Migrants who came to Chicago looking for a safer, brighter future told Newsweek Wednesday that they had pulled their children from school, stopped going to work, and were even afraid to take the bus because of the threat of large-scale ICE raids in the sanctuary city this week.
President Donald Trump‘s threat of mass deportation raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were yet to materialize in Chicago as of Thursday morning, despite leaked plans, but the chance of being picked up by officers on the bus or at the hospital was still a present threat for the city’s undocumented.
“The streets in my neighborhood are totally empty, it’s a very real fear right now,” one woman told Newsweek.
Why It Matters
Chicago welcomed over 51,000 migrants who had crossed the southwest border with Mexico between August 2022 and December 2024. Many of them entered the country illegally, which President Trumphas …