Rogers Park

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Speaker 8 what was yesterday like in the neighborhood it was terrible you know we lost quite a few people from our neighborhood We saw them literally take people like off of the ladder that they were working on.

Speaker 9 There was like, I think there there were landscapers that were taken, people who were working on roofs.

Speaker 10 Someone mentioned in the chat, say, hey, they are targeting vents, working vents, and stopping people. They already stop

Speaker 11 landscapers.

Speaker 1 On Tuesday, October 21st, people on the north side of Chicago noticed men in cars who they thought might be federal immigration agents.

Speaker 10 Now,

Speaker 10 I have people that work with me,

Speaker 13 and they are also non-documented.

Speaker 10 And I have a van that I work with, a white utility van.

Speaker 11 We have three cars in our family.

Speaker 10 My wife has one car.

Speaker 11 I have a second car where I carry my child around the city.

Speaker 10 And I have my working car.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 4 I was like, you know, a little bit apprehensive.

Speaker 13 of

Speaker 7 things that might happen.

Speaker 10 I said I thought, hey, you know what? I'm just going to take you home and let's take off today and

Speaker 10 tomorrow.

Speaker 1 One of the first people we met when we got to Chicago was a man named Gabe Gonzalez. We met him at an intersection around noon and got in his car.
We asked him what he was doing.

Speaker 8 We're chasing ice.

Speaker 1 And what part of the city are we?

Speaker 8 We are in Rogers Park on the northern side of the city. It's right up against the lake.
It's a very diverse community.

Speaker 8 It's probably 25, 30% Latino, 20% African American, lots of refugees from all over the world, maybe 35% Anglo.

Speaker 8 And ICE is circling the neighborhood. They are in other neighborhoods around us.

Speaker 1 Gabe helps run an organization called Protect Rogers Park. He uses an encrypted app.
called Signal to communicate with people who volunteered to go out looking for ICE agents.

Speaker 1 There are a lot of volunteers.

Speaker 1 So what are you looking at right now?

Speaker 8 I'm looking at my signal thread, which has...

Speaker 8 We've got this thing called verifiers. So people like will put information on there about where they believe ICE has been seen.
And then there's moderators who will sort of collect it all and

Speaker 8 let us know where we need to focus on any given moment.

Speaker 1 When you're saying verifiers, just what does that word mean?

Speaker 8 Well, as you can imagine, many, many, many of the reports we get are actually not accurate, right? They're just people who are scared.

Speaker 8 They see something that looks scary to them, and so they report it. And

Speaker 8 the verifiers have been trained on how to identify ICE vehicles and how to identify ICE agents.

Speaker 8 And they will go out to where the report has come from.

Speaker 8 And they will verify if it's real or not. And if it's real,

Speaker 8 we then sort of move into gear gear to um

Speaker 8 get other people on the scene to slow ice down if not stop them

Speaker 1 i mean your phone is just constantly going off with alerts and things yeah yes it is

Speaker 19 how is it gay pulled over to talk to someone standing on a street corner how you doing how is it uh uh bad yeah have you seen them specifically yeah so they've been up and down clark for the past couple hours they were down uh uh running down devon for a while We circled them on Wayne.

Speaker 20 They were just going in circles.

Speaker 16 And what car was that?

Speaker 19 Mostly all white SUVs. I'm sorry, who are you guys with?

Speaker 8 I'm Gabe Gonzalez.

Speaker 16 Oh, hey.

Speaker 19 Mostly the white SUV, Ford, with a Michigan plate with no front plate, the Florida plate, and then there's a California plate. All of them are.

Speaker 8 Four plates of Denali, right? Yes.

Speaker 1 The volunteers keep track of certain license plates on unmarked cars they believe belong to immigration agents.

Speaker 1 What do you do with the whistle?

Speaker 19 So we, whenever there is ice sighted or someone is being detained by ICE,

Speaker 19 for a sighting, we give the three long whistles and then for being detained, it's the three short, though a lot of times people also just do it constantly because and that's to kind of warn others in the area to get a

Speaker 19 sense of so while we were following people on the on our bikes where we were following an actual ice vehicle we blowed three times so that anyone in the area so landscapers

Speaker 19 anyone who is possibly at risk outside knows to get inside and protect themselves and their families.

Speaker 1 So you'll be out here for as long as you can. Yes, that is.

Speaker 18 That's the goal. Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's a hotline that people all over the state call to report when ice shows up.

Speaker 1 Lately, they say they've been getting hundreds of calls a day. One day they got over 1,500.

Speaker 1 Protect Rogers Park first started monitoring ICE in the neighborhood eight years ago during the first Trump administration.

Speaker 17 They tend to grab up people who are alone.

Speaker 8 They'll get people working in their yard or on someone's yard, if not their own. They'll get people walking down the street, like that post office we just passed.

Speaker 8 We stopped them from trying to arrest this guy who was riding by on a scooter.

Speaker 8 They pulled him over and they were hassling him, but luckily we were already on the street and there were a lot of us there. And when they saw that there was a big crowd there, they left.

Speaker 1 And are they asking anything about citizenship or papers or anything? Are they just taking them?

Speaker 16 Sometimes.

Speaker 17 It varies.

Speaker 8 When they tend to ask is when people tend to say that they have them and then they'll stop and ask.

Speaker 1 People who look a certain way.

Speaker 8 Yeah, like me.

Speaker 8 Well, darker people generally, like somebody I know saw them hassling

Speaker 8 three South Asians. You know, I don't really see them hanging around outside a Cups game asking people for their papers.

Speaker 1 The mayor of Chicago declared Chicago a sanctuary city in 1985.

Speaker 1 It still is one.

Speaker 1 But on September 8th, a press release from the Department of Homeland Security announced that ICE would be launching an operation in Chicago. It called the city a quote magnet for criminals.

Speaker 1 About a month later, the Chicago mayor signed a quote ICE-Free Zone executive order banning federal immigration agents from using buildings and parking lots owned by the city.

Speaker 1 The Chicago police have nothing to do with this. I mean, they're not working.

Speaker 8 Legally, they are not allowed to coordinate with ICE because we are a sanctuary city.

Speaker 8 But so, our understanding of their operation at this moment is that they will not hinder, nor will they help ICE, and they will not hinder, nor will they help us.

Speaker 1 Gabe told us the volunteers start patrolling very early in the morning.

Speaker 8 We've had a number of volunteers who have had guns pulled on them and one that was arrested. I mean these guys are like classic bullies.

Speaker 8 Like they will not stand up to a group, but they're more than happy to gang up three or four on somebody who's alone. And so we do what we call nonviolent direct action training.
So it's like

Speaker 8 we teach them how to move in groups, we teach them how to communicate, we teach them how to

Speaker 8 be disciplined in their actions and to use their body to slow down ice, right?

Speaker 1 How would you use your body to slow ice down?

Speaker 18 Well,

Speaker 8 you know, you could

Speaker 8 walk in front of them. You could walk slowly in front of them.
You could put your car in front of them. You could, you know, there's any number of things that you could do.

Speaker 8 ICE will tell you that a number of them are illegal for impeding the enforcement of a federal official. We have talked to many lawyers and would have a difference of opinion about that.

Speaker 8 We also train people in understanding their risk level and

Speaker 8 who can take more risk than others.

Speaker 8 Yep.

Speaker 8 So apparently we've been following there actually had home people that were.

Speaker 8 You got to be fucking kidding me. They were just there before.

Speaker 1 Gabe was on his phone constantly.

Speaker 1 When there were reports of immigration agents at one Home Depot, we drove to a different one, in case they showed up there too.

Speaker 8 So earlier today, they hit two Home Depots.

Speaker 8 So I am headed to the place where I was this morning where they had apprehended someone. Mostly to warn others that we think they might be there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what did happen at the Home Depot earlier today?

Speaker 8 So yeah, like we got the call that they were chasing people at the Home Depot, which from where I live is about 10 minutes. So it took me a moment to get there.

Speaker 8 There were already like five or six people there.

Speaker 8 They're no longer chasing anybody, but they did find somebody in a van. And there's like five or six Border Patrol agents and

Speaker 8 a bunch of us sort of filming it and trying to explain to him his rights and that they didn't have to take him. He didn't have to go with him, but he was in shock.

Speaker 8 He was just kind of like sort of staring around.

Speaker 8 That's the van he was in.

Speaker 1 Gabe filmed agents in Border Patrol uniforms and face coverings, opening the driver's side door of the van and speaking to the man sitting inside.

Speaker 8 We're at the Home Depot at Devon and California. There appear to be

Speaker 12 three,

Speaker 12 four,

Speaker 12 five

Speaker 8 members of the Border Patrol. They are trying to take this man out of the car.

Speaker 8 There are a number of respondents here.

Speaker 8 He doesn't look like he wants to leave the car, and it doesn't look like they have a warrant. Otherwise, they'd probably just take him.

Speaker 1 In the video, one of the men in uniform walks toward Gabe. It sounds like he tells him, you'll be arrested.
You're here illegally.

Speaker 8 I'm not talking to you, motherfucker. I don't let you know.

Speaker 8 Okay. Yeah, and so anyway.

Speaker 1 The man in the van looks at Gabe as he stands up from his seat.

Speaker 1 Then one of the officers walks between them, and another pulls the man out of the van. There are at least four other people filming from different angles.

Speaker 1 The camera turns toward a white SUV, which seems to belong to the agents.

Speaker 1 A man with a motorcycle has positioned himself right in the path of the SUV.

Speaker 1 The agents tell the man to move the motorcycle.

Speaker 22 Okay, hey, move your bike out of the way.

Speaker 24 Move your bike out of the way.

Speaker 1 Gabe walks up to him and starts talking to him, trying to help him stall.

Speaker 22 I'm just popping into the thing. Yeah, actually, they just started selling Royan and Royal Air Force in the United States.

Speaker 12 Is that right?

Speaker 22 No, shit. Yeah,

Speaker 2 honestly,

Speaker 22 they're like $4,000 brand new.

Speaker 22 Move your bike right now.

Speaker 22 You will be arrested.

Speaker 22 Kate?

Speaker 1 The man moves his motorcycle out of the way.

Speaker 1 The agents get into the white SUV.

Speaker 1 Another black SUV follows behind it.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 8 Did anybody get his name?

Speaker 1 I'm Phoebe Judge. This is criminal.

Speaker 8 This becomes the map of the city, right? Like, they tried to take somebody in that apartment building down there, but we got there in time and they ran away.

Speaker 8 He wouldn't open the door. They were banging on the door.

Speaker 18 Open the door, open the door.

Speaker 8 They were kicking it and pounding on it, and then we showed up and they split.

Speaker 1 About half an hour later, Gabe got a message about a volunteer who was arrested while patrolling.

Speaker 1 Do you know anything more about what happened?

Speaker 8 No. They found their car in an alley.
It was abandoned. The driver's side door was open, so, I mean, we can do the math.

Speaker 8 That's all we know.

Speaker 8 We contacted the National Lawyers Guild, and they're hunting for them now, and

Speaker 8 probably we'll be able to find them relatively soon, but

Speaker 8 they just leave the car there, you know.

Speaker 5 They pull the person out and...

Speaker 8 That's what they do with folks who are undocumented, too. But with the undocumented folks, because they have less rights, they'll just break the window and grab them.

Speaker 8 You find these cars a lot on the southwest side, but you find them all over.

Speaker 8 Whereas like

Speaker 8 windows broken, person isn't there, cars undisturbed other than that.

Speaker 1 Have you ever seen anything like this?

Speaker 8 Like the ICE escalation?

Speaker 16 Yeah. No.

Speaker 17 No.

Speaker 8 Like there's not.

Speaker 8 There's never been anything like this. I mean, I've never,

Speaker 8 as an adult,

Speaker 8 you know, living in the city of Chicago, I've never seen anything like this.

Speaker 5 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 On October 13th, the Department of Homeland Security announced that federal agents had arrested more than 1,500 people in Illinois.

Speaker 1 Across Chicago, teachers are reporting fewer students showing up to school. Someone at the teachers union said, I'm hearing from educators whose classrooms are half empty because families are scared.

Speaker 8 Like I was talking to a bunch of businesses yesterday, and it depended on the business, but anywhere from 30 to 50% of the business that they used to have, they don't have anymore.

Speaker 8 So there's people who are directly affected who are scared and like trying to lay low and just trying to go about their daily lives. And it's not only them, but it's their American citizen relatives.

Speaker 8 It's like usually there's what they call mixed status households, which means some of the people have papers and some don't. And then you've got like, you know, plenty of

Speaker 8 good old-fashioned U.S. citizens who are

Speaker 8 angry and want to see something change because this is not what we were, you know, this is not what we told America was.

Speaker 1 Gabe Gonzalez says more than 950 people have started volunteering as verifiers with Protect Rogers Park.

Speaker 1 And their network on signal includes more than 2,000 people.

Speaker 8 We look at Signal 24-7.

Speaker 8 You know, you wake up in the morning, it's the first thing you look at. You go to bed, it's the last thing you look at.
There's a couple more of ours right here.

Speaker 1 So there really are people on almost every corner, you know, monitoring.

Speaker 8 Yeah, the numbers I give you were not, they're real, they're not bullshit um

Speaker 8 plus we have school my we have 16 school patrols we have a whole nother channel with elected officials a whole nother channel with school principals

Speaker 17 yeah it's it's it's quite

Speaker 8 it's quite the operation

Speaker 1 gabe has a hands-off chicago sign in the front window of his house in rogers park And there are whistles by the front door. We sat at the kitchen table to talk.
Where did you you grow up?

Speaker 8 Michigan City, Indiana, just across the lake.

Speaker 1 Growing up so close to Chicago, did you think to yourself, I'm going to move there when I'm older?

Speaker 18 Always.

Speaker 14 Yeah, always.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Not a lot of people get out of Michigan City.

Speaker 8 And not a lot of people want to. And good on them.

Speaker 8 But I did.

Speaker 8 The promise of Chicago to me was always the promise of America, allegedly, which is like, you know, you work hard, you like, don't get into too much trouble.

Speaker 14 You'll do okay.

Speaker 8 That's what I think a lot of people still feel about this place.

Speaker 17 I love it.

Speaker 8 And it is so diverse, right? For Midwest, it's like you can meet anybody in Chicago. Like the assumption is that even a couple generations back, somebody just came here, right? Somewhere.

Speaker 8 Where are your people from is like a pretty

Speaker 8 standard question, unless you hear their last name and you already know where their people are from, because there's a lot of that too.

Speaker 9 I think they've done some statistics on it, but like Rogers Park looks racially actually mirrors the rest of Chicago.

Speaker 1 This is Marisa Graciosa.

Speaker 1 She and Gabe got married 11 years ago, a year after they moved to Rogers Park. She grew up in Wisconsin.

Speaker 9 My dad is a pediatrician. My mom is an OBGYN.

Speaker 9 And so they immigrated here from the Philippines in the late 70s. I was born in New York.
And then they tried to find find a place to get a job and raise a family, and there were a few options.

Speaker 9 Georgia was an option. I think Tennessee was an option, and they landed in Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 Marisa and Gabe started Protect Rogers Park together with some neighbors in 2017.

Speaker 9 I remember actually my son, I was pregnant, and almost every single onesie that either a friend made or bought for us were like all political.

Speaker 9 So like we had little onesies for him that said bad ombre. And at the time I was, anyway, everyone was just,

Speaker 1 everything was political, right?

Speaker 9 And I knew that I was about to raise my son in this very political divisive moment. But like when he won, it just became clear that our folks were going to be a target.

Speaker 9 And when I say our folks, it's like, yes, undocumented people,

Speaker 9 but like more specifically, like

Speaker 9 people that I love and that I know. Like I know, because I live in this community, because my parents are immigrants, I know a lot of people who

Speaker 9 may not have papers or who were documented at the time and who were incredibly scared. And so I just, I remember thinking, like,

Speaker 9 I can't affect what's going on in the national level. I don't see any legislation coming forward or anything like that.
And, but what I can control is like what happens here in this community.

Speaker 1 She and Gabe and their neighbors organized a meeting in the neighborhood. Hundreds of people showed up.

Speaker 1 They started training people to identify ACE agents and let people in Rogers Park know when they saw them.

Speaker 1 Gabe says back then there were a few big raids, but nothing like it's been lately.

Speaker 1 Was yesterday unusual for Rogers Park with the amount of

Speaker 1 activity going on?

Speaker 9 Yeah, we just haven't seen this much activity, but now we've had like just in the last week and a half, three pretty intense days where we've seen several cars that we've identified as ICE.

Speaker 9 We've had several neighbors witness record abductions, and that's pretty intense.

Speaker 1 As we were talking with Marisa, Gabe rushed in. Hi.
Did you see the signal? No.

Speaker 9 Northeastern is Albany Park.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's like between Albany Park and West Ridge.

Speaker 8 I already told our folks on the verifiers.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 9 So it sounds like... They're on the north side-ish.

Speaker 9 Multiple cars at Kimball and Hollywood.

Speaker 9 It seems like they're not confirmed kidnappings at this point, but it looks like there may be activity in an Albany Park, which is like 15, 20 minutes from here.

Speaker 1 It's interesting. Both you and Gabe use the word kidnapping.

Speaker 23 That's what it is.

Speaker 9 It's just taking people. And then they ask questions later.

Speaker 1 There's an FAQ section on ICE's website. One of the questions is, is ICE snatching or kidnapping people off the streets?

Speaker 1 The answer reads, quote,

Speaker 1 ICE doesn't kidnap people. Everyone in ICE custody is accounted for, and you can search the online detainee locator system or contact a local field office to find someone you're looking for.

Speaker 18 End quote.

Speaker 1 But there have been reports of delays and errors in that system.

Speaker 1 And this year, immigration agents have also detained many people who are in the country legally.

Speaker 1 In a recent Supreme Court case about ICE arrests in Los Angeles, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that, quote, immigration agents are not conducting brief stops for questioning.

Speaker 1 They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence, and warehouse detentions.

Speaker 1 Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the government's conduct.

Speaker 1 United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs, and prevented from working to support themselves and their families. End quote.

Speaker 1 On October 9th, several people were arrested near the corner of Clark and Mund in Rogers Park.

Speaker 1 A man selling tamales was questioned, but he had his green card and was released. Two people he was with were put in the back of an unmarked car.

Speaker 8 And then word got out, right, like this had happened. And,

Speaker 8 you know, Rogers Park like blew up.

Speaker 8 The next thing you know, we had like probably 200 people on the street.

Speaker 8 All along Clark Street, all along Morris, which is another business avenue, like on bikes, riding around the neighborhood, just really like, nah, this will not stand.

Speaker 1 A few days later, Border Patrol agents were seen outside a church in Rogers Park during a Spanish-language Mass.

Speaker 8 10 minutes before the Mass was about to let out, we put out the word that folks at St. Jerome's are afraid to leave Mass.

Speaker 8 And there were like 50 people standing outside in 10 minutes.

Speaker 8 You know, and like walk them to their cars, walk them home.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 Well, let's just start with you introducing yourself, if you will.

Speaker 14 My name is Hector, and I live in Westridge, which is also known known as West Rogers Park.

Speaker 1 We wanted to speak with some of the other volunteers in Rogers Park about what they've been seeing lately.

Speaker 1 What do you like about living in this neighborhood?

Speaker 5 Well, I

Speaker 7 mean, I'm Puerto Rican, and it's in the context of immigrants that I feel kind of...

Speaker 7 more able to be myself, that I don't face all the prejudices of this society with the intensity that when you are in other places that are more white.

Speaker 7 And mind you, I had lived in the city of Chicago for almost 25 years.

Speaker 1 So tell me about, you know, a day when you're out patrolling. What are you doing?

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 7 like we just came from patrolling a school.

Speaker 1 Westridge Elementary School.

Speaker 1 For over a decade, ICE wasn't allowed to arrest people in schools, churches, and hospitals. But earlier this year, President Trump reversed that policy.

Speaker 1 Some volunteers have organized to help walk students to school, and they've put together teams to patrol the area nearby as the day starts and ends.

Speaker 21 Like yesterday over in Westridge, we had ICE all over the place. It was a very hectic day, and many of the schools were doing inside recess.

Speaker 21 There's, yeah, they've got plans in place to keep the kids and staff and teachers safe inside.

Speaker 1 This is another volunteer named Loretta. She'd also come from patrolling the school.
In that role, what are you looking for?

Speaker 1 What are you doing?

Speaker 21 We are looking for the kinds of vehicles that ICE typically drives, which a lot of people also drive, but we do have specific vehicles that we know are ICE vehicles.

Speaker 21 And then, of course, we try to see the driver and lately what they've been doing is putting one guy up front it's almost always guys two in the back seat and they're usually in some sort of camouflage gear and if they see you looking they'll pull up their little face covers so we're we're doing some you know vehicle profiling and driver profiling to try and see if these are people that are dangerous to our neighbors

Speaker 1 And if they were to get out of the car

Speaker 1 and come towards someone, what would you do at that point?

Speaker 21 Well, we whistle as soon as we're sure it's ice. So we have the three short whistles when we're sure we see ice, and then long whistles if it looks like they're about to take somebody.

Speaker 21 And yeah, if they were getting out and coming towards somebody around me, I would be whistling, screaming. I would try to maintain a distance from them.
I'm not sure I would always be able to do that.

Speaker 21 It's my intention to keep a distance and be loud and just try and warn people.

Speaker 21 The schools have a plan that when they hear whistles or La Migra or ICE here, they take everyone inside, but it also alerts the neighbors.

Speaker 7 I think it's very important that you start from the basis that this is community self-defense,

Speaker 14 that you are here to

Speaker 24 help all of us be safe.

Speaker 7 in our neighborhood. It's ironic that you had to be safe against the government, but that's what it is.

Speaker 7 Yesterday, when I went to the site of the abduction, I saw that car of a woman that was taken, and there is the car just sitting there.

Speaker 7 You know, it's a reminder of someone that was driving that car that was disappeared. I also saw a picture reported in one of the channels of ICE going into the Home Depot in Evanston.

Speaker 14 And they were inside the store.

Speaker 7 There were two ICE agents on top of the back of the person that was there. You could see in the picture the man's hat on the side, and

Speaker 7 that is mind-blowing that someone goes to Home Depot to get materials for their work and ends up being kidnapped.

Speaker 7 And then, overall, having lost so many people, yesterday it's a sense of loss. This is our neighbors.
They had taken one of us,

Speaker 18 more than one.

Speaker 11 I moved here when I was

Speaker 11 30,

Speaker 11 30, 32, more or less.

Speaker 1 Here's another volunteer. He moved to the U.S.
from Mexico.

Speaker 10 My name is David. David in English, David in Spanish.

Speaker 8 I'm a Royus Park

Speaker 29 resident for the last

Speaker 30 18 years.

Speaker 1 Why did you choose to live in Rogers Park?

Speaker 10 My wife is a white woman and me, I'm a Latino guy, a brown-skinned Latino guy.

Speaker 11 So my wife did a research and what neighborhood will be the best for interracial couples.

Speaker 10 And we find out that Royus Park has like

Speaker 30 close to 90 languages spoken with a high diversity from all all over the place.

Speaker 13 So we say, wow, Roy espar it is.

Speaker 4 And since then we are here.

Speaker 1 What did you know about Chicago before you moved here?

Speaker 1 Did you come straight from Mexico to Chicago?

Speaker 31 That's a very interesting question.

Speaker 29 People always ask me that, like, why did I choose Chicago?

Speaker 31 Short answer is like, in Latin America, you don't hear about places like Cleveland, or you don't don't hear places about Oklahoma.

Speaker 11 You don't hear those names, but you hear about Chicago.

Speaker 13 And

Speaker 31 when I came to the US, I stopped by Texas.

Speaker 11 I was there for a couple weeks and I earned $70

Speaker 10 back on the 2000, 1999.

Speaker 10 And I wanted to go north.

Speaker 11 So I went to the greenhouse bus session.

Speaker 10 I approached the girl at the counter and I told her, I had $70.

Speaker 13 How far can I go north?

Speaker 15 So she started like looking at the schedules of the buses and she said, well, you can go to three places and the tickets are going to cost you the same.

Speaker 2 One,

Speaker 11 you can go to Cleveland, Ohio.

Speaker 31 You're going to pay $67

Speaker 29 with 54 cents.

Speaker 14 Let's say that.

Speaker 10 You can go to North Carolina and you're gonna pay 67 with 54 cents to North Carolina.

Speaker 31 You can go to Chicago and you can pay 67 with 54 cents. So that's up to you.

Speaker 31 So

Speaker 11 say, well, give me a ticket to Chicago. And that's how I end up in Chicago.

Speaker 1 What was the first job you got when you got here?

Speaker 29 Oh, God, I had dozens of jobs.

Speaker 15 I worked in a chocolate factory. I worked in a plastic factory.

Speaker 10 I worked in

Speaker 15 a bed factory.

Speaker 29 So many places until I found a job that kept me on my faith.

Speaker 10 And from that moment or from that work on,

Speaker 31 my life has been beautiful in Chicago.

Speaker 10 I mean, up to this moment, moment, I have no worries other than immigration.

Speaker 31 Other than that, my life is happy, is

Speaker 7 worryless.

Speaker 6 So, yeah.

Speaker 31 Now, I think I did the most

Speaker 10 wonderful, wise decision coming here because I have built a community here.

Speaker 1 How do you see this ending?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 8 I don't know. i know this like the unexpected consequence of this is that people in chicago are more and more organized every day

Speaker 21 well i i hope it's gonna end with us defeating this whole project and getting these people out of our city um

Speaker 21 i like to believe delia remedis when she said yesterday you're not gonna beat chicago

Speaker 9 Last night we got a message from

Speaker 9 an undocumented person who was driving in the neighborhood and overheard the whistles

Speaker 9 and realized, oh, something's up there, and then did a U-turn and just went a different way.

Speaker 9 We know that there were people taken today, but then we also don't know the number of people who maybe were able to turn around because they heard whistles.

Speaker 9 And this one woman messaged us and said, Yeah, I was able to avoid that area because I heard whistles and you were there. And thank you.

Speaker 9 I have another day.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 you know, using a whistle to warn, I mean, this could be

Speaker 1 300 years ago. You know, it's the most, in some ways, the most basic warning system.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 9 It gives some agency back to people to say, like, because I think there was a moment where we're like, what the fuck are we going to do? They have guns.

Speaker 1 They have tasers. They have tear gas.

Speaker 9 What can a regular person do about this? And it was just so, it was so elegant in a way. and

Speaker 9 is that tiny non-violent it's absolutely non-violent right and absolutely within our our rights as as people who live in this country to just blow the whistle to say that they're here

Speaker 30 probably this is a silly thing on me but i don't want fear to paralyze us to stop leaving.

Speaker 4 No,

Speaker 11 we're extra careful.

Speaker 30 Now, whenever we go to Home Depot, we just travel around one, two, three times, making sure that nothing is suspicious.

Speaker 11 And we escaped once.

Speaker 11 We got there up 10 minutes after they left.

Speaker 4 When people saw me at Home Depot, they recognized me and said, Hey, be careful.

Speaker 31 They just left.

Speaker 5 And they're like, Oh my God,

Speaker 11 let's get the stuff and let's go.

Speaker 31 So

Speaker 31 it's just like

Speaker 31 it's just been extra cautious

Speaker 22 but

Speaker 13 we have to move forward

Speaker 25 keep going

Speaker 10 things are gonna be done

Speaker 30 at some point

Speaker 15 this is not it's not gonna last forever

Speaker 1 Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer.
Katie Bishop is our supervising producer.

Speaker 1 Our producers are Susannah Robertson, Jackie Sejiko, Lily Clark, Lena Sillison, and Megan Kinnane. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti.

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Speaker 1 I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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Speaker 23 I'm Eli Patel, Editor and Chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems.

Speaker 23 We've talked a lot about generative AI on the show lately, which is a very big idea that is causing quite a few problems.

Speaker 23 And one thing we keep hearing about over and over again is that generative AI is causing a lot of problems in schools.

Speaker 23 There are a lot of people out there, including many of the listeners of the show who email us, who are worried about the obvious problem: students using ChatGPT to cheat on assignments.

Speaker 23 But when our team went and poked at the story, they found that the issues in education with AI go a lot deeper, to the very philosophy of education itself.

Speaker 32 If this technology becomes more ubiquitous, we'll have courses created by AI, graded by AI, with submissions from students absolutely generated by AI.

Speaker 32 So it begs the question: what are we even doing here in higher ed?

Speaker 23 This episode is presented by Salesforce.