After President Donald Trump’s reelection, Evelyn Rodriguez, a social worker at a K-8 school on Chicago’s North Side, received a letter from one of her students. That student no longer attends school. No one in the community has seen or heard from this student or their family since.

The letter read: “Estoy triste porque las noticias están diciendo que me van a reportar y deportar a Ecuador.” The student was saddened by news reports about Trump’s deportation threats, and thought they would soon be deported from their Rogers Park neighborhood to Ecuador.

In September, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began Operation Midway Blitz, in which they detained children and adults presumed to be undocumented immigrants, often with force.

The ongoing detentions prompted local activists to organize to protect their neighbors. Protect Rogers Park, a community group formed in 2017, has led ICE watch training and connects impacted families with aid services. 

“This is probably the first time we’ve really had to activate in such an intense way,” said  Torrence Gardner, a founding member of Protect Rogers Park.

Gardner said the group has witnessed at least 10 immigrant detentions in the neighborhood since federal agents arrived in the city. Group members call them “abductions.”

Rodriguez, who has attended Protect Rogers Park events, said her school has also seen a decrease in enrollment by over 100 students. Others who remain enrolled are completing work at home on school-provided Chromebooks because they said in-person attendance no longer feels safe for them. 

Rodriguez said several parents are also missing necessary meetings with school staff because they are worried about their safety while transporting themselves to the school. She says the school’s Halloween Trunk or Treat event was cancelled because federal agents were present in the school’s parking lot. 

“They’re missing out on socialization. They’re missing out on peer relationships, emotional regulation. They are missing out on so much that they need in the early stages of development,” Rodriguez said. “I am upset because all I can say is ‘I am sorry.’” 

These are just a few ways that families’ lives have changed because of Operation Midway Blitz.

Gardner says ICE has used a tactic known as “staging,” — prohibited by Mayor Johnson’s “ICE Free Zone” executive order — when city parking lots, vacant lots and garages are used for mobilizing or deploying immigration personnel.

Protect Rogers Park has never seen anything like it before. 

“We adjusted pretty quickly, and this is the biggest turnout we’ve ever had, with thousands of volunteers,” Gardner said.

In response, Protect Rogers Park volunteers have organized school patrols to help parents and students get home safely, and they have distributed whistles to blow when agents are spotted. They also organize events, such as training sessions, educational webinars and “B*tch and Wine,” an event where community members are invited to rant about anything going on in their lives over a glass of wine. 

After Operation Midway Blitz began, neighbors immediately gathered for a rally, and traffic on the group’s social media posts surged. 

“We haven’t seen that level of intensity ever,” Gardner said.

 Joey Sylvester, another early member of Protect Rogers Park, sees herself as a community facilitator within the group. She can often be spotted at Protect Rogers Park events, handing out the now-recognizable orange whistles, gathering contact information and answering questions about provided services and volunteer opportunities.

Sylvester, who is 79, has spent most of her adult life in volunteer work and activism. In the late 1960s, she protested the Vietnam War. She has worked to help formerly homeless women and mothers whose children have been murdered. Sylvester credits her work to how she was raised and also to her sons.

 “I have two sons who are Black, and so to me, on a selfish level, part of my organizing since they’ve been with us, is also related to that struggle,” Sylvester said.

In 1982, Sylvester was part of Wellington United Church of Christ, which was one of the first public sanctuaries beyond the Mexico border to welcome migrants from Guatemala and El Salvador without documents.  

When Trump was elected to his first term in office, Sylvester received a mass call to action from Protect Rogers Park co-founders Gabe González and Marissa Graciosa. She responded immediately, walking down to Living Water Church into a room of more than 300 people.

 “We really got organized. We canvassed neighbors about Know Your Rights. We started to form different teams to work on different aspects of the resistance,” she said. “We had community events. We did training back then in self-defense and ICE Watch.”

There was not much ICE activity or work for the group until last December, after Trump’s reelection, when Sylvester sat with the other group founders and volunteers. They asked themselves, “What are we going to do now? Do we still have the capacity to do this work?”

The answer was yes — but at that point, they had no idea what the neighborhood would be facing.

“This context is very different because of the risks and the brutality we’re seeing now,” Sylvester said.

The group’s safety efforts meet community needs in a few ways, members say. Volunteer escorts usually don’t prevent detainment, but Gardner said they can act as a deterrent. 

Volunteers film interactions between ICE and community members so Protect Rogers Park can follow up to see what can be done for detainees. They also try to notify family members and warn other neighbors and neighborhoods. Gardner and others say the school patrols provide a feeling of safety for children and families.

But feelings of safety can’t guarantee it. 

On Nov. 5, ICE went into a day care in the North Center neighborhood and detained a teacher in front of children, sparking conversation between Protect Rogers Park organizers about ways to help families find safe childcare and other services. 

“We need more people to keep stepping up because people are getting tired — more and more hands and eyes and ears, because this is far from over,” Gardner said.

Gardner is no stranger to activism. The grandson of a civil rights activist and Chicago Lesbian Hall of Fame inductee, Gardner’s own work began when he was 23, fresh out of college and living in St. Louis.

“I got involved in the Black Lives Matter stuff, but it wasn’t Black Lives Matter yet,” Gardner said. “It was … a kid who was killed by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri.” 

Riots in Ferguson over the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown marked the start of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“And I was there,” Gardner said.

Sylvester has been an active community member for many years in Rogers Park, which she refers to as “The People’s Republic of Rogers Park.” But she said it’s time for others to take the lead.

“I’m honored I’m still able to do it … at my age,” she said. “I’m able to still physically and mentally hang together with the younger people who are part of the future. It’s up to them to carry it forward.”

But just as Rodriguez worries for her sons and her neighbors, she continues to worry about her students.

“This is what social work has come to now because our systems are broken,” she said. “Our systems are not working.”  

Despite the unprecedented challenges her students are facing, she is “so proud of the families that are continuing to show up to school, that are continuing to pursue their education.”

Through it all, members of the Protect Rogers Park community have also shown up for students and their promise to continue their efforts until all can feel safe at school and in their homes is clear.

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