By: Franc Kravos
“A war from within,” says US President Trump in reference to unwavering unrest in major Democratic strongholds at a gathering of military generals and admirals in Quantico, Virginia. The unprecedented and expensive gathering of a thousand military personnel was filled with, as the news website Intercept reports, confusion, embarrassment, and silence. Yet the signalling of the event was clear: the US Government is preparing to go to war with itself.
America has been resembling countries in war. The streets of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. witnessed the deployment of National Guard troops and ICE’s mass-deportation crackdowns have been traveling from city to city, instilling fear across the country. And Americans are fighting back. Regular protests have been held at ICE detention facilities, states and organisations like the ACLU have been curbing Trump’s policies in court, and country-wide resistance efforts have sprouted in light of the killing of an American citizen by an ICE agent. These are only some examples of how Americans are resisting Trump-induced democratic backsliding.
Yet President Trump’s cabinet has presented an image of victory against an allegedly crime-ridden and broken America. This image attempts to hide the efforts of grassroots resistance, as well as to conjure a new reality of America’s status quo that justifies the need for violence. However, American citizens are firmly standing up for their own image of America; for a country in which human autonomy, life, and dignity are respected and strongly upheld. This article tells the story of American resistance through the lens of three major cities: Chicago, Portland, and New York.
Chicago’s Resistance to ICE
On 30 September, hours before the Quantico meeting, South Shore neighbourhood residents in Chicago were awoken by military helicopters hovering above an apartment complex and military-sized vehicles below it. Armed ICE agents stormed the building, smashing doors, shattering windows, and throwing stun grenades. Moments later, screams were heard from 37 adults and children as agents indiscriminately zip-tied every resident, some US citizens. Children, some completely naked, were separated from their parents and taken into vans. Looking out through his window, Darrell Ballard, a neighbour and army veteran, stated: “We’re being invaded by our own military.”
Violent scenes revealing ICE’s unlawful mishandling of arrests and deportations became commonplace when President Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz”, a mass-deportation plan for the sanctuary city of Chicago, was underway. The Trump administration states that raids were removing violent criminals. However, a video of a mother being tackled or a story of a daycare teacher being dragged out in front of her pupils suggest different conclusions. In fact, ICE data shows that only 28 percent of detainees have a criminal record. Other sources state that ICE agents have regularly engaged in unlawful behaviour by not providing warrants, refusing contact of lawyers, bypassing court orders, refusing to reveal their identity, and deporting detainees without due process.
Ever since President Trump’s inauguration, ICE detention facilities have seen regular protests across the country. Taking Chicago as an example, protesters blocked the entrance to the local facility, leading to violent arrests. In another case, tear gas was illegitimately thrown at protestors, journalists, and even police officers, but protests endured nevertheless.
In addition to demonstrations, civilians have engaged in other forms of resistance. Chicago restaurants and shops have denied ICE agents food, drink, and toilet access. Likewise, a video posted on social media revealed that motorists and drivers chased ICE vehicles while honking, to both obstruct the agents and warn immigrants in the vicinity. Residents have been reported shouting at ICE agents, even throwing eggs and trash.
Several community efforts have emerged in Chicago. The city has been offering “Know Your Rights” pamphlets, and residents (including non-immigrant residents) have been escorting immigrant children to and from school. Similarly, the volunteer group People’s Patrol is warning residents when ICE agents are in their area, alongside several websites and apps. Chicago’s resistance mirrors similar efforts all across the country which rarely attain news coverage, both in the US and globally. Chicago is an example of how resistance is more than just a denial of actions, but an attempt at arguing and articulating a new reality free of human rights abuses.
Portland Is Not “War Ravaged”
Three days prior to the Quantico meeting, President Trump declared he would be sending the National Guard to what he referred to as “war ravaged Portland.” The deployment was said to be issued due to regular protests (of approximately a dozen people) around the local ICE facility. Although protesters had been peaceful, the ICE facility had to pause operations after ICE agents illegitimately threw tear gas at protesters.
The deployment of the National Guard in Democratic strongholds has been a pervasive trend in the Trump administration. The deployment occurred in Los Angeles, D.C., Memphis, Chicago, and New Orleans. Meanwhile, New York, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Portland received threats of deployment. In all these cities, with the exception of D.C., the National Guard can only be deployed at the request of a state governor or in the face of undeniable evidence of an insurrection. No governor requests were made, and in the cases of Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago, the deployment of the military against American citizens has been ruled unjustified by courts.
The main question lies in the justification for the deployment. President Trump, who is known for making frequent and often baseless allegations of all kinds, has made numerous allegations that Democrat-majority cities are overrun by violence and criminality, despite most of the aforementioned cities seeing a decrease in (violent) crime. After the death of Charlie Kirk, for example, President Trump designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist group, which was later used to tar Portland’s resistance as Antifa-led.
In response to President Trump’s attempt at justifying the deployment of troops to Portland, thousands of protestors engaged in an amusing but effective form of resistance. Protestors danced in front of the local ICE facility, riding bikes in the nude, and wearing inflatable animal costumes. As a participant explained, the point is quite simple: “Every person in an inflatable costume makes it harder for the Trump administration […] to spread this messaging of Portland being a dangerous place.” The subversion is effective. When ICE agents threw tear gas at frogs, zebras, and unicorns, the optics revealed the absurdity of Trump’s claims and challenged government overreach.
New York: The Capitulation of Columbia University
Optics are powerful, as they can inspire hope or quell resistance. In his first term, President Trump claimed that opposition to his leadership was a “witch hunt”. This approach continues as several media conglomerates, universities, law firms, federal agencies, and states have been sued or threatened with funding cuts as punishment for their ideological misalignment with the Trump administration. Although many scholars have identified these attacks as unconstitutional, few could have predicted the systematic capitulation of democratic institutions. Many of those sued have settled despite having strong cases, and those threatened have bent the knee.
Columbia University in New York was one of the first educational institutions to capitulate. On 7 March, Trump announced a 400 million dollar funding cut because of ongoing pro-Palestinian demonstrations. A day later, prominent activist-organiser Mahmoud Khalil was detained by ICE agents because of his pro-Palestinian activism, a direct attack on his First Amendment rights. Fearing further trouble, Columbia University expelled, suspended, or revoked the degrees of 70 students. Moreover, after settling with President Trump in July, Columbia University was forced to end diversity programs, change curricula, and release sensitive information on international students, among other actions.
Despite the yielding of Columbia University, pro-Palestinian resistance has not wavered. Countless protests and legal battles on behalf of Mahmoud Khalil led to his release, mirroring several other efforts. After Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was cancelled, 1.7 million Americans ended their Disney+ subscriptions. Likewise, actress Jane Fonda revitalised her father’s Committee for the First Amendment, which originally combatted Senator McCarthy’s attacks on free speech. The second No Kings protest in October 2025 rallied over 7 million people to oppose democratic backsliding, making it one of the largest one-day protests in US history.
The Trump administration is continuing to present an image of an America in need of strong authority. Their efforts are what scholar Ruha Benjamin calls the ‘act of imagination’. President Trump is attempting to materialise a reality that consolidates power to himself. Yet by the simple act of imagination and action, Chicagoans are carving out their own reality free of human oppression, Portlanders a reality free from government tyranny, and New Yorkers a reality with freedom of expression. Ruha Benjamin argues that resistance itself yields a radical imagination able to deter authoritarianism, and Americans today are resisting authoritarianism by imagining a different reality and acting upon it.
Edited by: Marta Giménez Casacuberta, Samuel Healey, and Jekaterina Savicka
Image Source: Paul Goyette from Wikimedia Commons