The presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to develop in cities and communities across the nation, with its newest cease being in Chicago, Illinois. Regardless of state and metropolis officers pushing again on the Trump administration’s efforts to convey federal legislation enforcement into the town, reviews of ICE raids have begun to unfold throughout the Windy Metropolis.
Rapper, actor, and Chicago native Vic Mensa just lately took to Instagram to debate what he calls “the federal authorities’s warfare on Chicago.”
“[ICE] raided a constructing in South Shore in the midst of the night time, a predominantly Black neighborhood, used flash grenades to wake folks up, and arrested them bare, rounded up and detained Black folks and Venezuelans. ICE is separating Black dad and mom from youngsters, handcuffing the youngsters, choking out Black males at visitors stops,” he shared.
Immigration has been a high precedence for Trump since his first presidential time period in 2017. Nevertheless, after voter knowledge from the 2024 elections was launched, many Black communities, who as soon as known as out the Trump administration for wrongfully focusing on Hispanic and Latino communities, opted to remain silent.
“I even heard a younger brother within the video say, ‘y’all speculated to be choking out Mexicans,’” Mensa recalled sharing a number of the rhetoric heard in Black communities relating to immigration. “Many people stated when this s— began, that is our downside. ICE is our downside. I used to be met with a lot denial: ‘No, thanks.’ ‘I feel we’ll sit this one out,’ however we don’t have that luxurious.”
He continued: “When the f— are we gonna notice, as a neighborhood, that we’re part of the wrestle of all oppressed folks? We don’t have a selection. Black folks in America are so deeply entrenched in techniques of oppression that an oppression in opposition to anybody is invariably going to spill into our yard.”
Now there’s a myriad of explanations for the divide that generally exists between Black and Latino communities. Nevertheless, the 2024 elections seem to have considerably impacted the division we’re seeing immediately. In keeping with Pew Analysis, practically half of Hispanic voters voted for Trump prior to now election, marking a 12-point enhance from the 2020 elections (48% in 2024, 36% in 2020).
“The divisions between Black and Latino persons are important. There are legitimate issues,” Mensa famous, “However at this second, it’s suicidal to not be unified, as a result of the identical brokers of the state are attacking, abducting, and killing us each on the similar time. They usually’re counting on our separation proper now.”
Along with being unified, the actor inspired viewers to be educated on their rights, movie each interplay they see with these officers, to speak with their neighbors, and most significantly, be secure “as a result of the Gestapo has arrived, and this s—t isn’t candy.”
