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(Broadview) There are only around twenty of them, but yet their voices resonate: in front of an immigration police (ICE) center in the suburbs of Chicago, residents demonstrate their anger against the repressive policies of Donald Trump.
“Go home, Nazis!” shouts Kate Madrigal, 37, at ICE agents and members of the National Guard through the center’s gate.
“We have heard so many racist, intolerant and abusive words,” this stay-at-home mother told AFP, who drove more than 50 kilometers to come demonstrate “against what is happening”, denouncing the violent arrests of migrants across the United States.
Since his return to power in January, Donald Trump has launched a vast campaign against what he describes as illegal immigration, evoking an “invasion” of the country by “criminals from abroad” and communicating extensively about expulsions.
The American president deployed National Guard soldiers this week in Chicago, as he has already done in Washington and Memphis, Democratic cities.
The mobilization of soldiers in the megacity in the north of the country was suspended on Thursday by a judge, which did not prevent the Republican from criticizing the city on numerous occasions, even calling it “the most dangerous in the world”, without any basis.
The immigration police are the main cog in his policy and that is why Kate Madrigal came to demonstrate in front of one of his centers.
“We’re scared,” she confides, speaking of her and her Mexican husband.
“Use of force”
Beside him, Lee Goodman wears an outfit reminiscent of the uniform of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. The 72-year-old retired lawyer holds a sign that reads: “We know what comes next.”
“This installation is part of the system aimed at placing people in concentration camps,” he says in front of the immigration police center.
“History has taught us what happens when you start putting migrants in concentration camps simply because they are migrants. »
Another protester, Ryan Cuellar, 28, said ICE’s “use of force” was “clearly scaring people” and reducing the number of demonstrators.
“People go to war and die for their freedoms, so exercising them should not be a crime. Exercising them should not come at the cost of being sprayed with tear gas or rubber bullets,” he says.
Among the demonstrators, an intruder. Ali Wiegand, 45, came to declare his support for the policies led by Donald Trump. “He is doing the right thing,” he believes. Two visions that reflect the divisions that reign within the American population.
