Cities are Figuring Out How to Fight the Feds

The only acceptable form of NIMBYism: weaponizing code violations against the Feds.

There are many examples of unprecedented actions this year, and now I give you one more: I am writing approvingly about cities enforcing municipal codes in order to displace unwanted residents.¹ Don’t worry, I’m not doing the tried and true actually-I’m-a-Republican-now grift. Cities are enforcing codes to try to get rid of ICE agents.

Many cities and states facing increased violent immigration enforcement overwhelmingly oppose ICE’s presence; one recent poll in Chicago showed nearly two-thirds of respondents opposed increased ICE activity. Incredibly, this poll was run by a conservative “law and order” group, so two-thirds of the city opposes ICE involvement even when asked the question with conservative framing. But despite the desires of the people who live in these cities, it’s difficult—likely impossible—for mayors or governors to legally prevent ICE enforcement in their cities or states. Federal law generally preempts state law when the two are in conflict, and immigration law is an area with a long history of deference to the federal government and executive power specifically.² That’s why California’s new law attempting to block ICE agents from covering their faces is unlikely to have much of an impact (though is still an admirable effort); although Trump lawyers are often talking out of their asses, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli is probably not wrong when he says the law has no effect on ICE operations because the state “has no jurisdiction over the federal government.”

But some cities have started throwing up roadblocks for ICE that are likely to be legal, because they don’t really have to do with the federal government at all. Cities like Portland, Oregon, and the Chicagoland suburb of Broadview are weaponizing municipal code violations to make ICE operations untenable.

ICE operations in Chicago have relied heavily on a “processing” facility housed at 1930 Beach Street in Broadview,³ a small suburb about 30 minutes outside the city and very inconvenient to access via public transit.⁴ Despite the inconvenient location and small population, protesters have shown up en masse, and been met with excessive force. Following national coverage of protests, ICE erected a fence overnight on Monday, September 22, blocking access to the public street.

On Wednesday, the Broadview Fire Department called for the fence’s removal, as it is a fire hazard and illegally constructed across the village’s road. The boarded-up windows visible at the facility likely violates city codes as well, as the international fire code adopted by the village of Broadview has ventilation and lighting requirements often violated by boarded windows.

Meanwhile, following an extended public pressure campaign, Portland, Oregon, has begun the process to revoke its only ICE facility’s land use permit. The permit only allows 12-hour detentions; FOIA’d data from ICE revealed at least 20 instances of people being held for over 24 hours.

These cities, and the protesters and organizers sustaining pressure on them, remind us of the need to think creatively and use all available tools in our toolkit as we resist the Trump administration. These stories also clarify how helpful it is when organizers are uplifted and supported by elected officials, instead of demonized or bifurcated as “peaceful” or “violent.”⁵ We are all in this together, and the only way out is through. Who would’ve thought that city codes might help us get there?

1. Municipal codes are far, far more likely to be enforced to harm residents in myriad ways, including through nuisance law and Crime Free Housing Ordinances that are racially motivated and enforced, and I am thus historically far more likely to be writing to critique them. The pigs are IN THE AIR.

2. This, coupled with immigration disputes being resolved in civil/administrative courts as opposed to criminal courts, is a key structural reason why Trump has focused his authoritarian attacks on immigrants. There are far fewer checks on his power here. This is bad no matter which party is in charge.

3. This facility has been illegally used to detain people for days, and Congresspeople attempting to conduct oversight visits following these illegal detentions were denied entry.

4. Mass mobilization in Chicago makes it challenging for ICE to use buildings in the city itself as home bases.

5. Your Mariame Kaba/Kelly Hayes interlude, from Let This Radicalize You: Popular definitions of violence tend to include property destruction. But under these definitions, the destruction of property is usually viewed as violent only if it disrupts profit or the maintenance of wealth. If food is destroyed because it cannot be sold while people go hungry, that is not considered violent under the norms of capitalism . . . We are surrounded by violence in this society, even under conditions that government authorities would characterize as “peaceful,” because violence has always been embedded in the norms and functions of this system.