Last week, speaking before hundreds of generals, Trump said that “dangerous” cities like Chicago (that is, Democratic-led, with large Black and immigrant populations) should be used as “training grounds” for the military. This has not happened in Chicago... yet. But hours before Trump uttered those words, a residential neighborhood in Chicago’s South Side looked like a war zone when a massive swarm of heavily armed federal agents carried out a middle-of-the-night assault on an apartment building.

The target was a five-story apartment building in South Shore—a mainly poor Black neighborhood that has seen an influx of immigrants recently. The building included Black and Venezuelan residents. After the raid, a Black man said of his Venezuelan neighbors, “They were cool people. They didn’t speak a lick of English, but we used translator apps to talk to each other.”

The gestapo raid began at 10 pm Monday night and went on till 2 or 3 am. It involved some 300 agents from Border Patrol, ICE, FBI, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to news reports, as well as our exclusive interview with a neighborhood resident, some of the agents rappelled down from a Blackhawk helicopter to the building’s rooftop. Drones flew overhead, and large vans were parked outside for those the feds kidnapped.

Without any warrants or warning, thugs in camouflage and with guns drawn rampaged through the building—setting off flash-bang grenades, busting down doors, and pulling people out, including children. Pertissue Fisher, a Black woman, told local ABC News that she came out into the hallway in her nightgown and was confronted by armed agents: “It was scary, because I had never had a gun in my face.” She said, “They just treated us like we were nothing.”

All the people in the building were pulled outside, some barely clothed or even without any clothes, including children. Apparently, all the federal forces took away all the immigrants in the building—it’s not clear at this point where the government is keeping them and what their status is. Parents were separated from their children. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker ordered the state Department of Children and Family Services to investigate the abuse of these children at the hands of the federal forces. 

Black residents were threatened that they would be arrested if they had outstanding warrants. At least one Black person was arrested by the Chicago police for an outstanding warrant off of the raid.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said they detained 37 people from the raid. They claimed they were after members of the Tren de Aragua gang—without any evidence, according to a Sun-Times/WBEZ report.

Residents who came back into the building after the raid was over found their apartments ransacked, doors blown off hinges, personal property missing, hallways trashed and with large holes in the walls. One neighbor, who described agents using chain saws to get into the building, said: “We’re under siege. We’re being invaded by our own military.”

Eboni Watson, a Black woman who lives nearby, said, “They [the immigrants taken by the armed agents] was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other. That’s all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where’s the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'fuck them kids.’”

“Fuck them kids”… that is a horrific, concentrated expression of the profound immorality, inhumanity, and depravity of not just this military-style raid in Chicago but the whole illegitimate Trump fascist regime.

Major Leap in Repression

The DHS turned footage from this fascist raid into a sick promo video posted on their site—aimed at rallying and hardening the MAGA section of the USA to go along with and even celebrate the horrors being perpetrated, with far worse to come. This includes those like the fascist Chicago alderman Raymond Lopez who posted that the immigrants rounded up in the South Shore raid “will not be missed” except by the Chicago mayor and “Leftinos.”

This military-style raid on an apartment building in a mainly Black residential area represents a leap in the Trump regime’s offensive against those the fascists see as “enemies” that need to be smashed into submission—or eliminated altogether. As more than a few commentators have noted, it is similar to what Hitler and the Nazis did as they moved to clamp down their fascist rule in 1930s Germany. And the speed and intensity with which Trump MAGA fascists are moving is rapidly increasing. 

It should be noted that the gestapo thugs in this raid went after both immigrants and Black people—and treated both as less than human. One of the apartment residents, 67-year-old Rodrick Johnson, said agents broke through his door, put him in zip ties, and dragged him outside, where he was detained for three hours. Johnson said, “I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up. I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”

Rap artist Vic Mensa posted on Instagram after the raid: “Many of us said when this shit started, this is our problem. ICE is our problem. I was met with so much denial: ‘No, thank you.’ ‘I think we’ll sit this one out.’ But we don’t have that luxury. Black people in America are so deeply entrenched in systems of oppression that oppression against anyone is invariably going to spill into our backyard … at this moment, it’s suicidal to not be unified, because the same agents of the state are attacking, abducting, and killing us both at the same time. And they’re relying on our separation.”

Escalating Repression and Threats of Invasion

The raid in South Shore is part of rapidly escalating repression and threats from the Trump fascist regime against Chicago. In early September, Trump declared war on the city, posting on his social media, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR”—with an image of him in military uniform and helicopters flying in the background, and the words “Chipocalypse Now.” The DHS then began “Operation Midway Blitz,” a major leap in anti-immigrant repression in Chicago and surrounding areas, arresting over 1,000 people by the beginning of October. 

As part of the “blitz,” in mid-September DHS head Kristi Noem led a raid on a house in Elgin, a suburb northwest of Chicago, with a huge force of agents in military gear. They took seven people, including two U.S. citizens who were detained for hours before being released. 

Protesters at the ICE “processing center” in Broadview, west of Chicago, where immigrants are imprisoned under brutal conditions, have faced arrests and intensifying violence by armed federal forces. When Broadview city officials voiced opposition to the brutality against protesters, ICE told them that the protests would be met with a “shit show.”

On the last Sunday of September, Border Patrol “commander-at-large” Gregory Bovino led dozens of federal agents in a fascist show of force in downtown Chicago—wearing camouflage and armed with long guns. Bovino told a reporter (a white man) that they were targeting people in part based on “how they look. How they look compared to you, say.” Among those they grabbed that day was a family of four from Guatemala, who were just enjoying a day out at Millennium Park. 

In the days following the South Shore raid on Monday night – Tuesday morning, ICE and other federal gestapo have continued terrorizing people across city.  On Saturday, the White House announced that Trump had authorized the deployment of 300 National Guard troops in Chicago, over Gov. Pritzker’s opposition. 

As revolutionary leader Bob Avakian says in a recent social media message (Revolution #141, “The Time Is Urgently Upon Us Now—To Drive Out The Trump Fascist Regime!”): “Every day this is driven home more and more forcefully and cruelly: There is no living with this Trump/MAGA fascism—it must be removed from power before it commits even more horrific atrocities and forcibly shuts down any real possibility of resistance.”

Needed NOW: Unprecedented, Historic Mobilization and Convergence of Millions in DC on Nov. 5, Demanding the Fall of the Trump Regime

The escalating repression and threats have stoked fear—but people in Chicago have continued to oppose Trump’s crackdown in the streets and in other ways. Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order, “Protecting the Right to Protest and Facilitating Safe and Peaceful Assembly,” in the face of the crackdown. On Tuesday night after the South Shore raid, hundreds marched through downtown Chicago, blocking streets for hours. 

Such resistance, in Chicago and across the country, is positive—and can play a critical role in building toward what is urgently needed right now, as pointed to by Bob Avakian in that same message:

The profound question with which all decent people are now confronted is: Will we rise together, in the millions, to do what urgently needs to be done, to drive out this Trump fascist regime that is a truly terrible scourge on humanity and a very serious threat to humanity’s future?

This means actively resisting—massively defying and demanding that all institutions refuse to comply with—the dictates of this fascist regime. It means rallying in even greater numbers than before on October 18 in the “No Kings 2.0” demonstrations around the country. And, most crucially, it means actively taking up the Call initiated by RefuseFascism.org, and open to all:

“The Time has come for...THE FALL of the TRUMP FASCIST REGIME – Beginning November 5, 2025 – Washington DC.” The Call continues:

“Fascism is not a looming threat. It is upon us now. 

“Humanity’s only hope is for the decent people of this country to rise in our millions. We cannot wait for future and rigged elections. We must drive the Trump Fascist Regime from power.

“Beginning November 5, the one-year anniversary of Trump’s election, flood DC in nonviolent protest. Surround the White House. Surround the Capitol. Surround the illegitimate fascist-packed Supreme Court. Come back again and again. Across the country, refuse to comply. Every person of conscience, millions of us together, grind the machinery of the fascist regime to a halt.

“Don’t stop until Trump is removed.”