain pieces of equipment or crowd techniques can be
used t0 solve pressing issues raised by tactics that have already emerged.
in the streets.

Spreading specific information about ICE operations in our commu-
hities can help move the dial away from the prevailing aimlessness. This
could take the form of posting llyers in neighborhoads near deportation
infrastructure, publicly broadcasting when and where ICE agents get to
wark, or clarifying the rough schedule of Kidnappings, transfers, pro-
cessing, transit 1o detention centers, and transit from detention centers
to nearby airports.1f possible, stes at critcal points on these pathways
should be chosen for confrontations that could open up semi-permanent
stes of conflict, the way that the federal building in Portand became an
epicenter of struggle in 2020,

Tactical sensibilities and political commitments that are not suited to
unsafe et absolutely necessary struggle against the state and its police
will not be able to deseribe, much less explain, the emerging conflict
ina way that the participants can understand. We have to find ways.
to popularize tactics with radical implications while highlighting their
politcal content in a way that can be legible to everyday participants
in the struggle. The present moment demands an intelligent, tactically
sharp, strategically clear street force capable of blocking the deportation
‘machine in conjunction with the uprising in Los Angeles, so that the
sparks can spread to dozens of other cities and towns.

They want to bring in the National Guard, escalate their response,
and force people to stay home, We have to be ready to meet them with
the same determination,

LOS ANGELES PROVIDED A PATH
FORWARD FOR PEOPLE WAITING

FOR THE RIGHT MOMENT TO FIGHT.
MAXIMIZING THE POTENTIAL OF THIS
MOMENT AND HELPING TO STEER ITS
UNFOLDING INTO A MORE GENERALIZED
REVOLT AGAINST CAPITALIST SOCIETY IS
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ALL WHO SEEK
LIBERATION.

G

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