Immigrant Neighbors Skip Mutual Aid Event As ICE Fears Increase

ENGLEWOOD — By 10 a.m. Saturday, Edward Gavin, 68, had been sitting in line for three hours, holding an umbrella with one hand and hanging on to a push shopping cart with the other.

Gavin is one of 120 to 150 people who regularly visit a food pantry and resource fair held monthly by the Chicago United Solidarity Project and other partners at Mothers Against Senseless Killings’ community campus, 7500 S. Stewart Ave.

The mutual aid group has organized the pantry for seven years, starting as a biweekly pantry serving about 70 people during the pandemic and expanding to its monthly format, said Jared Honn, co-steward of Chicago United Solidarity Project.

The pantry tends to the needs of people searching for food aid, offering high-quality fresh produce, dry goods, household items, diapers and pet food to neighbors, among other resources.

“I’m just surviving. I’m tryin’ to survive,” Gavin said. “Places like these help put some food on the table because it’s rough out here these days.”

The collective long served mostly Black neighbors; but as thousands of South American immigrants started settling in Chicago after crossing the border or being bused from Texas in 2022, the makeup of visitors to the pantry slightly changed, organizers said.

Now, about 80 percent of pantry visitors are Black, and the rest are of other backgrounds, including many Venezuelan immigrants, organizers said.

However, at this Saturday’s event, almost no immigrants showed up.

Organizers said their absence was likely due to fear of the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

During past upticks in ICE activity, organizers have resorted to dropping off food and other items directly to people’s homes in neighborhoods like Back of the Yards, as people were too afraid of being arrested by immigration authorities to come in person, said Amanda Williams, co-steward of the Chicago United Solidarity Project.

The Mobile Migrant Health Clinic, a grassroots medical-student-led group that provides free medical care for new neighbors, joined the food pantry for the first time last month. It’s a new partnership that emerged after Sebastian Cortez, a volunteer, visited the pantry to evaluate how the clinic bring health services to pantry visitors and new neighbors, said Kelley Baumann, a medical student and volunteer with the group.

On its first on-site visit, the mobile health clinic completed over 30 blood pressure and glucose screenings.  

About 10 percent were for new neighbors who are Latino, Baumann said. The group called people ahead of Saturday’s event to remind them of the food pantry and their next health screening, and many Latino immigrants said they were coming — yet they did not show up, Baumman said.

“When ICE goes up, attendance goes down,” Baumann said.

Organizers believe the recent killings of immigrants during encounters with federal immigration agents, including the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrer in Maine, could have sent people into hiding.

“It is scary getting deported. It’s even worse getting murdered in the streets,” said Tamar Manasseh, founder of Mothers Against Senseless Killings.

Providing Needed Resources

The pantry is an example of Black and Brown solidarity at a time when federal policies are restricting access to programs aimed at serving the most vulnerable, Williams said.

The monthly pantry provides much-needed aid to people in need, including those affected by recent changes to SNAP and the rising cost of living. The monthly events also help visitors get informed about services they have access to but that are not easy to navigate, organizers said.

On Saturday, volunteers with the mobile health clinic completed over a dozen glucose and blood pressure screenings. They also talked to visitors about a new medical protocol they developed to help people communicate better with their doctors when receiving medical care.

“Often we see people have healthcare, but they don’t feel like they are listened to or that their experiences are validated,” said Oanthata Modise, a medical student who volunteered at last month’s clinic.

Organizers also provide resources that are not covered by other programs or pantries.

Every month, One Tail At A Time animal rescue sets up its Pet Mutual Aid pantry to distribute food for neighbors with pets or who take care of stray animals, said Carolina Hernandez of One Tail at A Time. Organizers also distribute hundreds of thousands of free diapers to families who might struggle to afford them, Honn said.

London Robinson, an Auburn Gresham neighbor who waited in line for four hours, has three dogs and one cat and looks after four stray cats. Every month, she visits the pantry to get pet food and fresh produce. She, too, has seen the change in population in her neighborhood as more immigrants have moved in, she said.

Robinson’s new Latino neighbors are mostly young and keep to themselves, she said. It is different from how the block where she has lived for 58 years used to be, where block parties were common and all neighbors knew each other, she said.

In recent weeks, Robinson worked with her next-door neighbors, a Latino family, to cut down a tree in their shared backyard that had damaged her garage and was at risk of falling on theirs, she said.

“We had to communicate. We’re getting there,” she said.