For months, Chicago has been a focal point of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement. Across our neighborhoods, families live with uncertainty and fear as loved ones are detained and separated from their communities. Few Chicagoans have escaped the emotional toll of these operations.
As a lifelong Gage Park resident and child of immigrants, these events are personal to me. My community has seen too many stories of parents dropping their children at school only to never return home, and of families being torn apart without warning or due process. No neighborhood should endure such fear.
Yet we have also witnessed something extraordinary: neighbors, faith leaders, advocates, and community organizations stepping up to support families, providing legal assistance, and exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest. This response reflects the values that define Chicago—looking out for one another during difficult times.
As we reckon with these events, we must ask how better to protect our communities. A crucial starting point is scrutinizing the companies our local governments choose for business and how taxpayer dollars are spent.
That conversation is especially important when it comes to surveillance technology.
In 2019, the ACLU of Illinois warned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could use automatic license plate reader data to locate immigrants. Given recent operations, these concerns about privacy and government surveillance deserve renewed attention.
Axon Enterprises, a company that many Chicago-region municipalities already contract with for body cameras and TASER devices, raises significant questions. As communities consider expanding these partnerships to include artificial intelligence and integrated surveillance, residents deserve transparency regarding the long-term implications.
Axon is a major technology contractor for federal immigration and homeland security agencies, securing contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for equipment used in enforcement. Recent public financial disclosures indicate that President Donald Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million in Axon stock shortly before ICE announced a new five-year contract with the company. Additionally, a former Axon executive responsible for the company’s Department of Homeland Security strategy now holds a senior leadership position at U.S. Customs and Border Protection after serving as Acting Director of ICE.
Whether viewed individually or together, these developments underscore why greater public scrutiny is warranted.
The larger question extends beyond any single contract: Do we want private companies collecting and storing vast amounts of data about our communities?
Axon’s vision reaches far beyond body cameras. The company is investing heavily in AI and integrated surveillance platforms like Fusus, which aggregates video from body cameras, fixed cameras, third-party systems, and building data into a single real-time awareness platform. While supporters argue these tools enhance public safety, critics warn they could expand surveillance, erode privacy, and exacerbate policing disparities without strong oversight.
Those are questions every community should confront before expanding these technologies—not after.
Local governments have a responsibility to ensure public safety while protecting civil liberties. As municipalities weigh future technology investments, they must evaluate who builds these systems, how data is used, and whether these partnerships reflect community values.
Today’s decisions about surveillance technology will shape the relationship between the public and law enforcement for years. Chicago and communities across Illinois should lead by ensuring these choices are guided by transparency, accountability, and a commitment to protecting the rights of every resident.
The Price of “Situational Awareness”: Protecting Immigrant Families from Over-Surveillance was first published by Illinois Latino News and is republished with permission.Aarón M. Ortíz is a Democratic member of the Illinois House of Representatives for the 1st district.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.