Across the city, the Trump administration’s “Midway Blitz” deportation campaign has been accompanied by an unexpected soundtrack: high-pitched whistling noises.
The whistles have become a new tool in a growing effort to warn vulnerable neighbors when federal immigration agents are in their area. The whistling also serves as a call for people to converge around ICE activity and document it.
For Chicagoans, it’s a way to fight back against what many see as overly aggressive immigration arrests, as people are picked up outside of schools, churches and courthouses. Organizers say the use of whistles has led ICE agents to limit their time in a community or decrease their aggressiveness.
Community organizer Teresa Magaña, who works in Pilsen, said the whistles are “making a huge difference.”
She first got the idea to bring the whistles to Chicago in August, after seeing a video of activists touting their effectiveness in LA
“In these videos, you are now seeing (ICE agents) driving away, or they don’t hang out long,” Magaña said. “And as soon as the cameras come up, the aggressiveness eases.”
If ICE agents are nearby, it instructs people to blow three short bursts. If they’re actively detaining someone, users should sound the alarm by blowing one long, continuous whistle.
Magaña began to distribute the whistle kits in late August. From there, they spread all over Chicago. Now, community groups citywide are printing their pamphlets by the hundreds and hosting events for volunteers to fold and distribute them, along with the whistles.
The events are giving concerned residents a chance to feel as though they are contributing to the safety of their communities at a time when federal immigration tactics have grown increasingly combative.
That includes Yesenia Villegas, whose uncle, Silverio Villegas Gonzalezwas fatally shot in a traffic stop in Franklin Park last month by ICE agents.
“It put the whole family on edge,” Villegas said. “Everyone’s tense and depressed. It just feels like we are not welcome here.”
Villegas took part in a Whistlemania event last week.
“The fact that we finished assembling a bunch of these packets so quickly, it gives me a little hope,” she said.
Isabella Murk, a teacher from Albany Park, attended a packed Whistlemania event at an Irving Park restaurant last Tuesday.
“This weekend was the first time that I felt really scared in my community because there was tear gas and it seemed more violent than it had been,” Murk said, “And so I wanted to get more involved as I saw things escalating.”
Whistlemania drew so many volunteers that at some events organizers had to turn people away. Jackie Birov had to drive to another Whistlemania location in Avondale just to get in.
Birov said it was worth going the extra distance because “I care about the city, I care about this country, and I care about the people who are being targeted and brutalized (by ICE agents).”
The last few weeks she said she peacefully protested at the Broadview processing facility and tried to document ICE activity while driving around. But “I have not had a whistle this whole time,” she said. “It’s kind of silly that I don’t. I’ve just been in my car honking or yelling.”
That night Birov left the event with her own whistle.
“Everyone around me has one,” she said. “I’m glad I finally have one too.”
Anna Savchenko is a reporter for WBEZ.
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