Winter Issue Front Cover

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Public i

“Modern Warfare” by Bryce Oquaye, a Lexington,
KY-based cartoonist. Used with permission

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Chicago ICE Raids: Self-Determination for All Subjugated Internal Nations

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Alen Romero

Both this and the following article were submitted before the killings of
Renée Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents on January 7 and 24,
respectively. Here local demonstrators protest Good’s killing
on North Prospect Ave. on January 11, following a car caravan
from Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana to Lowe’s in Champaign.
Photo by Marci Adelston-Schafer, used with permission

In October of 2025 Julio Cucul-Bol, a Guatemalan citizen, was sentenced to 30 years in Illinois prisons for the fatal hit-and-run accident which claimed the lives of two white women here in Urbana. In September of 2025 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had announced on their website “Operation Midway Blitz” a targeted enforcement program aimed at Chicago. DHS said that, due to “sanctuary policies” and Democratic Governor JB Pritzker, immigration had become a problem in the state. The announcement dedicated the operation to the victims killed in that January, 2025 car crash here in Urbana.

And really, could this drama have even played out any other way? Kristi Noem, former governor of South Dakota, has been making quite the name for herself in the new Trump administration as the secretary of homeland security, even earning the nickname “ICE Barbie” for her habit of appearing front and center in official publicity photos and as a talking head on right-wing news media. In a recent video posted to YouTube by Benny Johnson, Noem can be seen touring a “200,000-square-foot” building she reportedly wanted to buy in the Chicago area to expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing. It’s unclear whether this is a serious effort on her part or more like a social media stunt. Continue reading →

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Second Invasion of Chicago Spurs Resistance

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Bill Silver

Both this and the previous article were submitted before the killings of
Renée Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents on January 7 and 24,
respectively. Here local demonstrators protest Good’s killing
on North Prospect Ave. on January 11, following a car caravan
from Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana to Lowe’s in Champaign.
Photo by Marci Adelston-Schafer, used with permission

For more than three months, the Chicagoland area has been under invasion by an outside armed force. At a cost estimated between $70 and $100 million, Trump has ordered an occupation of the city by federal agents, most of them with faces covered and in full riot gear—armed with guns, rifles, tear gas, pepper spray, and handcuffs, used to abduct immigrants but also to detain and harass protesters.

Undocumented persons of brown or dark skin color are the target, though a number of US citizens have been arrested as well. Street vendors, landscapers, roofers, workers lined up waiting for temporary work outside of Home Depot, immigrants going to court to renew legal green cards or work permits or even to become citizens, parents picking up their children at school—no one is safe, and fear is everywhere. One person in Franklin Park seeking to evade an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abduction was shot and killed by an ICE agent. The justification by ICE for the killing has been disproved by the actual camera footage. Continue reading →

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The Real Dividing Line in America: Class Power

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Kristin Davis

Mobilization in Minneapolis on January 23 against ICE and the killing of Renée Good. Photo by a participant, who wishes to remain anonymous; used with permission

On Wednesday, January 7, a white US citizen named Nicole Renée Good was driving near her home in Minneapolis when a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed her. Renée, as she was known to her family and friends, was a 37-year-old mother who loved poetry and cared deeply for her community. After attempting to wave ICE officers on, Good was approached by the agents and confronted before the shooting. Eyewitness accounts from neighbors as well as recorded video show the events as they unfolded for the world to see.

Soon after videos of her death were posted, Donald Trump described Renée Good as a “professional agitator” and stated that the “Radical Left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our Law Enforcement Officers and ICE Agents on a daily basis.” He went on to say, “They are just trying to do the job of MAKING AMERICA SAFE.” The Trump administration and federal officials continued to double down on the terrorism narrative, despite the eyewitness testimony and video evidence that appeared to show Renée simply trying to leave the scene.

For centuries, the ruling class in America has used race to pit the masses against each other in an effort to prevent socioeconomic unity. In the 1600s it was racial division. Today, it’s identity politics. The idea is the same: pit the working class against each other to distract from the concentration of power and wealth at the top. Continue reading →

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Resistance in a Red State: Jail Support for Immigrants Held in Missouri

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Brian Dolinar

A group of mothers demonstrates outside the Greene County jail in Springfield, Missouri, calling for Sheriff Jim Arnott to cancel his contract with ICE. Photo by Isaac Protiva

Author’s note: If local immigrants are picked up by ICE in the Urbana-Champaign area, they will likely be cycled through at least one of three major detention centers in Missouri. I spoke with activists doing solidarity work in Missouri jails and reported on them in an article that was co-published by Truthout and The Appeal on December 6 and 7, respectively. This version has been edited for length and style; you can read the original version online.

Local Communities Resist ICE by Reaching Inside Jails and Building Networks of Support

For more than 200 days, Fernando Herrera-Cruz has been sitting in a county jail in central Missouri on immigration charges. The conditions in the jail are “very bad,” Herrera-Cruz told Truthout, with the help of a translator. “There are some guards who are very racist towards immigrants.”

Herrera-Cruz, who is 25 years old, left Mexico to come to the United States to work with his brother for a roofing business in St. Louis. He was travelling in rural Missouri for a job when the trailer on his truck got a flat tire. Herrera-Cruz says a passerby stopped, began harassing him, and called the police. When local sheriff’s deputies arrived, instead of helping with the flat tire, they arrested Herrera-Cruz.

According to a Department of Justice press release, Herrera-Cruz was picked up on March 18, 2025, and charged with illegal reentry. He was arrested in Camden County, Missouri, best known for the Lake of the Ozarks, a scenic stretch of waterways surrounded by mountains.

Central Missouri is politically conservative territory in a deep-red state. In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won Missouri with 58 percent of the vote. The state governor and local officials have eagerly collaborated with federal immigration agents to carry out the new administration’s mass deportation plans. Continue reading →

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Inspired by Palestinians, They Risked Their Lives to Reach Gaza by Boat: Three Americans from the Global Sumud Flotilla Describe Their Journey

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Kimberlie Kranich

Paul Reid

Carsie Blanton

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jessica Clotfelter

A longer version of this article appeared on Kimberlie Kranich’s Substack page on November 21, 2025.

The Three Americans

Paul Reid, a graphic designer based in Portland, Oregon; Carsie Blanton, a songwriter based in New Jersey; and Jessica Clotfelter, a former Marine based in rural Windsor, Illinois: I interviewed them after they sailed for Gaza on boats in the Mediterranean Sea last September. They were part of the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla, which was organized to bring attention to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza during the Israeli war on Gaza that began following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Nineteen Americans made the full journey and were part of a fleet of more than 40 boats and 500 participants from around the world carrying food, medicine, and diapers to the Palestinians of Gaza. Their boats were intercepted by the Israelis and everyone was arrested and imprisoned in Israel. While held captive, Israeli forces physically and psychologically abused them before releasing and deporting them after holding most participants for five days. Continue reading →

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My Turn: An Airing of the Local Jewish Laundry

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Jake McGinty

This article was rejected by the News-Gazette as an op-ed.

To those unfamiliar with our local Jewish scene, our Champaign-Urbana community might seem small; but we in fact have four major Jewish institutions that pull a lot of weight in town: the C-U Jewish Federation, Sinai Temple, Illini Hillel, and Illini Chabad. Over the last two years, all four of these institutions have systematically suppressed Jewish voices who dared to question Israel, leaving a wake of fractures in our community we’ve yet to grasp the depth of.

The war of words, propaganda, and confusion from the community I grew up in has left me and my loved ones feeling more endangered from hate than ever before, but at the same time, I’ve never felt more protection and warmth in a community than I do from those fighting for Palestinians. Continue reading →

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If There Were a Draft, Would You Go?

Posted on 03/02/2026 by Maya Bauer

Bill in his natural element, on his farm out by Allerton Park, 2020

If there were a draft, would you go?

It is likely an easy “no” to most of us now—especially in the context of the Vietnam War, with decades of hindsight and a clearer understanding of its brutality. But in the late 1960s, the propaganda machine was powerful, dissent was dangerous, and refusing the draft came with real consequences—social and legal. Continue reading →

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The Venezuela Raid: Venture Capitalism in a Gunboat

Posted on 03/01/2026 by Janice Jayes

January 3 emergency demonstration in downtown Champaign against Trump’s military action. Photo by the author

Kidnapping the president of Venezuela was a showy move, to be sure. Having already attacked boats in nearby international waters and positioned dozens of naval vessels in the region, on January 3 the US deployed 150 aircraft from bases across the hemisphere to attack Caracas. US Cyber Command shut down the electrical grid of the capital before Special Forces stormed the presidential compound and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. “Audacious,” proclaimed the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Mar-a-Lago press conference. Audacious maybe, but it certainly wasn’t lawful under international or domestic law.

The US raid on Venezuela has been described as a return to gunboat diplomacy, but it is even more dangerous than the racist, gunslinger imperialism of a century ago, both for the world and for those in the US. Welcome to the age of policy by prospectus. Continue reading →

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UCIMC Statement on ICE Violence

Posted on 03/01/2026 by Public i

The Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center condemns the extralegal surveillance, harassment, and violence waged by ICE against the people residing in the United States. We call for the abolishment of ICE and the prosecution of all ICE personnel who have participated in the murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, and any violent acts on any person or persons. US officials have chosen to operate outside the bounds of law and basic morality. This must stop.

Violence by ICE cannot be separated from US officials’ support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and for illegal settlement expansion in Palestine, the military strike on Venezuela, and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. These actions are interconnected expressions of an empire that relies on illegal violence abroad and domestically to enforce dominance.

The UC-IMC calls on all organizations and groups across the world to unite against this transnational terror and put human rights, dignity, and liberation FIRST.

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Winter Issue Back Cover

Posted on 03/01/2026 by Public i

Friday Forum + Conversation Café

Spring 2026 Series

Please join the University YMCA and Diversity & Social Justice Education for our Spring 2026 Friday Forum + Conversation Café series. We will hear from community leaders tackling our most pressing public concerns through an unwavering pursuit of social justice.

All presentations are open to the public and free on Fridays at 12 PM in Latzer Hall at the University YMCA. Free lunch is provided. Continue reading →

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December Issue Front Cover

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Public i

The Only War Criminal Available, cartoon by Khalil Bendib. Used under Creative Commons CC BY-ND 3.0 License

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Not Every Israeli, but All of Israel

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Dua Aldasouqi

Graphic from visualizingpalestine.org. Used under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License

It’s been nearly four weeks since the start of “not a ceasefire” in Gaza. This “ceasefire,” like every previous one, means that Palestinians cease while Israel continues to fire, albeit at a slower pace—one more palatable to world leaders. Since the “ceasefire” came into effect, Israel has violated it hundreds of times, killing at least 230 Palestinians in Gaza as of this writing, including nearly 100 children. Israel has continued shooting Palestinians, and using tank shelling and even air strikes to target Palestinian men, women, and children, as well as their homes and hospitals.

These violations also include severely restricting the entry of aid and resources, with only about 10 percent of the “agreed-upon” trucks entering the strip, and the Rafah border remaining closed. Palestinians report a relative increase in the availability of high-calorie foods with low nutrient density, like chocolate and chips, rather than the needed life-saving nutrient-dense foods, sources of protein, and medication. One Palestinian reports it as “sugar everywhere, the illusion of nourishment, the mockery of life.” Continue reading →

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Fighting Antisemitism Means Defending Free Speech

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Clara Belitz and Jessica Greenberg and Brett Ashley Kaplan

While we were hopeful that local, statewide, national, and international opposition to the war in Gaza and to the starvation of its citizens that resulted in the October 10, 2025 ceasefire would make peace, since then both sides have broken the deal and war continues to ravage an already decimated population. Because the firing has not ceased, and because peace was within reach, it is more important than ever that everyone be able to speak freely to achieve a calm resolution to an almost impossible impasse.

In Illinois, Governor Pritzker joined a wide swath of Democratic governors and lawmakers in insisting that aid be allowed to enter Gaza. World leaders increased their calls for peace. The United Nations has called on Israel to abide by UN rules and international law. And yet, at many universities, including the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, criticizing Israeli policies is considered antisemitic.

We believe it is crucial that everyone, whether citizens or non-citizens, be allowed to voice opposition to deadly and genocidal policies. The pain of the families of the victims of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack is unimaginable and unambiguously horrendous. But starving children, some of whom were not even born when the attacks took place, will neither bring back the dead nor solve the political crises in the Middle East. What this mistreatment will surely do is create more anger and more terror, and make long-lasting peace an ever more distant mirage. These actions take us further from a future where everyone is able to live with freedom, safety, and self-determination. Continue reading →

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Friendship during Genocide: Former Marine and Palestinian Mother in Gaza Claim Each Other as Family

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Kimberlie Kranich

Screenshot of Zoom video by the author. Upper left: Jessica Clotfelter; upper right: Dua Aldasouqi; lower center: Asma

This is part one of a two-part article on friendship and solidarity during Israel’s war against Palestinians in Gaza.

Ear-to-ear smiles form on all three women’s faces when Asma appears on Zoom from 6,000 miles away in Khan Younis in the occupied Gaza Strip, Palestine. She and her family are still alive after more than 750 days of being bombed by Israel with weapons supplied by the United States. They are living in a crowded tent camp along the Mediterranean coast.

Asma waves at Jessica Clotfelter, a former Marine from Windsor, Illinois, who has just returned after being captured in October by the Israeli Defense Forces in the Mediterranean Sea, while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza by boat as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The boats did not reach Gaza. The closest vessel came within 25.5 nautical miles of its coast, but the mission helped amplify Palestinian voices for liberation. Continue reading →

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Labor Exploitation, Exclusion, and Racial Terrorism, 1874–1924

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua

This article is adapted from Dr. Cha-Jua’s address “Stolen Labor, and Hindered Opportunity,” presented at the African Descent–Citizens Reparations Commission (ADCRC) public meeting on October 4 at the Krannert Center in Urbana. All of the presentations from that gathering are available on the ADCRC YouTube channel. You can get more information about local efforts towards correcting historic inequities by contacting cureparations@gmail.com. They have regular meetings at the New Covenant Fellowship in Champaign and are currently celebrating the reparations resolutions from both the Champaign County Board and Urbana City Council. These include $25,000 from each towards supporting various activities in support of reparations.

I explore here two distinct problems in the sociohistorical experience of the Afrikan American worker in Illinois. The first concerns the lived history of Black workers, their material conditions, work relations, and resistance to anti-Black racial oppression. The second is historiographic and examines the marginalization and distortion of Black workers’ experiences in the “Land of Lincoln.” Continue reading →

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UCIMC’s 25th Anniversary

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Jane McClintock

Twenty-five years ago, Indymedia was born out of anti–World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999. Using democratic media, volunteer journalists broadcast the voices from the global justice movement to millions of people around the globe.

Out of that realization of the power of independent media, a global network of 210 Independent Media Centers was born, including our own IMC. Since then, the media landscape has changed tremendously, but our IMC remains a paramount example of adaptability and resilience, evolving to meet the emerging needs of our community.

At the end of October, UCIMC celebrated 25 years with local members and collaborators from around the globe, including Japan, New York City, and Philadelphia. Continue reading →

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You Need to Listen to the Radio

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Jane McClintock

I recently quit using Spotify when I learned that its former CEO, Daniel Ek, had major investments in AI weapons manufacturing. As if I needed another reason, I later learned that the company had been streaming ICE recruitment ads.

If you’re also looking to cut ties to the corporate media machine while supporting independent artists, join me in tuning in to UC Independent Media Center’s own WRFU Radio Free Urbana 104.5 FM. In between shows, the station rotates an upbeat mix of local to global independent artists.

No tuner? No problem! Listen live or tune into past shows at wrfu.net. Continue reading →

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Don’t Ask Me to Mourn Kirk: White Grief, Black Truth

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Reverend Terrance Thomas

Charlie Kirk is dead. For some, that sentence alone stirs discomfort, because you’ve already been trained to mourn. But not all deaths are tragic. Sometimes people live in such a way that when they die, the earth exhales. Kirk was not misunderstood. He was not a patriot. He was not a martyr. He was a white nationalist, and I will not mourn him.

Chickens Coming Home to Roost

Malcolm X said it best when he remarked on “chickens coming home to roost.” He was vilified for telling the truth about consequence. I expect the same here. Kirk’s life work was built on stoking white nationalism, mocking Black liberation, demonizing immigrants, and targeting LGBTQIA people. He poured gasoline on fires of hate and called it free speech. His death is not loss, it is consequence. Chickens always come home to roost. You don’t get to plant seeds of hate and demand flowers of sympathy. Continue reading →

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The Venezuelan Crisis: Product Placement for the Wars at Home

Posted on 01/09/2026 by Janice Jayes

The Pentagon doesn’t bother to substantiate the claims against its targets in the Caribbean, and boasts of the executions in international waters. Image from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s X account

Trump notified the world of his intended campaign against “narco-terrorist cartels” on Inauguration Day, but the reality of this summer’s naval buildup and military strikes in the Caribbean still took Americans by surprise. Analysts have been working overtime to decipher White House intentions. Is this about the security of the Panama Canal? About redirecting Venezuela’s oil to reduce European vulnerability to Russia? About removing a regional ally of Cuba?

No, the logic of the War on Venezuela can’t be found in the normal geopolitical arguments, but it is literally staring us in the face. The coastal waters off Venezuela, where a US aircraft carrier, a guided missile destroyer, a floating Special Operations Command Center, and other warships have joined jets, drones, helicopter gunships, and thousands of US troops, is the stage for Trump’s most martial PR stunt yet. Venezuelan lives will get shattered in the process, but this isn’t about Venezuela or cartels at all. The brazen show that is Operation Southern Sphere is selling the US public a new kind of war here at home. Continue reading →

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