Here in Chicago, we have developed effective grassroots strategies to protect our immigrant communities.
SChicago, Illinois –On the eve of this election, Donald Trump promised “the largest deportation program in American history to get criminals out.” Although immigrants statistically have some of the the lowest rates of criminal activityFor Trump and his allies, all people who entered the country without proper documents are criminals. When Trump says he wants to deport criminals, he means every undocumented immigrant in our communities: workers, homeowners, small business owners, parents, spouses, and children.
Such a mass deportation regime would be devastating to our American communities — large and small — leading to separation of families, closure of enterprisesand ripping out entire neighborhoods.
During Trump’s first term in office, he ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in major cities, including cities and counties like ours that have asylum policies. His xenophobic statements and actions have caused enormous damage to our expatriate communities. Now, as he returns to office with the promise of an even wider net of deportation, local governments and communities must take bold action to challenge the systems that criminalize our neighbors.
At the core of this resistance is mass organization. We must be prepared to take direct action at the local level to challenge the federal deportation regime. This means continuing and expanding what many communities across the United States did in 2017: adopting comprehensive and robust sanctuary city policies, organizing neighbors to take direct action to protect their immigrant neighbors, and building networks of mutual aid and solidarity.
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Public mass organizations were one of the most powerful tools for resisting mass deportation. In 2017, communities across the country, including ours in Chicago, organized deportation defense networks. On the northwest side of Chicago, we organized Community Protection Committee from the 35th department. we trained hundreds of neighbors on how to identify ICE in our communities and how to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience; we have knocked on thousands of doors to inform neighbors of their fundamental constitutional rights and what to do if ICE comes to their door, workplace or neighborhood. In 2025, we must continue this grassroots organizing work, and elected officials representing immigrant communities must include Know Your Rights education and deportation protection work as part of the core services their district offices offer .
To thwart Trump’s deportation regime, local and state governments must adopt robust non-cooperation policies with ICE. It’s not enough to declare our cities, states, and community agencies to be sanctuaries—we must ensure that local and state laws protect undocumented communities from ICE by prohibiting information sharing and cooperation with ICE, including third-party contractors.
In Chicago, our grassroots organizing to protect our neighbors has led to one of the most the robust policy of a large sanctuary city in the nation. The Chicago Police Department is legally prohibited from working with ICE in any case without exception. During Trump’s second term, it will be critical to protect such policies that are already on the books, increase the number of cities and states that have such policies, and close loopholes that undermine those policies. For example, while Chicago’s Cook County has banned formal cooperation with ICE, ICE continues to target undocumented county residents through data purchased from third party data brokers who do business with the county. That’s why the two of us are working to pass no-data-for-ICE legislation through the Board of County Commissioners.
As he did during his last term, Trump is likely to use the threat withholding federal funding as a cudgel to force cities and states to abandon their sanctuary policies. Local and state elected officials, as well as our communities, must prepare to resist these pressures, including explaining and defending the importance of asylum policies.
While grassroots direct action organizing and non-cooperation policies are critical to challenging Trump’s deportation regime, mutual aid is an equally important part of the strategy. Mutual aid networks are community-led efforts to address the needs of undocumented migrants and their families, covering everything from food and shelter to legal aid. By providing tangible support, mutual aid not only helps people survive; it also creates solidarity and strengthens community ties. Mutual aid not only alleviates the immediate suffering caused by deportation policies, but also fosters long-term interdependent relationships within communities, making it harder for the government to target people when they have broad, organized support.
Despite our best efforts, Trump will still succeed in deporting many people from our communities, so our outreach work must go transnational, helping undocumented immigrants rebuild their lives after deportation. For example, aid workers who support deportees should work to ensure that former employers issue the last wages of their now-deported employees.
Trump promises more aggressive deportation tactics during his second term. We must believe him, and to thwart his plans, we must build a broad movement that unites neighbors and connects resistance to deportation to the larger struggle for racial justice and economic equality. It is very important that we stand together in solidarity to oppose these policies of oppression.
Deportation in the United States is not just an immigration issue; it is a tool racial and economic control. Resisting deportation is not just about stopping raids or disrupting ICE operations; it is about challenging the deeply entrenched systems of racial violence and exclusion that define US immigration policy.
The fight against mass deportation is a fight for the dignity and humanity of every immigrant and working person in the United States. In response to Trump’s re-election, the need for bold grassroots resistance has become increasingly urgent. Through grassroots organizing, direct action, noncooperation with ICE, and mutual aid, communities can protect immigrants from deportation and begin dismantling the systems that perpetuate racial violence. Ultimately, our work to protect our communities from deportation must uphold the right of all people to live freely, with dignity, and in safety, regardless of their immigration status.
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By creating networks of care and solidarity, immigrant communities are less dependent on a system that seeks to expel them. These networks become incubators of resistance, where people don’t just survive—they organize.
We cannot retreat
We now face a second Trump presidency.
There is nothing to lose. We must use our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger to oppose the dangerous policies that Donald Trump is unleashing on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as principled and honest journalists and authors.
Today we are also preparing for the future struggle. It will require a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis and humane resistance. We are faced with the passage of Project 2025, a far-right Supreme Court, political authoritarianism, rising inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis and conflicts abroad. Nation will expose and propose, develop investigative reporting and act together as a community to preserve hope and opportunity. NationThe work will continue—as it has in good times and bad—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and in-depth reporting, and to build solidarity in a divided nation.
Armed with 160 years of courageous independent journalism, our mandate remains the same today as it was when the Abolitionists were founded Nation— to defend the principles of democracy and freedom, to serve as a beacon in the darkest days of resistance, and to see and fight for a bright future.
The day is dark, the forces are building tenaciously, but it’s too late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is just the time when artists go to work. No time for despair, no room for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we make language. This is how civilizations heal.”
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Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, Nation
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