Since September, ICE agents deployed by President Donald Trump have wreaked havoc on the Chicagoland area, with raids, detainment, and what rapper Recoechi tells Rolling Stone amounts to “abduction” taking place in predominantly Black and brown communities. In September, Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Chicago man, was fatally shot by an ICE agent, while 30-year-old Marimar Martinez was shot by Customs and Border Protection Officers on October 4; in both instances, there are conflicting stories between the Department of Homeland Security’s narrative and witness accounts.
Viral clips show ICE agents teargassing residents for protecting their neighbors from potential detainment, and other violent actions. In September, a 130-unit building in Chicago’s South Shore was raided, with almost every one of the building’s residents — even children — being detained.
The hip-hop community has long held a mirror to the world and amplified the people’s plight. That’s continuing to happen in Chicago, with Chance The Rapper displaying a “Fuck ICE” sign at a show while rapping his Drapetomia lyrics: “I got a new chain that say, ‘Fuck ICE.’” Recently, Vic Mensa penned a New York Times op-ed where he called for solidarity while exploring the city’s Black and brown relations.
And musically, Chicago rapper Cece Bke dropped “FCK ICE” on her social media platforms, a song that explores the predicament of “ICE lurkin’ through my city like they own the fuckin’ spot / kickin’ doors, tryna rip all these families apart.” On the fiery track, the up-and-coming artist rhymes, “Bitch don’t ask how I’m ridin’ for my Migos / I’mma slide for them cause they would slide if it was me hoe.” There’s been a misguided assertion that what’s happening with ICE is only a Latino issue, but ICE’s bombardment of both Black and Brown communities in Chicago demonstrates otherwise.
Rolling Stone reached out to over a dozen of Chicago’s who’s who of rappers. Some didn’t respond, others outright declined comment, while four of them shared their thoughts, which are below.
Christian Loggins*
Cece Bke
I feel like ICE is targeting Black and Brown people, breaking up families, and creating fear in our neighborhoods. Instead of protecting us, they criminalize us.
[They’re] causing fear, trauma, and division. Families are scared to leave their homes, kids [are growing] afraid their parents won’t be there when they come back from school. It breaks up households, it takes people away from jobs, and it destroys trust between communities and the systems that are supposed to serve us. Instead of helping, they’re hurting us. Trump calling Chicago a ‘war zone’ is disrespectful to the people who live here and fight every day for better. Yes, there’s violence, but that comes from poverty, lack of resources, and generations of neglect. Chicago isn’t a war zone, it’s a city full of love, culture, and resilience. What we need is opportunity, not oppression or over policing.
Defcee
In order to squash the best qualities of human beings who live in the U.S.–those qualities that, when prioritized, eventually lead to the questioning of any and all oppressive, fascistic, and/or authoritarian government practices–ICE has been indiscriminately kidnapping and/or arresting Black and Brown people, including young children and infants, in predominantly Black and Brown communities in both Chicago and its suburbs.
Children are afraid to attend school, and their parents are afraid to go to work. Many people have been terrorized into refusing to leave their homes, at the expense of their employment status and ability to support themselves and their families, even if they are documented U.S. citizens.
In many cases, those who have been arrested are, in essence, disappeared into the federal penal system. This process begins with their being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago’s downtown, a labyrinthine carceral complex, without being given access to legal representation or communication with their families.
I can only imagine where things go from there for those who do not possess what the U.S. government would consider to be “acceptable” documentation–and I mean “only imagine” in the literal sense, as there has been barely any transparency regarding what the judicial process looks like in Chicago for those being detained by ICE, if it exists at all.
Chicago’s Black and Brown communities are not only essential to the city’s activist history–they are also emblematic of the kinds of creative, community-based initiatives which have lowered the violent crime rate in the city. Ironically, Chicago in 2025 didn’t resemble a war zone until ICE came to town.
ICE is a collection of cowards finding strength in numbers. They are, beneath the posturing and rhetoric, deathly afraid of racial equity, kindness, compassion, and empathy directing the moral compasses of anyone currently living in the United States. Chicago is being used–as it has been in the past–as a testing ground for the worst impulses of an authoritarian presidential administration at the expense of human life.
Fortunately, Chicago has also come together to combat these tactics, using those same community-centered organizing principles that have made this city one of the greatest in the world when it comes to taking care of our neighbors, even those neighbors we don’t always get along with.
No one asked ICE to come to Chicago, no one needs them here, and no one benefits from their being here except for the political agents driving the Trump administration’s current white supremacist domestic policy agenda, as well as the hateful racists who are ideologically aligned with it. Everyone else in the city and suburbs will continue to oppose that agenda in any way they can, because they can see ICE’s presence in Chicago for what it is–a coward’s enabling of the cowardly to oppress those who are least likely to harm them, who courageously continue to fight for the freedom and agency of themselves, their loved ones, and their neighbors.
Ay Hazy*
femdot.
I think it’s overly insane. There is no justification for what’s going on. This shit [is] domestic terrorism. It’s like no parameters on what they can and can’t do. There’s no order. Just people brought in to incite chaos. I hate everything about it to be honest. There are so many issues that ICE is causing here. First of, it’s causing a divide. So many people have seen videos of raids on the Southside, and Black people seemingly being confused on why it’s happening to us versus Latino folks and that’s what they want. For the people at the bottom to fight each other rather than fight the people who actually couldn’t care less about us as a whole. Whatever to justify unlawful force on all of us, on anyone who doesn’t fit what they deem as American.
We are seeing real families everyday living in fear. Folks being tear-gassed, beat, detained and all types of shit, regardless of their citizenship. So it was never about that for real. People are scared to go out. Even scared to celebrate themselves. Chicago has always been segregated, but it has also allowed a lot of ethnic holidays to be really large and festive. So seeing historically lively neighborhoods silent during cultural events out of fear of ICE is heartbreaking. Things like Cinco De Mayo and Mexican Independence Day were the quietest I’ve ever seen in my life this year. It’s crazy. I’m a professor at a university here, and damn near a quarter of my introduction to teaching was dialogue about what to do in case of an ICE emergency. Having to adjust how we talk to students and all this crazy shit. It’s nuts.
The idea of the government “occupying” a US city is real-life madness. Chicago has been used as a poster child for America’s problems for a very long time, particularly by folks who don’t actually live here. It’s super frustrating and undermines all the work the people have been doing here for years. Using false information to fuel a full-on attack on your own country is crazy. [Trump is] calling it a “war zone” so people feel more justified in allowing [him] to send the military into a US city. Let’s be real, we are a Sanctuary City. If you just casually said, “Hey, we are about to essentially use the military to harass, detain, and abuse anyone who doesn’t look like me, in every city that did not immediately oblige to my policies,” that would be a harder sell. Or maybe not, at this point. I don’t know, man.
This “war zone” narrative is tired. Are there places that are dangerous? Absolutely. But this isn’t actually about any of that. This is not about even fixing any of that. Data shows we need resources and time to fix that. There are stats that show that things are changing. But that’s not important. And this most definitely isn’t about making us safe. It’s about power. I truly believe we are watching fascism in real time. And the place I love and call home is experiencing it firsthand.
Christian Loggins
Recoechi
I think it’s utter bullshit. It’s in defiance of basic humanity. I feel that this is a tactic to bring the National Guard to Chicago and justify its presence here. The agents are tearing families apart. People are seeing their mothers, wives, aunties, uncles, cousins, little sisters, and brothers being taken from their hands. I’ve seen a video of a little boy pleading for an officer not to take his dad away. You can see actions like that, and it makes you feel like the agents have no humanity. It’s a war on the people, that’s what it truly is.
I’m from the Southside, and a lot of the brothers from the hood —we are not taught or educated on what’s really going on. They just think there are immigrants in their hood without knowing why these immigrants are here. And so, some of them are even saying, “I’m happy that ICE is there.” They don’t even understand the importance of coming together right now. ICE, and how immigration is being framed, is dividing Black and Mexican communities. The Blacks that know, we know these are our brothers and sisters. We gotta lock in with them. We gotta go against the oppressor. But there are also Black folks who are ignorant of this. We gotta talk to our own people about this. It’s causing a lot of division and separation of our communities, but it is also exposing the miseducated folks, the people who need to know that we need ICE gone. It’s not just Mexicans getting abducted. They can pull up on you in a car, just grab you, that’s abduction. I feel that there is a true opportunity for us to come together, but right now, they’re causing a huge divide.
In all seriousness, this is why I made the song, “Concentration USA”. We are here because of money. People want more money. Whether it’s Trump, whether it’s Democrats, everybody wants more money. Even if that’s at the sake of capturing and putting harm towards US citizens, the President is causing a war here. There’s been a war on Black folks from the Chicago police department since they were invented, on minorities since they were invented. And now he’s coming here, bringing ICE, amplifying that energy. It’s causing a war on the inside to try and trigger the Black and Brown — and anyone else with a brain or conscience that is against this shit — to be able to have probable cause to call the National Guard. Everyone knows Chicago is the most revolutionary city ever. They know we not for that. The people will stand together and stand in front of tanks before they let tanks roll through the streets of Chicago. Chicago’s a warzone? That’s bullshit. This is a Warzone created by Donald Trump and every other politician that has caused harm or put minorities and Black folks, Mexicans, and everybody in this predicament, where we are now at war with each other. They’re doing this to us, and some people are not even educated enough to understand what’s happening to them, so they’re just reacting to it instead of really dissecting it. There’s a lot of that going on right now.
