We Are All Josef K

     "They tell me you are wicked and I believe them..." Carl Sandburg, Chicago

     "Agent 1: I can tell you right now how it’s going to go. We’re going to try to get out, they’re going to block our vehicles, we’re going to tell them to move, they don’t, we gas. Agent 2: We’re definitely gassing them when we leave. Just start throwing shit." 

     Federal Judge Sara Ellis has just written an extraordinary 233 page opinion regarding the crackdown on Chicago. Her massive ruling "backing the now-stayed preliminary injunction she issued limiting federal tactics in response to anti-ICE protests in Illinois," to quote Josh Gerstein.

     Even as I write this, ICE is now quietly slinking out of Chicago (and Portland) after inflicting untold misery and anxiety on the people of both cities. In her ruling, Judge Ellis mentioned incidents such as the indiscriminate and unnecessary use of tear gas on peaceful protesters to one agent captured on his own body cam using ChatGPT to write his own report.

ICE agents just snatched a Journalist & were Speeding away when they hit a woman’s vehicle that was going to work & doing nothing wrong! They almost left the scene after slamming into her,but then snatched her out of her car at gunpoint and took her with them! pic.twitter.com/JQ0sK5htnH

— Suzie rizzio (@Suzierizzo1) October 11, 2025

      In the weeks since ICE stormed into Chicago, we've seen countless atrocities being committed against the people of the Second City. In the video above, one of the most egregious abused of power I've seen out of Chicago or anywhere else, ICE agents, if that's what they are, snatch and arrest a journalist off the street. Right after starting their getaway, they hit a car. They stop then proceed as if attempting to drive away from the scene of the accident they caused, then stop again. They barge out of their van, violently pull the victim from her car, bind her hands then kidnap her as if she was the criminal.

     Judge Ellis began her ruling with a poetic reference to Carl Sandburg:

"While living in the Ravenswood neighborhood, Carl Sandburg wrote a love letter to hiscity, Chicago. In the poemSandburg noted both the complexity and beauty of a city known for its vitality, pride, strength, courage, tenacity, and joy. This case ultimately turns on whether the Chicagoland area, and Chicago specifically, is the City of Big Shoulders or  Chipocalypse Now. The Chicagoland this Court sees from Aurora to Cicero, from Chicago to Waukegan, and all points in between is a vibrant place, brimming with life and hope, constantly rebuilding itself to create a more just society, striving to move forward from its complicated history of segregation, police brutality, and gun violence, and expressing the joy of community in block parties, street festivals, and Sunday jazz shows on the lawn of a high school. Neighbors from every community show up for each other whether by filling little free libraries in parkways,offering free meals to those facing cuts in food benefits, guarding intersections to help trick-or-treaters safely cross the street, standing on the sidewalk to document law enforcement activities and protest against immigration enforcement activities they believe to be unjust, or simply praying the Rosary to provide comfort and bear witness to those detained at the Broadview detention facility who are facing fear and uncertainty."

     I'm sure Judge Ellis was referring to the shocking video of a priest at the Broadview facility in which a priest was holding his rosary beads and saying a prayer when an ICE goon shot him in the face with a pepper ball, then arrested him.

     I'm sure she was also referring to a Halloween parade of little trick or treaters who were terrified when ICE swarmed the area.

     During the government's brief brutal occupation of Chicago, there was hardly a day that went by when Twitter, Facebook and Bluesky weren't filled with fresh videos and images of masked goons pulling people out of their cars, jobs, homes or simply off the street regardless of immigration or legal status. Hardly a day went by when we hadn't heard accounts of innocent people victimized then arrested, detained and locked in a cell without food, water, medicine our access to a lawyer or even told what charges, if any, they were facing.

     It's literally like something out of Kafka. These days, we are all Josef K.

     And Judge Ellis is now fully aware of the sheer scale and scope of the endless lies that were being fed to her curt by DHS. One of DHS' top goons, Greg Bovino, someone Himmler would've loved, was called out by Judge Ellis for being evasive and giving "cure answers" in her court. In a perfect microcosm of the entire Trump administration, DHS has been unmasked as being cruel, sloppy and stupid. In their frantic, brainless attempts to get Stephen Miller to stop shrieking at them, they're madly trying to reach his insane goal of arresting and deporting 3000 people a day.

      On the campaign trail last ear, Trump promised to deport 1,000,000 a year assuring s they would be only the worst of the worst. But there simply anywhere near that many criminal immigrants to satisfy that quote for even a year much less four. So they're arresting people based on the color of their skin, racial profiling not even on steroids but on Captain America's super solder serum. They're manufacturing criminal backgrounds and cases that don't exist. Ask Kilmar Abrego Garcia, if you don't believe me.