{"id":17865,"date":"2025-10-15T18:14:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T16:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=17865"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:41:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T16:41:39","slug":"es-war-wie-im-krieg-trumps-grenztruppen-und-der-ausnahmezustand-im-eigenen-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/es-war-wie-im-krieg-trumps-grenztruppen-und-der-ausnahmezustand-im-eigenen-land\/","title":{"rendered":"It Felt Like War - Trump\u2019s Border Troops and the State of Emergency at Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

The air on Chicago\u2019s South Side has been thick with anger \u2013 and tear gas \u2013 since Tuesday afternoon. In a residential neighborhood where children were playing and people were running errands, agents of the U.S. Border Patrol chased a man through the streets, rammed vehicles, drew weapons, and fired gas canisters. What began as a traffic stop ended in a scene reminiscent of Latin American military dictatorships: armored uniforms, screaming residents, coughing police officers, a street cloaked in the white haze of the state. Authorities call it a \u201cpursuit.\u201d But that is a lie. We call it an assault, because nothing else can describe the scale of it. The driver, according to the Department of Homeland Security, was \u201callegedly in the country illegally\u201d and had rammed a Border Patrol vehicle before fleeing. Within minutes the chase was over \u2013 but the damage had just begun. When residents protested, the agents fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. It was not an isolated incident. In recent weeks, federal agents have repeatedly deployed tear gas in residential areas \u2013 in Albany Park, on the West Side, and now in the South. Always with the same justification: national security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But what is happening here has nothing to do with border security anymore. It is the export of isolationist policy into the cities, a war against civil society under the label \u201cOperation Midway Blitz.\u201d ICE and Border Patrol agents, originally tasked with guarding the border, now operate deep inside the country \u2013 as if every street had become a border. The Department of Homeland Security has transformed from an agency of protection into one of intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even for Chicago, a city with a long history of political protest, the escalation is unprecedented. Thirteen police officers were accidentally exposed to the gas, according to authorities \u2013 a symbol of the chaos of an operation that no one seems to control anymore. Governor J. B. Pritzker condemned the operation harshly. \u201cAbominable,\u201d he called the treatment of protesters. People, he said, were attacked with tear gas, pepper pellets, and rubber bullets \u201cjust because they\u2019re holding signs and expressing their opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Legally, the operation is also an open violation of the ongoing court ruling that prohibits the use of tear gas, pepper pellets, and similar \u201ccrowd control agents\u201d in residential areas. Back in July, Federal Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer had warned the Washington administration not to deploy federal agencies \u201coutside clearly defined security zones.\u201d That ICE and Border Patrol continue to operate in Chicago is more than an institutional breach of law \u2013 it is a defiance of the separation of powers, carried out in the name of public order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sentence that in another country might sound banal rings like an indictment in the United States of 2025. The tear gas also struck people who had nothing to do with the scene: passersby, families, elderly residents. Andrew Denton, a local resident, was hit as he stood outside a grocery store on the West Side. \u201cThere were children outside \u2013 elementary school kids at recess,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s sad that this is the reality. That the government treats its own cities this way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meanwhile, the protests are growing. Activists are blocking federal vehicles, following their convoys, filming every move. Outside the deportation facility in Broadview, demonstrators are standing day and night. The government is responding with force. Just last week, two people were charged for allegedly \u201cboxing in\u201d a Border Patrol vehicle. The agent fired five shots at the woman \u2013 she survived. Both defendants were released on bail. The pattern is clear. A government that has been deploying the National Guard to Democratic-run cities for months is now shifting its strategy \u2013 from control at the border to control at home. The \u201cenemy\u201d is no longer the smuggler or the trafficker but the citizen himself. Chicago, once a symbol of industrial rise, has become a testing ground: how far can violence be disguised as administration before society pushes back? It is pushing back \u2013 and Chicago is already preparing for the next war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer seems close. The protests are growing, also in Springfield, where activists on Tuesday demanded an expansion of the so-called Trust Act \u2013 a law that prohibits local authorities from cooperating with ICE. \u201cSanctuary cities\u201d have become islands of resistance, legally and morally. But while politicians argue, people on Chicago\u2019s streets are breathing tear gas. Children are coughing, adults are filming, and the government remains silent. The official terminology is \u201ccrowd control measures.\u201d In truth, it is the language of intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cborder protection\u201d has lost its border \u2013 spatially, legally, morally. What is happening in Chicago is no accident but a system. A government that fires tear gas at its own citizens has lost its moral compass. And a society that accepts it will, in the end, lose itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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