Chicago’s Black Immigrants Face New Wave of ICE Arrests and Uncertainty
Nearly 70,000 immigrants from African countries live in the city, making up 5.2% of the population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
capitalbnews.org
Nearly 70,000 immigrants from African countries live in the city, making up 5.2% of the population, according to U.S. Census Bureau data...
Many Black immigrants in the Chicago metro area have
settled in majority-Black neighborhoods where earlier generations of their families already live — including Evanston and
Rogers Park on the North Side, and Woodlawn and South Shore on the South Side.
...
Some longtime Chicago residents say they were conflicted about continuing to support the thousands of African, Caribbean, South and Central American asylum-seekers sent to the city by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott beginning in 2022.
...[W]hile many of these Black Chicago residents oppose the current administration’s use of federal troops to override local policies and separate families under the guise of law and order,
they’re also concerned their own communities — already facing underinvestment, housing shortages, and rising costs — are still being overlooked...
Valerie Lacarte, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said efforts to meet Trump’s goal of
15 million deportations could lead to overpolicing in low-income Black and brown communities...
Black Chicagoans’ views on immigration vary
...Ernestine Williams, 68, a Chicago native, and Lorna Garbutt, 72,
a naturalized citizen from Belize 
, said they don’t believe Black residents should involve themselves in what they view as a politically charged immigration crackdown...
“From the Black community’s perspective, I don’t see this going anywhere positive,” said Lacarte, who was born in Canada to Haitian-born parents. “Even if Black people don’t think they are necessarily the main target at this time, you know, they can easily be.” 
Decades prior to the 2022 influx of asylum seekers into Chicago’s North and South sides, there had been an increase of immigrants from countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Haiti, Jamaica, Mali, Somalia, and Senegal.
Many of the migrants bused from Texas to Chicago in 2022 had no idea where they were headed, Lacarte said. Among them were Black immigrants — from Africa, the Caribbean, and Spanish-speaking countries in Central, Latin, and South America — who also identify as Black, she added.
“It seemed, perhaps at a time, like it was a haven for them to come and get housing and food and everything, 
and yet,” Lacarte said about the emergency situation that included temporary housing.
Since the influx of migrants, some Black Chicagoans said they’ve been forced to compete for resources they’ve needed long before the newcomers arrived. Much of their frustration stems from a 2024 lawsuit that revealed
$30 million in taxpayer funds had been allocated since 2022 to
house migrants. That money, some argue, has come at the expense of long-standing needs in Black communities, particularly housing and food access.
Dana Mosley, a social worker who has lived in Chicago on and off for 23 years, said because of this,
many older Black residents feel unmoved by the threat of federal immigration crackdowns...
In a phone interview,
Mosley described the 2-to-1 sentiment among the retired women Capital B spoke to — Brock, Garbutt, and Williams — as being “desensitized” after years of living in overpoliced communities and “not in fear.”
Mosley empathizes with Latino families, who are afraid to leave their homes to go to the grocery store or work in fear of being stopped by ICE.
“I feel for these people with immigration issues, but I have been Black my whole life,” said Mosley, who also identifies as Native American. “I can’t walk around in fear. My son, who is 17, commutes … he can’t live in fear.”
Shocking, Chicagoans seem to agree with us.
@At30wecashout Thoughts?
Every time they post a story about some legal Black citizen getting snatched up by ICE there’s always some plot twist in there. 
