Last Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents hit the neighborhood of Edison Park, on the city’s Trump-loving Far Northwest Side. They detained — and later released — two Polish home remodelers working on the 7400 block of North Oconto Street. During the arrests, they were heckled by neighbors.

“Big tough guy,” jeered one man. “Oh, that’s a tough guy. I wear a helmet and sunglasses ’cause I’m so scared of people.”

“You’re in the most conservative neighborhood in the city and no one wants you here,” a woman shouted.

Edison Park lies within the 41st Ward — the only ward in the city to vote for Trump in 2024. Whatever the opinions of a few het-up neighbors, the president still has a base of support here. Trump flags still fly from front porches. Where Trump and his ICE operations really have support is among the ward’s — and the city’s — Republican establishment.

“Our neighborhood is made up of a lot of first responders,” said 41st Ward Republican committeeperson Ammie Kessem. “I think that is a huge reason” Edison Park hasn’t organized against ICE, like other city neighborhoods. During the detainment on Oconto, there was not a whistle to be heard. 

“We see the agents as human beings,” Kessem said. “Other people see them as the enemy. I think if more people knew about [the detainment], they would have gone there and told them they liked what they were doing. ICE is trying to get the worst of the worst out of the city to keep them safer. They’re getting a lot of really bad people out of our community: sex offenders, drug cartel pushers. I’ve seen crime go down because of this.”

Kessem, who has 26 years in police work, admits that she cringes when she sees ICE agents release tear gas on crowds, and believes that such hard-assed tactics are turning Chicagoans against the agency’s work.

“A lot of these ICE agents are new to law enforcement,” she said. “A lot of them don’t have the training. It does make me cringe. My rules of engagement are much different. We try to de-escalate. Of course it makes people mistrust ICE. I can see why people think the way they do.”

On the other hand, Kessem believes the conflicts between ICE and the public are a homegrown problem, a consequence of the city’s policy against turning criminal illegal immigrants over to the federal government. If the city cooperated with the feds, ICE wouldn’t have to go out into the streets to make arrests. That’s why we’re not seeing battles between ICE and the public in cities without sanctuary policies.

This is the view of many Republicans, including 38th Ward Committeeperson Chuck Hernandez, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party. Hernandez believes that elected officials, especially Governor JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, are ginning up confrontations between agents and the public with their anti-ICE rhetoric.

“They’re playing a dangerous game,” said Hernandez, a retired police officer. “They’re inciting people to resist. These are lawful law enforcement officers. They’re really using this as partisan resistance to President Trump. He ran on mass deportations. Elections have consequences. They’re having a tantrum. They don’t want to accept the consequences of the election.”

In Hernandez’s view, ICE agents are merely defending themselves against hostile, anti-government agitators when they release tear gas or wrestle protestors to the ground.

“If you look at the videos, they’re under attack,” he said. “They’re being boxed into their vehicles. They have to get out of this.”

Richard Porter, a lawyer and former Republican National Committeeman, commissioned a poll in which 459 likely 2026 Democratic Primary Election voters in Illinois were asked their opinions of ICE. (The poll was conducted by M3 Strategies, which is owned by Kessem’s husband, Matt Podgorksi. Republicans in this town stick together.) According to the results, 42.1 percent said violence is “always,” “sometimes,” or “mostly acceptable” to stop ICE, while 38.8 percent said it is appropriate to physically pull ICE officers away when they are trying to handcuff someone. The poll also found that 81.2 percent of Democrats agree that “Trump and many of his supporters are like Nazis.”

To Porter, Democrats who oppose ICE’s actions are no different than the Confederates who tried to separate from the federal government during the Civil War, because they objected to the results of a presidential election. The ICE protestors are attempting to nullify federal laws with which they disagree.

“It’s felonious and anti-republic,” Porter said. “They are demonizing ordinary Americans who put on the badge. There is this belief on the left that people who commit crimes shouldn’t be punished for those crimes. What I wanted to do with that poll was to hold up a mirror and say, ‘Do you like who you’ve become?’”

So the next time you hear Chicagoans blowing whistles at the sight of an ICE vehicle, or cussing out an ICE agent, or attending an anti-ICE rally, just remember: Not everyone in Chicago feels that way. In last year’s election, 21.4 percent of Chicagoans voted for Trump. There’s not a silent majority in favor of ICE here, but there is, at least, a silent minority.