Chicago's Mexican Independence Day celebrations shadowed by Trump’s threats for the city

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CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s plan to dispatch National Guard troops and immigration agents into Chicago has put many Latino residents on edge, prompting some to carry their U.S. passports while giving others pause about openly celebrating the upcoming Mexican Independence Day.

Though the holiday falls on Sept. 16, celebrations in Chicago span more than a week and draw hundreds of thousands of participants. Festivities kicked off with a Saturday parade through the heavily Mexican Pilsen neighborhood and will continue with car caravans and lively street parties.

But this year, the typically joyful period coincides with Trump’s threats to add Chicago to the list of other Democratic-led cities he has targeted for expanded federal enforcement.

His administration has said it will step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, as it did in Los Angeles, and would deploy National Guard troops. In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Trump deployed them last month in Washington, D.C., as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.

Trump posted an illustration of himself against a Chicago-skyline ablaze with flames and helicopters on Truth Social on Saturday.

“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” he posted, along with “I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” referencing a 1979 war film. Trump has ordered the Defense Department to be renamed the Department of War.

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote on the social platform X. “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

Although details about the promised Chicago operation have been sparse, there’s already widespread opposition as protesters marched through downtown on Saturday evening. State and city leaders have said they plan to sue the Trump administration.

The extended Mexican Independence Day celebrations reflect the size and vitality of Chicago’s Mexican American community. Mexicans make up more than one-fifth of the city’s total population and about 74% of its Latino residents, according to 2022 U.S. Census estimates.

Parade and festival organizers have been divided over whether to move forward with precautions or postpone, in hopes that it will feel safer for many participants to have a true celebration in several months’ time. El Grito Chicago, a downtown Mexican Independence Day festival set for next weekend, was postponed this week by organizers in order to protect people.

“But also we just refuse to let our festival be a pawn in this political game,” said Germán González, an organizer of El Grito Chicago.

In Pilsen and Little Village, two of the city’s best-known neighborhoods with restaurants, businesses and cultural ties to Mexican culture, residents expressed disappointment that the potential federal intervention instilled such fear and anxiety in the community at a time usually characterized by joy, togetherness and celebration of Mexican American heritage.

On Saturday morning, some parade-goers grabbed free, bright-orange whistles and flyers from volunteers standing outside the Lozano Branch of the Chicago Public Library. “Blow the whistle on ICE!” the flyers read, encouraging a nonviolent tactic to raise alarm if they saw agents.

Marchers held up cardboard signs painted with monarch butterflies, the migratory species that travels between the U.S. and Mexico. Many cheered “Viva Mexico!”

Drivers of vintage cars honked their horns and a drummer kept time for a group of dancers bedecked in feathers. Horseback riders clip-clopped down the street, and one lifted up a large Mexican flag.

Claudia Alvarez, whose 10-year-old daughter was nearby riding a pony, said it’s important that politicians see people out celebrating, though the crowd seemed smaller this year.

“At these hours you should be able to see plenty of people in the streets enjoying themselves, but now there’s not really a lot of people,” she said.

Fabio Fernandez, 39, owner of an art and T-shirt company with a residency at a Pilsen streetwear shop, called it “troubling” and “disheartening” that the possibility of federal intervention has impacted celebrations.

He said there’s a mood of anxiety in the neighborhood, which has translated to lower sales and reduced foot traffic for local businesses like his, Fernandez said.

“Come back to 18th Street. Support small businesses here. They’re still working hard as hell to keep their businesses alive,” he said.

Alejandro Vences, 30, became a U.S. citizen this year, “which gives me some comfort during this time,” he said while eating pozole verde at a local Mexican restaurant. Still, he said, the anxiety is palpable.

“For us, our Independence Day has always been a celebration of our culture,” he said. “It’s always been a celebration of who we are. It feels like we don’t get to celebrate our culture in the same way.”

A few miles away in downtown, more than a thousand protesters marched through the streets on Saturday evening with signs bearing slogans like “I.C.E. out of Illinois, I.C.E. out of everywhere.”

Speakers offered the crowd instructions on what to do if encountering Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. They also drew comparisons between the proposed ICE crackdown on Chicago and Israel’s presence in Gaza.

“We are inspired by the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza, and it is why we refuse to cower to Trump and his threats,” Nazek Sankari, co-chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, said to the crowd as many waved Palestinian flags and donned keffiyehs.

Viviana Barajas, leader with the community organization Palenque LSNA, promised that Chicagoans would “stand up” as Los Angeles had if Trump deploys the National Guard in their city.

“If he thinks these frivolous theatrics to undermine our sovereignty will shut out the passion we have for protecting our people, this is Chicago, and he is sorely mistaken,” Barajas said. “We have been studying LA and D.C., and they have stood up for their cities.”

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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia and Raza reported from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Associated Press writers Morgan Lee in Santa Fe and Cal Woodward in Washington contributed.