Chicago residents use whistles as resistance tool against US immigration enforcement

CHICAGO – As the shrill sound of whistles echoed through a parking garage in Chicago’s North Side on Oct 21, two people flung their car doors open, ducked inside and shrank down into their seats.

Outside, a convoy of US federal immigration enforcement vehicles that had arrived in the area just minutes prior sped off.

“We just saw a bunch of guys with whistles that chased them out,” said Mr Luke, a landscaper who was working nearby and declined to share his full name. 

The Trump administration in early September

launched a deportation crackdown

in the Chicago area, targeting what it said were hardened criminals among immigrants in the US without legal status, though many non-criminals have been swept up in raids.

Since then, the piercing blow of a whistle has become a Chicago-wide means of signalling that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or US Customs and Border Protection agents are present. It warns undocumented people to flee and invites US citizens to come to the scene to record arrests, give detainees legal information and discourage agents from lingering. 

The aggressive immigration enforcement effort – which has no end date – has sparked widespread protests and resentment among residents.

Hundreds of federal agents have fanned across the third-largest city in the US and its suburbs, often carrying assault rifles and wearing military fatigues.

Agents have launched tear gas at crowds, rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to raid an apartment building, dragged immigrants from cars, held people at gunpoint and shot two people, including one fatally. 

Against this heavily militarised force, whistles have become a modest but effective tool to fight back. 

"It grew like wildfire," said Mr Baltazar Enriquez, president of Little Village Community Council, a community group in one of Chicago's largest Latino enclaves.

"If we have to patrol our neighborhood for the next three years, we're willing to do that just to keep our community safe."

The group began handing out the whistles to neighbourhood residents over the summer. Since then, relentless promotion turned the whistles into a defining symbol of Chicago’s resistance against ICE.

Volunteers from whistle-making parties and local activist groups have passed out the whistles at local festivals and parades and dropped them off at Little Free Libraries.

Some residents have picked up whistles from community groups that advertised them on social media – others have simply bought them from dollar stores and Amazon. 

Ms Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said: “Our officers are highly trained.” She added: “They are not afraid of loud noises and whistles.”

Their ease of use and low cost have contributed to their soaring popularity on the streets and on social media. But the impact of a whistle against squads of armed, fast-moving immigration officers is limited.

On a quiet residential street in another North Side neighborhood, residents ran out of their apartments to confront ICE officers as they detained a group of landscapers.

Their whistles and shouts managed to draw a crowd and elicit names of detainees to be passed on to immigration rights groups, but officers still drove away with two people.

Ms Joanne Willer, a resident of Albany Park who used her whistle to sound the alarm about the detention, said: “I’m sure I’ll cry again later. It’s just really upsetting.”

Afterwards, other residents of Albany Park – a Chicago neighbourhood known for its diversity and at which federal immigration agents launched tear gas earlier in October – carried different kinds of noisemakers as they patrolled the streets.

Ms Jordan, who declined to share her last name out of fear of retribution, carried her son’s toy train whistle.

“I'm Jewish, and I feel very personally tied to what's going on here because of our history as a Jewish people,” she said. “I feel like if we're not out here supporting our neighbours, nobody else is going to be doing it.” REUTERS