Chicago, IL – On Wednesday, July 15, more than 200 Chicagoans held a vigil and marched in Little Village to honor the two victims shot and killed by ICE this past week; Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on July 8 in Houston, Texas, and Joan Sebastian Guerrero on July 12 in Biddeford, Maine.

“ICE agents continue to roam the streets and kidnap our people, and here in this neighborhood of La Villita they continue to tear apart families,” stated Gio Araujo of the Immigrant Rights Working Committee of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (IRWC of CAARPR)

Araujo continued, “We have been campaigning to hold the Chicago Police Department accountable for their actions taken during Operation Midway Blitz and to this day such as the what we saw in Albany Park this last month.”

Marcela Rodriguez of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights stated that “federal immigration agents have engaged in at least 39 shootings since January 2025. Those shootings have resulted in 11 deaths, including Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez here in Chicago. Clearly this shows that murder is one of ICE’s tactics.” Marcela called for Illinois police departments to issue protocols to prevent unlawful actions in and around court houses by ICE. “The choice is clear, they can either proactively prevent the next ICE murder, or they can stand idly by as ICE continues to terrorize our communities.”

Anna Guieb, from Tangol Migrante Chicago, highlighted the struggles that Filipino immigrants endure both in the homeland and in the U.S. when they arrive in search of a better life. “We are here to both honor all those we have lost, but also to fight like hell for the living.”

Jay Starks of CAARPR’s Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Torture (CFIST) emphasized the urgency for Chicago alderpersons to support the Community Power of Policing (CPOP) referendum. “Any official who speaks against accountability right now should be questioned, and that includes State’s Attorney Burke. Any official who opposes CPOP doesn’t see a connection between ICE murders, CPD torture and wrongful convictions needs to hear from us regularly,” said Starks.

As the vigil concluded in prayer and words of solidarity, the crowd then took to the streets and marched along 26th Street. Workers of nearby businesses came out in solidarity with chants of “Justicia for Lorenzo!” and “Justicia for Guerrero!” The march then concluded at a nearby park with a moment of silence for all victims of ICE violence.

The vigil and march was organized by the Immigrant Rights Working Committee with support from ICIRR, Tangol Migrante and Mexican Students de Aztlan at UIC in response to Legalization 4 All’s call for a week of action demanding justice for Lorenzo Salgado-Araujo and Nadia Topete.

#ChicagoIL #IL #ImmigrantRights #KillerICE

Chicago, IL – On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 15, over 200 National Nurses United (NNU) nurses from Illinois and across the country held a rally and picket outside of Illinois Senator Dick Durbin’s condo in Lakeview.

They demanded that Durbin reject and return all campaign contributions from Palantir Technologies, the AI tech company responsible for collecting civilians’ personal data on behalf of government agencies such as the US Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Department of War, and the Israeli military. About 15% of Palantir’s revenue comes from healthcare, and its software is currently managing 21% of U.S. hospital beds.

Brenda Langford is a registered nurse at Cook County and is one of the vice presidents of NNU. Langford spoke about how Palantir’s Timpani and Inspire scheduling software affect the day-to-day lives of nurses.

“At face value, [Timpani and Inspire] do a terrible job of what they're supposed to do,” Langford stated. “They're inflexible and don't accommodate nurse’s needs. They mess up our schedules, they don't provide a good mix of skills and experience among nurses for any given shift and ultimately they, of course, tend to short staff. We have learned of ICU units where nurses were tripled with patients because of these apps. This is unsafe!”

Langford’s words were met with strong agreement from the crowd. “On the back end,” Langford continued, “nurses are worried for the safety and privacy of themselves and their patients. Through all these products, Palantir has access to a whole host of sensitive data. Nurses need to download Timpani and Inspire on their personal phones, accept the terms, and input their entire profile into these apps in order to be able to use them.”

The nurses who spoke expressed concern not only for themselves, but for their patients, particularly those with vulnerable immigration status.

“The Trump administration and ICE has contracted Palantir to compile data on immigrants for their deportation machines, and to make it easier for the federal agencies to surveil, detain, and even kill those of us who protest and resist,” said Cathy Kennedy, president of NNU and California Nurses Association. “Recently in Maine, they killed Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, and in Houston, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, like they killed VA RN Alex Pretti, and mother Renee Good.”

Maria Heavener, an elementary school teacher and member of the Chicago Teachers Union, spoke to her encounter with ICE during Operation Midway Blitz last October. “They came within feet of our school and started deploying tear gas at our community members while our students were outside at recess,” Heavener stated. “[Palantir is] profiting off of this despair that they're putting families into. And then they're taking that profit and turning around and buying our representatives!”

Elinor Keener of Anti-War Committee – Chicago explained that in addition to being used to criminalize and deport immigrants in the US, Palantir helps Israel conduct its genocide in Gaza by developing “kill lists.” With very little human oversight, its AI software surveils Palestinians in order to choose targets for assassination and arrest, and then plans a sequence of attacks designed to kill the target. Those attacks often kill civilians near the target as well. When mass murder is built into the software, it is not ‘collateral damage’ – it’s genocide,” said Keener.

Keener then went on to describe how the Illinois State Board of Investment, which includes State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, nearly tripled its investment in Palantir over the past year. However, the board also quietly divested $33 million from companies complicit in genocide, apartheid and ICE attacks, which they tried to obscure from their 2025 annual report. “They hid this because elected officials like Michael Frerichs and Dick Durbin don’t want to admit that when we organize, we shape the political landscape,” Keener stated.

Despite the 90-degree heat and strong afternoon sun, the crowd at the rally was energized and engaged. The organizers had planned to hand-deliver their petition to the door of Senator Durbin’s condominium, but building security refused to let them inside. Undeterred, the crowd took the street and rallied there instead. “So, Senator Durbin,” Cathy Kennedy said, “we nurses wanna know, whose side are you on? Are you with our nurses, our patients, our communities; or are you with Peter Thiel, Alex Karp, JD Vance, and Donald Trump? Which side are you on?”

Supporters of the call to remove Palantir from the healthcare system can sign the NNU’s petition and follow their Save Our Hospitals Tour.

#ChicagoIL #IL #Labor #NNU #Nurses #AntiWarMovement #Palantir

Chicago, IL – On July 11 and 12, the Anti-War Action Network (AWAN) held its second national conference in Chicago. Reflecting AWAN’s growth of 11 more committees since its founding conference in 2025, over 250 participants gathered from more than 24 local anti-war groups from across the U.S.

As a grassroots, nationwide network, AWAN unites anti-war, pro-Palestine and student groups from across the country. The network’s growth follows a year of victorious campaigns led by AWAN affiliates and coordinated days of action responding to Trump’s aggression against Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.

Among these victories, New Orleans Stop Helping Israel’s Ports (NOSHIP) led a successful campaign to kick Chevron out of the city’s French Quarter Fest, and Palantir’s corporate headquarters was forced out of Colorado after a sustained campaign by Denver Anti-War Action.

The two-day conference reflected the geographic scale of AWAN’s growth, with speakers and panelists from cities including Denver, Colorado; New Orleans, Louisiana; Dallas, Texas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Jacksonville, Florida; San Jose, California, and Cleveland, Ohio.

Attendees benefited from the collective experience of AWAN through nine volunteer-run workshops on topics like “Lessons in Campaign Building,” “How to be in Coalitions and Build your Work,” “Design Matters: Using graphic design and zines to build the anti-war movement,” and “Media Relations 101: Strategies, tools, and tips for organizing.”

The conference’s opening panelists included Hatem Abudayyeh, the national chair of U.S. Palestine Community Network (USPCN); Steve Ellner, an advisory board member of the Science & Society journal and associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives; Chrisley Carpio of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression; Sara Flounders, the coordinator of the International Action Center, and Meredith Aby, a key AWAN leader, director of Women Against Military Madness, and co-founder of the MN Anti-War Committee.

Speaking of the BDS movement against Israel, Abudayyeh said, “Divestment victories are happening everywhere, including the recent one in Michigan, and the one led by USPCN and AWC right here in Illinois, when the Illinois State Board of Investments divested more than $33 million from corporations profiting off war, genocide and ICE raids.”

In her opening remarks, Aby said “The Anti-War Action Network’s guiding objective as an organization is building a broad movement opposed to the greatest cause of injustice in the world today, which is the United States and its destructive wars, sanctions and interventions.”

Aby reported that AWAN remains on a trajectory of growth, boasting 28 member organizations and many other groups planning to affiliate after the conference.

The conference received greetings from BAYAN USA, a progressive, anti-imperialist alliance of grassroots Filipino organizations across the United States, and Nodutdol, an organization of Koreans organizing for social justice, Korea's reunification and an end to U.S. imperialism.

On the second day of the conference, AWAN elected an expanded steering committee to reflect its nationwide reach and passed 12 resolutions, both of which are available on its website.

If your organization would like to learn more about AWAN or join and participate in national calls to action, go to antiwaractionnetwork.org.

#ChicagoIL #IL #AntiWarMovement #AWAN #Iran #Palestine #Featured

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement by Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, alderwoman, 33rd Ward, Chicago City Council.

Last year, Donald Trump sent his ICE troops into immigrant and Latino communities across the country. I was physically assaulted by ICE in June when I advocated for my neighbors at an immigration facility.

Protesting ICE is not a crime. That’s my response to news that Nadia Topete of Centro CSO in Los Angeles has been subpoenaed to a federal grand jury for a second time.

Nadia did nothing wrong. All she did was exercise her right to speak out against the violence being perpetrated against her Chicano and Latino immigrant community.

I am from Puerto Rico, and the Puerto Rican movement has been subjected again and again to grand juries. We know that grand juries are a prosecutorial tool to produce indictments instead of justice.

I understand this also could be an attempt to re-examine the case of Alejandro Orellana, another immigrant’s rights activist in LA who participated in the anti-ICE protests last year. Alejandro was charged with conspiracy to commit civil unrest. The false charges were later dropped.

When I confronted ICE last year, I said, “We would do whatever we can to help anyone in need.” I took that stand a year ago; I take that stand today.

#ChicagoIL #IL #ImmigrantRights #NadiaTopete #PoliticalRepression #CentroCSO #Featured

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement by Byron Sigcho-Lopez, the Chicago City Council member representing the 25th Ward.

The Trump administration is again intensifying the repression against immigrant, Latino and Chicano communities across the country. I add my voice to those speaking up to defend Nadia Topete in Los Angeles.

Nadia is an immigrant rights activist with the organization Centro Community Service Organization (CSO). Like many thousands of young people, she rose up to defend her community when ICE terrorized the LA barrios in 2025.

She is being subpoenaed for a second time to appear in front of a federal grand jury. Our movement is well aware that grand juries are unconstitutional tools of political repression.

Nadia acted heroically when she went out to protest ICE last year, and she is again showing real courage. We know Nadia has not committed any crime: it’s the Trump administration and ICE that are guilty of violating the rights of our communities, brutalizing us, breaking up families, and murdering members of the immigrant community, such as Silverio Villegas Gonzalez in a Chicago suburb.

This is a very serious attack on our movement. Nadia Topete is a courageous immigrant rights activist who deserves our support.

Hands off Nadia Topete!

#ChicagoIL #IL #InJusticeSystem #PoliticalRepression #NadiaTopete #ImmigrantRights #CentroCSO #Featured

Chicago, IL – On Monday morning, June 29, a crowd representing dozens of organizations stood together with Mayor Brandon Johnson to announce the introduction of the Protecting Renters Ordinance (PRO). The press conference happened downtown across the street from city hall, where the PRO was formally introduced at a meeting of the Committee on Housing and Real Estate later the same morning.

“Housing is a human right. That cannot just be a rallying cry. That must be the reality for every Chicagoan,” Mayor Johnson declared. “We must use every tool available to us to keep Chicagoans in their homes.”

Lisette Castañeda, commissioner of the Department of Housing, explained the five components of the PRO: the creation of a tenant bill of rights, a citywide rental registry, an office to investigate and enforce renter’s complaints, legal representation for tenants facing eviction, and just cause for eviction or nonrenewal of leases.

“This will give the department the power to hold bad landlords accountable,” Castañeda explained.

Johnson criticized previous administrations that “kept organizers at arm’s length.” His approach of working with organizers showed in the variety of organizations present in support of the PRO.

Tulsi McDaniels, an organizer with Metropolitan Tenants Organization, shared the experiences of tenants who are currently vulnerable to arbitrary fees and eviction.

“Even in situations where a tenant has done everything right and used the current RLTO law to the fullest extent, it isn’t enough.” McDaniels said. The PRO would be the first major rewrite of the Residential Landlord Tenants Ordinance since its introduction in 1986 during the administration of Harold Washington.

Public comments were divided between landlords and renters. Landlords are against the PRO because it would not allow them to charge junk fees, excessively increase rent, or evict people for no reason. In her comment, Chicago Teachers Union member Rose Taylor urged committee members to think of working-class people who usually can’t make it to city council meetings on a weekday morning.

“As an educator I’ve seen firsthand the impact housing insecurity has on a child’s education,” high school social studies teacher and CTU Housing Committee chair Kevin Moore said in his public comment. Moore also described the benefits the PRO would have for the health and safety of his students outside of school.

The PRO will be voted on in the fall and, if it passes, will go into effect on January 1, 2027. With landlords putting their time and money into opposing the ordinance, it will be important for renters and working class people to fight for the PRO.

#ChicagoIL #IL #PeoplesStruggles #BrandonJohnson #Housing #Renters

Chicago, IL – On Thursday, July 25, a press conference was held outside of the monthly Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) meeting welcoming the two new commissioners, as well as continuing to demand CPD be held accountable for collaboration with federal agents during Operation Midway Blitz. The meeting took place at Benito Juarez High School, in the predominantly Chicano working-class neighborhood of Pilsen. The press conference was held by the Immigrants’ Rights Working Committee of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (IRWC of CAARPR).

“Commissioner Anjanette Young and Commissioner Guzman, welcome to your new position on the CCPSA. We, the Immigrants Rights Working Committee, have been diligently attending every single CCPSA meeting since the launch of our campaign to end CPD-ICE collaboration,” said Helena Fuentes of the IRWC.

Fuentes added, “We implore you to please, lean into your humanity and compassion, and not only consider our campaign, but please act.”

“Despite months and months of asking this commission to step up, and take an active role, the work hasn't been done yet. Since the comm