Elections

Here Are The Radical Leftist Anti-Trump Groups Behind The Chicago Protest

Michael Volpe Contributor
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The usual suspects of local radical leftists were instrumental in organizing the anti-Trump rally protest in Chicago on Friday.

Chicago ANSWER

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Chicago is the Chicago franchise of an international network started in the wake of 9/11 and among the first to protest against a response in Afghanistan; since then the group is involved in most of the radical left’s favorite causes: anti-capitalist, pro-union, open borders, anti-war, anti-police causes. The day after the Trump rally the group was holding a forum entitled “Taking Action to Support Palestine.”

“We will have a report back from the People’s victory against Trump last night,” according to John Beacham, a coordinator with the organization, in a message on the Facebook page promoting the event.

The group advertised the anti-Trump protest about a day in advance on their website calling for a “Mass Protest to Stop Donald Trump”.

“Stand with All Immigrants, Muslims and People of Color! Shut Down White Supremacy!  Spread the word. Organize everyone you can and get them to this very important protest. Everywhere Trump goes he and his racist mob must be shut down by the people!” the group said on the page.

Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights

This radical leftist group, specializing in immigration, is a more extreme version of the far left version of National Council on La Raza in Illinois.

The group was featured in an article profiling some of the groups intending to protest Trump’s rally in the left-wing website, Progress Illinois on March 8 entitled “New Americans Hit The Polls In Chicago As Immigrant Advocates Gear Up For Anti-Trump Protest.”

“There’s a lot of really hateful rhetoric with respect to immigrants being voiced by candidates out there, “ICIRR’s Senior Policy Counsel Fred Tsao said in that article. “We want to show that immigrants are patriotic, contributing and eager to participate in the political process and to integrate into society.”

This group was not only instrumental in creating not only the most radical local immigration ordinance but championed the case which inspired the DREAM Act.

In 2011, Cook County became the first locality to stop cooperating with the federal government on detainers; detainers became controversial among leftist groups when their use skyrocketed under the now discarded Secure Communities program.

Detainers are holds that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) places on state prisoners who they think also violated immigration law and the hold normally gives the federal government up to two extra days to get any prisoner who would otherwise be released.

Denny McCann was killed in June 2011 when an illegal alien driving about three times the speed limit didn’t stop and dragged him about two hundred feet when Denny was crossing the street. The illegal alien, Saul Chavez, was released from prison in November 2011, rather than be held for ICE, after this ordinance passed and has escaped and is presumed in Mexico: the most high profile of numerous cases of murderers, rapists, and gang members all let free rather than deported as a result of that policy.

ICIRR led a coalition of groups which helped to pass and to tamp down the resulting controversy.

ICIRR also championed the case of Rigo Padilla, an illegal alien who was to be deported from an incident which started in a traffic stop. That case sparked Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin to call for the original iteration of the DREAM Act, now known as the Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals (DACA) after he became a Padilla supporter shortly after his case received media attention in 2009.

ICIRR offers so-called DREAMer loans, home loans to DACA recipients.

La Raza Chicago

The Chicago branch of the notoriously radical pro-illegal immigration group had people on site and detailing the events in a post on its site.

“Donald Trump canceled its event Friday night at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for safety reasons, including the thousands of protesters who gathered inside and outside the venue,” read an English translation of the post, “protesting his presence, which has already caused confrontations with supporters of Trump and the authorities.”

The post concludes analyzing who the protesters were: “Protests by presidential candidate rally had been organized for days by a coalition of activists, students, religious and political city, including numerous Latino organizations and African American (organizations.)”