Black Hawks Over American Streets

Helicopters in the night, children stripped from their beds, citizens detained without charge; Trump’s police state has arrived, and what happened in Chicago will soon be happening everywhere.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Follow him on Substack for more by clicking here.

When Trump was on the campaign trail and his goons paraded around with signs screaming “Mass Deportation Now,” did you think it was bluster? A bit of Trumpian theater to whip up the base, like the “lock her up” chants or the wall Mexico was supposed to pay for? Wrong. None of this was hype. It was a warning — one too many Americans ignored. And now, it’s here.

Chicago just became another test case for what life under Trump’s police state looks like. Picture this: Black Hawk helicopters slicing through the night sky. Armed agents in masks flooding into a South Side apartment building. Doors kicked in, families dragged out, children stripped from their mothers in the middle of the night. Three hundred officers swarming a single neighborhood, detaining not just immigrants but American citizens — kids included — for hours on end. All in the name of “national security.”

That wasn’t a movie scene. That wasn’t Venezuela, Russia, or Iran. That was Chicago, Illinois, in 2025. Operation Midway Blitz, they’re calling it. Blitz — a word chosen not by accident, but because Trump and his people want you to know this is war.

According to DHS, the raid targeted members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang Trump has labeled a terrorist organization. Let me repeat that: the President of the United States unilaterally branded a foreign street gang a terrorist organization, giving federal agencies cover to treat Chicago apartment buildings like al-Qaeda compounds. And what did this massive military-style siege actually produce? Thirty-seven arrests. A handful of alleged gang members. Several people accused of drug possession. And children — four American citizen children — hauled away by strangers with rifles to be placed “in the care of the state.”

This is what Trump calls “law and order.” This is what he promised when he said he would flood “Democrat-run cities” with federal agents. And he’s keeping that promise. What he’s really building is not safety; it’s a police state.

The images are chilling. Men dragged outside half-naked. Children shivering, unclothed, taken from their mothers as helicopters hovered above. A woman crying in Spanish across the street: “I’ll always love you.” Papers, birth certificates, family photos tossed across the floor like garbage. This isn’t policing. This is punishment — collective punishment against entire communities. Against sanctuary cities. Against political opposition.

The White House claims it’s about fighting crime. Don’t buy it — that’s bullshit. Look at the numbers. Out of more than 800 people arrested during these Chicago operations in the past month, most had no criminal record. No pending charges. Many had never been accused of a crime in their lives. What they were guilty of was existing in a country where the President has weaponized federal law enforcement against the vulnerable, the voiceless, and anyone who lives in a zip code that dared vote blue.

Ask yourself: if this can happen in Chicago, what stops it from happening in Philadelphia? Atlanta? Boston? Your own backyard? If federal agents can storm apartments in the dead of night, detain American citizens without charges, and strip children from their parents in front of their neighbors, then the Constitution isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Governor JB Pritzker said it plainly: Illinois is not a war zone. But Trump wants you to believe it is; because chaos justifies control. Fear justifies power. And terror — manufactured terror — justifies his dream of mass deportation.

Remember, this is the same Trump who, back on the campaign trail, cheered on chants of “Send them back!” He told you what he was going to do. He told you he wanted mass deportation, militarized crackdowns, and enemies lists. The only lie was pretending it wouldn’t touch ordinary people, that it was only about “criminals.” Now we see the truth — or I hope you do. Because the net is wide, and it’s catching citizens right alongside migrants.

I spent years in Trump’s orbit. I know how he thinks. He thrives on creating enemies and crushing them publicly. He doesn’t see migrants as human beings. He doesn’t see dissenters as citizens with rights. He sees everyone who isn’t loyal as expendable. The raids in Chicago aren’t about public safety; they’re about public submission.

So the question is: how long before Americans stop pretending this is someone else’s problem? How long before people realize that when Trump comes for the immigrant, he sets the precedent for coming for the journalist, the activist, the protester, the political opponent? That’s how authoritarianism works; you start with the vulnerable, and once the machine is built, it never stops grinding.

This is a warning. A flashing red siren. We are no longer at the stage of “it can’t happen here.” It is happening here. This week it was Chicago. Tomorrow it could be your city. And once you let a police state take root, history shows it never gives power back voluntarily.

Because in Trump’s America, the knock at the door in the dead of night isn’t for someone else; it’s coming for you.

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