municipalities across the country struggle with the invasion of armed immigration official

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While municipalities across the country struggle to cope with the invasion of armed immigration agents, who disregard due process to detain migrants, citizens and even lawful workers, one small Illinois city — where I happen to live— has developed what Rachel Maddow calls the “Evanston Handbook” for community responsiveness.

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More recently, Evanstonians have drawn national attention for vigorously, but peacefully, confronting the militarized border patrol troopers who have been pulling people out of parking lots and off of streets.

Throughout the Chicago area, President Donald Trump’s “Midway Blitz” has been using helicopters and unmarked SUVs to detain migrants and U.S. citizens alike, including children, often for the seeming offense of “gardening while brown.”

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In Evanston, “Kavanaugh stops” have been going on for weeks. In the words of Mayor Daniel Biss, federal agents have been “driving around town looking for people whose skin is brown.” Then, “they pick them up, they grab them, they abduct them, they’re gone.”

In response, as Maddow put it, “incredibly determined and resourceful, brave, no-nonsense Americans” are using whistles, phone trees and internet messages to alert each other to the presence of “armed, masked agents” in their neighborhoods.

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Following the “Evanston handbook,” a crowd quickly gathered in response to a community alert. As shown in videos, the crowd kept its distance from the body-armored officers, blowing whistles and shouting at them to release their prisoners, while one protester was grabbed and arrested.

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No handbook will ever provide the key to keeping gun-waving federal agents out of a community, no matter how many rallies it facilitates. But it can marshal residents to spread the alarm and document the brutality.

Informed of DHS presence, children can stay inside their schools; street vendors, day laborers and landscapers can stay home, enduring the loss of needed income.

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