33WF Calls On Our Community to Elect a New State Rep Not Beholden to Billionaires
Even with scaled-down attacks by ICE, our local families, teachers, and immigrant neighbors have faced ongoing antagonism from the Trump administration, all following the same pattern. Chicago needs active leadership to protect our communities, now more than ever, as we weather attacks from the reactionary right on several fronts. These recent offenses have all run the same playbook: to first manufacture a false crisis, then to respond with overwhelming and unlawful force against the administration’s political adversaries — namely, our people-powered communities.
This method played out first with ICE agents attacking our neighbors under the pretense of finding criminals. However, the terror that ICE inflicted upon our families was based on a bald-faced lie: 97% of immigrants kidnapped in the ICE raids had no criminal record. Our neighbors have been ripped from their homes and locked in concentration camps around the country, where conditions and the treatment of detained people have been nightmarish. Our communities have suffered alongside other cities across the country, and the ongoing violence from Trump’s unconstitutional private army is an insult to both the rule of law and basic human decency. 33WF sends solidarity and love to the family of Alex Pretti, and our neighbors in Minneapolis, currently facing the brunt of ICE’s hostility, as well as all communities impacted by ICE’s lawless abductions.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration baselessly accused Illinois early childhood education centers of fraud, along with those in other blue states, in a flagrant act of political retribution. Funds desperately needed by our working families have been unlawfully withheld, putting families in an impossible position to find and afford quality childcare. The governor’s office estimates that $1 billion has been withheld from families who depend on it. This disgusting attack on our families has turned our children into political pawns for Donald Trump’s amusement.
It will also deepen the educational gap. Early childhood education programs are “especially helpful for children from families experiencing low household income, children with disabilities served in inclusive classrooms, and dual language learners,” with long-lasting effects that can follow children through high school and beyond. Our families will suffer the impact of this travesty for years to come. Around 100,000 families — including more than 152,000 children — use the Illinois Child Care Assistance Program, which is partially funded through these programs currently lacking federal funding. Every one of those 100,000 families is facing new hardships due to this political posturing.
The newest iteration of this authoritarian federal overreach has been aimed at our teachers in the form of a weaponized audit of the Chicago Teachers Union. The Republican-led Department of Labor suspiciously informed CTU of the impending audit “one day before the CTU was due to submit five years of audits and other financial documents to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in response to a demand from the committee to examine the union’s audits,” according to Chicago Sun-Times. With anti-CTU rhetoric frothed up in recent months by such astroturfed organizations as the innocuous-sounding but billionaire-backed Illinois Policy Institute, our teachers are under attack for the crime of caring for all students. As CTU leadership stated: “We are reopening libraries while the right-wing bans books. We are winning supports and protections for queer, trans, and immigrant students while the Right aims to make them less safe. We are protecting Black history and promoting Black student success while the President says the civil rights movement was very unfair to white people.”
Thankfully, people from across IL have stood up to the Trump administration, consistently mobilizing to resist. Additionally, our endorsed slate of candidates, Graciela Guzmán, Jessica Vásquez, and Karina Villa, have consistently been on the front lines alongside Alder Rossana Rodríguez Sánchez, helping to organize rapid response networks and anti-ICE school watch. Rep. Delia Ramirez, has condemned these politically-motivated incursions while also advancing the “Melt ICE Act”. We applaud Miguel Alvelo-Rivera, our endorsed candidate for Illinois’ state house 40th District, for his moral clarity in participating in rapid response, helping organize the “adopt a corner” program to defend day laborers from ICE, and refusing corporate donations and donations from underhanded groups such as the Illinois Policy Institute.
It’s a different story for his primary opponent. We denounce Rep. Jaime Andrade (IL-40) accepting thousands of dollars from the Illinois Policy Institute, the partisan mouthpiece of its billionaire funders, “including the Koch, Mercer and Uihlein families.” Illinois deserves better, and our teachers deserve better.
As the Trump administration and its allies continue their jackbooted trampling of our rights, We will continue to support our neighbors and promote leaders who walk the walk, not just pay lip service to progressive values. We hope you’ll join us at an upcoming event as we work together to bring better representation to our communities.
Take Action
Now is the time to get organized! If you live in or around Chicago's Albany Park, Irving Park, Ravenswood Manor, or Avondale, check out our canvassing, phone banking, and social events! Get plugged into the movement to replace Trumpian Republicans and Do-Nothing Democrats with proven fighters for working people!
Events Calendar: https://www.workingfamilies33.org/events