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For Immediate Release
September, 02 2025, 02:49pm EDT
Contact:
Chicago Teachers Union responds to federal court ruling on Trump’s military occupation of Los Angeles: Trump, Stay Out of Our City
CHICAGO
In response to the federal court ruling that Trump’s use of the national guard in Los Angeles was illegal, President Stacy Davis Gates of the Chicago Teachers Union issued the following:
Today, a federal court confirmed what we have known from the beginning: President Trump's militarization of American cities is immoral, illegal, and rooted in racism not safety.
After Trump’s tyranny in Los Angeles and unconstitutional practices in Washington, DC, if he hasn’t already decided to cancel his occupation of Chicago, this ruling vindicates those who have been standing up to tell him to stay out of our city.
As a union of educators, entrusted with the nurturing and well-being of hundreds of thousands of children, we reject any attempt at an unlawful federal occupation of our city. What we would welcome is leadership at the federal level that fully funds public education, restores SNAP benefits, and expands Medicaid to healthcare for all.
Our members serve and work in every neighborhood in Chicago, and we know what real safety looks like.
Our Mayor is driving down crime rates through investments in the people who live in all seventy seven of our city’s neighborhoods. President Trump has the ability to work with our mayor to fund and expand anti-violence initiatives and provide safe passage for our young people.
Our Mayor is making Chicago safer by reopening mental health clinics, rebuilding school libraries, and creating employment opportunities for young people. We know that when you embrace people and fight poverty instead of criminalizing humanity and dignity, you honor the humanity of people and reduce crime rates, and communities feel safe and supported.
In 2019, our union bargained for sanctuary protections in our contract because we recognized our duty to build a force field to protect our student’s rights against federal attack. This year we expanded those protections to protect Black, LGBTQ, and immigrant students. We fought and won the right to teach the histories and honor the cultures of our students, to invest in Black Student Success, to keep our schools free from police presence, and to expand Chicago’s home grown model of Sustainable Community Schools that sees our communities as villages to involve, not terrains to police.
We will not have either false pretexts of immigration or crime be a reason for Trump’s forces to intimidate or occupy our Black and brown neighborhoods that have been starving for more investment from the federal government in the form of affordable housing and other investment. .
Chicago isn’t asking for troops. We're asking for public education to be fully funded. If President Trump wants to spend an estimated two million dollars a day on Chicago, he can resource Safe Passage programs and expand protections for our special education students. He can restore the Medicaid cuts. He can ensure that young people have access to SNAP benefits and hot lunches. If Trump wants to help Chicago, he can rebuild and fund the Department of Education so that there is recourse if students’ civil rights are violated. He can allocate two million dollars a day to provide affordable housing to those in need.
Whatever plans may come from the Trump administration, Chicago will not be intimidated. Our teachers, paraprofessionals, and clinicians provide safe spaces for our children. We will be there when their day starts, welcoming them to school and at the end of the day, supporting them to get home safely.
We love our children and our city.
We welcome equity and justice in Chicago, and we will continue to fight for the schools and communities our children deserve.
An affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), CTU is the third largest teachers local in the country and the largest local union in Illinois.
LATEST NEWS
Noem Says Angola Chosen for Migrant Detention Because of Its 'Notorious' Violent History
The Louisiana state prison has been known for brutal working conditions, solitary confinement, and violence.
Sep 04, 2025
As a court in Fort Myers, Florida prepared to hold the first hearing on the legal rights of immigrants detained at "Alligator Alcatraz," the Everglades detention facility that a federal judge ordered to be shut down last month, US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday said the Trump administration has found a new prison to house arrested migrants, and boasted that detainees will likely get "a message" from the facility the government selected.
The administration has struck a "historic" deal with the Louisiana state government, said officials Wednesday, and will begin detaining hundreds of immigrants in a new facility at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly called Angola and well known for its long history of violence and brutality against inmates as well as inhumane conditions.
Noem said in a press conference Wednesday that the prison, a former slave plantation, has "absolutely" been chosen due to its reputation for brutal working conditions—over which a group of inmates sued last year—use of solitary confinement, including for teenage prisoners; lack of access to clean water, sufficient food, and adequate hygiene; and violence.
"Absolutely, this is a facility that's notorious. It's a facility—Angola prison is legendary—but that's a message that these individuals that are going to be here, that are illegal criminals, need to understand," said Noem.
"Angola has a particularly dark history of abuse and repression that's almost singular in prison history in the United States."
An isolated section of the nation's largest maximum-security prison will house "the worst of the worst" criminal offenders who are immigrants, said Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, after whom the Angola facility has apparently been named. The area where up to 400 immigrants will be held is being called Camp 57, an homage to Landry, who is the state's 57th governor.
Landry issued an emergency declaration in July to expedite repairs in the facility, which hasn't held prisoners since 2018 due to security and safety risks stemming from its deteriorating condition.
"Angola has a particularly dark history of abuse and repression that's almost singular in prison history in the United States," Eunice Cho, senior counsel at the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The New York Times.
As with Alligator Alcatraz, the administration has come up with a nickname for the detention and deportation center: "Louisiana Lockup."
Landry emphasized Wednesday that "the most violent offenders" will be held in the facility, and said that "if you don't think that they belong in somewhere like this, you've got a problem."
The center, which is being run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contractors, was already housing 51 detainees as of Wednesday and is expected to hold up to 200 by the end of September.
Noem named examples of people convicted of crimes including murder, sexual assault, battery, and possession of child sexual abuse imagery, who would be sent to the Angola facility.
The administration's comments echoed earlier statements about Alligator Alcatraz, where officials said "the worst of the worst" would be held while they awaited deportation.
The Miami Herald and The Tampa Bay Times reported in July that just a third of about 900 people held at the facility had been convicted of crimes, which ranged from serious offenses to traffic violations. More than 250 people had never been convicted or charged with any crime.
One analysis in June found that nearly two-thirds of migrants who had been rounded up by ICE in the first months of Trump's second term did not have criminal convictions.
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UK Cops 'Ashamed and Sick' of Enforcing Ban on Anti-Genocide Group Palestine Action
"Instead of catching real criminals and terrorists, we are arresting pensioners and disabled people calling for the saving of children's lives," said one Metropolitan Police officer.
Sep 04, 2025
A pair of British police officers on Thursday expressed feelings of shame and guilt over having to arrest peaceful protesters—many of them elderly—for showing solidarity with Palestine Action as seven more of the anti-genocide group's supporters were charged with terrorism offenses.
"Instead of catching real criminals and terrorists, we are arresting pensioners and disabled people calling for the saving of children's lives," one Metropolitan Police member, identified as "Officer A," told Novara Media's Harriet Williamson under condition of anonymity. "It makes me question why I'm even in this career anymore."
While Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said he is "proud" of how the department is handling the situation, Officer A said they felt "ashamed and sick" about having to arrest Palestine Action defenders—nearly half of whom are over age 60, with many older than 70 or even 80—under orders they did not believe in.
"I was told to help in the arrest of a disabled person for holding up the sign stating they opposed genocide and supported Palestine Action, which I did," they said. "I did it knowing it had nothing to do with upholding justice or our professional values, just to protect my job and livelihood."
"My father was an officer, and the reason I came into the police," Officer A continued. "I know he would be ashamed and turning in his grave if he saw what I did."
"I was at the protests and stood there with people shouting in my face calling me a pig and other names. I don't blame the public at all," Officer A confided. "In my silence, they didn't realize I agreed with everything they were saying but stating that openly would mean the end of my job."
The officer added that "my managers don't support what we have to do either, but they don't make the law and just have to follow what the ministers decide."
Another Met officer—identified as "Officer B"—told Williamson that "many officers are stuck between what everyone is witnessing in terms of genocide" and their orders to arrest supporters of Palestine Action.
"It causes a moral and ethical dilemma," said the officer, who is Muslim, as well as considerable "guilt for not being able to have a say on genocide."
More than 700 people have been arrested for showing support for Palestine Action ever since the group's recent ban under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
A spokesperson for the Police Federation of England and Wales told Novara Media that there aren't enough officers to police Palestine Action protests.
"Officers are emotionally and physically exhausted," the spokesperson said. "The demand is relentless. And it's not sustainable."
All told, at least 73 people have been charged with showing support for the banned group. They could face up to 14 years behind bars if fully convicted.
The Palestine Action ban resulted from Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper's introduction of parliamentary legislation after members of the direct action group broke into a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire and sprayed two planes with red paint.
Defend Our Juries—an advocacy group that staunchly supports Palestine Action—said it is expecting more than 1,000 demonstrators to turn out for a Saturday rally near Parliament at which participants are set to hold signs reading, "I Oppose Genocide" and "I Support Palestine Action," an action that could result in a record number of arrests.
🚨 BREAKING: September 6th Action to go ahead as 1,000+ pledge to hold signs in defiance of Labour’s authoritarian banJoin the 1000+ by signing up at wedonotcomply.orgThis announcement comes after counter-terrorism police arrested five spokespeople in dawn raids today.
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— Defend Our Juries (@defendourjuries.bsky.social) September 2, 2025 at 5:55 AM
On Thursday, seven members of Defend Our Juries who were recently arrested and charged with terrorism offenses for encouraging support for Palestine Action pleaded not guilty in Westminster Magistrates' Court in London.
Former government attorney Timothy Crosland, 55; gardener Dawn Manners, 61; David Nixon, 39; student Patrick Friend, 26; Gwen Harrison, 48; and Melanie Griffith, 62 allegedly arranged public protests and managed a series of 13 recent Zoom meetings in support of Palestine Action. Anthony Harvey, a 59-year-old man from the Oban area of Scotland, was also charged under the anti-terrorism law and released on bail after appearing in a Scottish court.
The seven activists were set to hold a Tuesday press conference to promote Saturday's demonstration; however, they were preemptively arrested. Journalist and author George Monbiot, who was also set to speak at Tuesday's event, called the arrests "classic police state stuff."
"We all have a stake in this because we're seeing a slippage from a nominally broadly democratic nation into one with very strong, authoritarian characteristics, and this is something I feel we all have a duty to resist," Monbiot told Middle East Eye on Wednesday.
The Defend Our Juries spokesperson asserted Thursday that "the mass defiance of the ban cannot be stopped and is growing all the time."
"It will only stop when the UK government abandons this grossly unjust proscription and ends its complicity in Israel's horrific atrocities," they added.
This isn't the first time that Met Police have reportedly voiced frustration at having to persecute Palestine Action supporters. According to Williamson, climate writer Donnachadh McCarthy "described multiple interactions" with officers "who said they were unhappy with the Palestine Action ban."
"One officer told me, 'This is not the work I came into the police to be doing. I would far prefer to be doing my proper job catching real thieves,'" McCarthy recalled, adding that his arresting officer "paused as he was about to close the [cell] door on me and said, 'This is mad. I can understand them arresting Hamas members, but for people holding a placard, this doesn't make any sense to me.'"
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DC Sues Over Trump Troop Deployment as National Guard Members Say They're Being Used as 'Toy Soldiers'
"None of this is lawful," said Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb.
Sep 04, 2025
Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration aiming to end what he described as the "illegal deployment" of National Guard troops in the nation's capital.
In a complaint filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Schwalb charged the Trump administration with violating the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, a 1973 law that delegated certain powers over the city once held by the federal government to local officials.
The complaint zeroed in on Trump's claim that Washington, DC is a "filthy and crime-ridden embarrassment" that should be "federalize[d]," so that the Trump administration can "run it the way it's supposed to be run." Schwalb then noted that Trump deployed National Guard forces in DC without receiving consent from local elected officials.
"None of this is lawful," he said. "For one thing, defendants' deployment of National Guard units to police district streets without the mayor's consent violates both the Home Rule Act and a congressionally approved compact governing the interstate mobilization of state National Guard troops."
Schwalb also charged the administration with violating the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that bars the US military from being used for domestic law enforcement.
"Defendants have established a massive, seemingly indefinite law enforcement operation in the district subject to direct military command," he argued. "The danger that such an operation poses to individual liberty and democratic rule is self-evident."
The state of California also accused Trump of breaking the Posse Comitatus Act in its lawsuit against Trump's use of National Guard forces in Los Angeles; a federal court ruled that deployment was illegal this week.
Schwalb's lawsuit comes as new reports published by CNN and Mother Jones revealed that the deployment to Washington, DC is taking its toll on National Guard members, who have been sent far away from their families for a mission that is bogged down by legal and political controversy.
CNN''s report featured interviews with several National Guard soldiers who expressed bewilderment at what their mission in the city was supposed to be, as one explained that his only duty seems to be walking around Chinatown for 12 hours a day, while another said she regularly gets cursed at by locals.
"We haven't gotten critically low on morale, but we're falling fast," one soldier told CNN.
A National Guard soldier who spoke with Mother Jones told a similar story, and said he felt that he and his fellow soldiers were being used as political props.
"I think people have hit their limit," he said. "This is an encroachment on everything we signed up for, and it feels like a violation. They just see us as little toy soldiers to put on the street to show some muscle. There's no clear mission or understanding of that mission."
Trump in recent weeks has said that he will soon be sending the National Guard into Chicago, despite warnings from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and other local officials that such a military presence is not wanted in the city. The president has made baseless claims about high crime rates in large cities across the country; as Common Dreams reported last month, crime is falling in all of the cities Trump has threatened to send troops into.
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