Spring 2026 Newsletter
Welcome to the Chicago Alliance newsletter! Here you'll find updates on all of the work we have going out in the field with our campaigns.
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The Referendum for Community Power Over Policing
Pass the CPOP Referendum!
The struggle for the Referendum for Community Power Over Policing is heating up, and we are closer than ever before to securing the City Council votes needed to get this referendum on the ballot. For those unfamiliar with the measures in the referendum ordinance, you can check out this page on our website. This referendum is designed to move us further on the path toward community control of the police.
Over the past few months, we've been hosting briefing meetings, organizing delegations to alderpeople's offices and ward nights, and continuing our field operations work. Field operations is the most important work we do to help push forward this referendum, and in the course of the past several months, we've gathered over 6,000 signed postcards addressed to alderpeople demanding their support for putting this referendum on the ballot.
We ask all our supporters to get engaged in our field operations work by contacting Frank Chapman, to call your alderperson, and to help us thank our current cosponsors and apply pressure to our current target alderpeople, who are listed below:
PLEASE THANK OUR OFFICIAL COSPONSORS
4 - Lamont Robinson
5 - Desmon Yancy
6 - William Hall
12 - Julia Ramirez
20 - Jeanette Taylor
22 - Mike Rodriguez
25 - Byron Sigcho-Lopez
26 - Jessie Fuentes
30 - Ruth Cruz
33 - Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez
35 - Anthony Quezada
47 - Matt Martin
48 - Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth
49 - Maria Hadden
PLEASE APPLY PRESSURE TO OUR CURRENT TARGETS
2 - Brian Hopkins
11 - Nicole Lee
14 - Jeylu Gutierrez
29 - Chris Taliaferro
28 - Jason Ervin
3 - Pat Dowell
8 - Michelle Harris
16 - Stephanie Coleman
17 - David Moore
37 - Emma Mitts
44 - Bennett Lawson
Visit caarpr.org/cpop-toolkit to find contact info for all the alders above.
Coalition Against the Trump Agenda
We started off the winter season with a week of action with the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda. As a coalition of over 120 organizations and growing, there are no signs of stopping towards the goal to resist the racist and reactionary Trump administration. On December 20th, the coalition and allies rallied in solidarity with Gustavo Petro and the people of Columbia in the face of escalating attacks and sanctions from the fascist Trump administration in retaliation for their brave anti-imperialist stance. We welcomed the U.S. Ambassador for Colombia to speak on the struggle of Colombia to fight against racism, injustice, climate change, and genocide in Palestine and around the world, as well as the importance of solidarity from anti-imperialists in the belly of the beast.
Days later, on January 3rd, we rallied in the cold to say NO WAR ON VENEUZUELA amidst escalating violence, the kidnapping of President Maduro, and blatant violations of international law by the U.S. We stood with thousands of protestors and with the Venezuelan people in their struggle for self-determination and national sovereignty.
On January 25th, the coalition called an emergency protest to stand with Minnesota in the aftermath of two brutal murders at the hands of ICE agents in broad daylight. This comes after Chicago’s own outrage over ICE killing of Silvario Villegas Gonzalez in September and Keith Porter in December of 2025. 10,000 people marched down Michigan Avenue with us in snowfall, including Mayor Brandon Johnson to demand: ICE OUT OF EVERYWHERE. We gathered once more to stay ready and vigilant against ICE and Border Patrol’s terror on our communities on February 7th for a National Day of Action to protest ICE murders, demand legalization for all, put an end to deportations, and to put pressure on the States Attorney Eileen Burke to charge killer ICE agents.
The late winter months consisted of a vigilant response to the imperialist attacks abroad by the Trump administration in collaboration with the genocidal state of Israel. We know that our tax dollars are being used to commit regular war crimes against countries like Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon. We took part in several emergency actions and coalition protests to oppose the expansion of the US / Israeli imperialist war on the Middle East.
On Tax Day, we protested NO TAXES FOR WAR OR ICE at the Google Building. We demanded the end of our tax dollars being used to fund genocide and wars, and for Google to immediately halt all of its contracts with Israel, U.S. military, and DHS. As the wealth gap widens, our taxes should go to education, healthcare, housing, and employment! Not wars and occupations!
Laastly, the Coalition was proud to endorse the May Day protest at Union Park. We marched with thousands in the streets to uplift the demands of protest: Stop ICE! Defend Voting Rights! Fight Trump’s Racist and Reactionary Agenda!
In case you haven’t yet, you can sign up for our mass text system to get notified as soon as any emergency protest from our coalition is called in Chicago! ➡️ visit bit.ly/CATAalert ⬅️ (case sensitive. you may get a loading page, select “continue to destination”).
The Campaign to Free the Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST)
Our committee continues to fight to free all survivors of police torture and wrongful conviction and hold the crooked cops, States Attorneys, judges and elected officials accountable for their complicity.
Court support continues to be the main part of our operations. We are excited to welcome new court support volunteers who have joined our forces and are helping us consistently attend court in person or over zoom and report back to our committee with details on how each court case is progressing. These new volunteers have helped stabilize our presence in court when our committee co-chairs are unavailable. We encourage all members to check out our court date calendar at cfist.org/court-date-calendar to find upcoming court dates and get involved!
In January, we were thrilled to celebrate Antonio Porter's freedom from prison after a judge vacated his conviction for a 2002 murder he had nothing to do with. Porter is now home on electronic monitoring while he awaits a new trial that will bar witness testimony that was coerced at the hands of CPD torture cop Brian Johnson. Porter's mother, Rosemary Cade, has been fighting for years, and is now able to spend time with her son.
"It means a lot," she said. "We did spend a nice Mother's day together. I'm loving every minute of it." Porter has also been able to spend time with his daughter and two grandchildren.
Our committee has also developed a system for creating fact sheets for all the survivors we're working with. We've been organizing and digitizing all the physical documents we have, and volunteers are transcribing the crucial info and writing them into fact sheets. You can read and share completed fact sheets for survivors at caarpr.org/survivors
Our members have been engaged in field operations to spread the word about our CFIST campaign and getting signatures for our petition targeting Governor Pritzker and demanding he grant clemency for all those who are all wrongfully convicted. Pritzker has the power to grant freedom for hundreds of clemency petitioners with credible claims of torture with the stroke of his pen, but continues to stonewall our movement.
In April, we held our annual CFIST town hall, which brought over 50 survivors, family members, and supporters of the movement to hear directly from survivors and their loved ones about their experiences within the criminal injustice system and being wrongfully convicted and tortured by police. Many of those who spoke are survivors of torture and wrongful conviction that our movement supported and played a role in helping free.
We have seen our fight grow more difficult under State's Attorney Eileen Burke, who has consistently stood with this system of injustice against our movement. We are committed to putting pressure on Burke, and call on all our supporters to get involved in this fight to make sure she faces the full power of the people. We also demand action from CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling, the Mayor's office, and Attorney General Kwame Raoul to step in and hold accountable the detectives and commanders responsible for the ongoing crisis of wrongful convictions in our city.
In order to stop police torture and wrongful conviction, we need more democratic power for working class and oppressed Chicagoans. We must fight to pass the Referendum for Community Power Over Policing so we can take the reins of power from CPD, hold this system to account, and prevent continued kidnappings, torture, and brutality against our people.
Rest in Power: Jeanette Plummer
Our sister warrior and dearest friend Jeanette Plummer has transitioned to join the ancestors. We dip our banners of struggle in honor to Jeanette. When we first kicked off the CPAC campaign–that is the struggle against police crimes and to create an all elected, all civilian police accountability council– Jeanette Plummer was right there with us in Englewood, telling the Alliance and all of our allies who gathered together on that day (July 12th, 2012) to have a people’s hearing on police crimes.
She told us in clear, strong, and graphic language what happened to her son, Johnny Plummer. How as a 15 year old child he was brutally tortured by the police, the Jon Burge gang. She was dedicated not only to getting justice for her son, but also for all those who were victims of police torture and who had been wrongfully convicted and put in prison, many of them with life sentences.
So on this sad occasion where we dip our banners of struggle to this true and courageous comrade, we also rededicate ourselves to carrying forward, to the best of our capacity and ability, the struggle to get justice for all those wrongfully convicted and for all those who still languish in prison, innocent of committing any crime, except the crime of being Black in America.
The hundreds of torture cases, many of which are still unresolved (make no mistake about it), came about because of the criminalization of our youth and the racist criminal justice system. It’s now more than ever incumbent upon us to overturn this cruel and inhumane system of criminal justice that sends innocent Black and brown youth to prison for crimes that they did not commit.
Johnny Plummer has been in prison for over 30 years, going in as a teenager, as a child, 15 years old, for something that he did not do. And now he’s coming back to court to try to get justice. So, on his next hearing date on May 26th at 9:30 AM at 26th & California, we ask all of our friends and allies to come to court with us, to stand with Johnny Plummer in honor of his mother and all those who have perished fighting for freedom and demanding justice now.
FREE THEM ALL! ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Frank Chapman, Executive Director, NAARPR
Immigrant Rights Working Committee
The Immigrant Rights Working Committee officially launched a new campaign to End CPD-ICE Collaboration in January after a historic community mobilization to the CCPSA Special Hearing on CPD-ICE Collaboration on January 8th, 2026 at Thalia Hall.
This meeting was the culmination of consistent organizing and outreach in collaboration with rapid response teams and District Councilors. The community came together to collect well over 2,000 signatures to demand action from the police accountability bodies of Chicago as mounting evidence and eyewitness accounts of CPD-ICE collaboration continued to pile up, including police body cam footage showing officers complying with immigration enforcement agents, testimony from rapid responders regarding harmful crowd control by CPD, and video of CPD establishing perimeters around immigration enforcement operations.
Since the launch of this campaign, we have mobilized to every single public CCPSA meeting to demand that the CCPSA present to the community, on a monthly basis, all communications, internal memos, and guidances regarding CPD and ICE collaboration, end CPD crowd control during immigration enforcement activities, end pretextual traffic stops, end CPD’s use of tactical teams, remove all current and former oathkeepers and other members of white supremacist hate groups from the police force, and transfer oathkeeper investigations from the BIA to COPA.
After cancelling his appearance at a prior CCPSA meeting, CPD Superintendent Snelling finally agreed to a special hearing, for which questions had to be submitted ahead of time. Prior to the hearing, we called for a press conference and rallied in front of Thomas Kelly High School with movement allies like the Tanggol Migrante Movement, Students for a Democratic Society, and Pilsen Unidos por Nuestro Orgullo. Multiple IRWC members were called upon to give public comments at the meeting, where we continued to uplift our demands and express disappointment in the lack of progress.
Superintendent Snelling has continued to blame CPD crowd control and perimeter setting at immigration enforcement operations on “community violence” and his sentiments at the special hearing were no different. CCPSA commissioners were allowed to ask him questions; however the questions previously solicited from the community were not addressed. In the end, IRWC members successfully disrupted the meeting, leading to auditorium-wide chants of “CPD! KKK! ICE! They’re all the same!” and forcing the end of the special hearing as several of our members were threatened with arrest, manhandled, and forced out by security and CPD.
We are continuing to mobilize to CCPSA meetings and updating public comment to respond to the dynamic situation. The June meeting will be held on the 25th at Benito Juarez High School in Pilsen and we are planning a press conference and rally prior. This is the first meeting for two new CCPSA commissioners, Anjanette Young and Angelique Guzman. As these new commissioners start their terms, we call on them to ensure that CPD-ICE collaboration remains a priority and to continue to push for progress on investigations.
In addition to our attendance at CCPSA meetings and special hearings, we have mobilized the Chicago community in support of allies in Minneapolis. We answered the call from organizers in Minnesota to protest Target stores across the city following in-store detentions in Minneapolis. After the horrific murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents, twenty thousand supporters showed up with one day of notice to march in heavy snow and below freezing temperatures. We proudly expressed our solidarity with immigrant communities and rapid responders in Minnesota.
As the budget fight in Washington D.C. continued throughout the winter, we put out a call out to contact congressional representatives and demand that they vote no on any bill authorizing funding for ICE. We targeted both Illinois senators and eleven democratic representatives who had the power to put an end to Trump’s reign of terror in our communities. A day later, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson issued the “ICE on Notice” Executive Order, directing the Chicago Police Department to investigate and file charges against violent federal agents conducting immigration enforcement. A huge win for the movement in Chicago, CAARPR and the IRWC were invited to be a part of the signing of this Order.
We have also sent contingents to multiple large actions in Chicago, such as No Kings and May Day, and helped organize the International Women’s Day march. Working with the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and the Anti-War Committee, we organized a Tax Day action at Google headquarters to protest their contract with the Israeli military and ongoing U.S. government subsidies. Coalition-building actions such as these are crucial to the grassroots movement in Chicago and nation-wide.
Throughout the Winter and Spring, we conducted regular trainings on both Knowing Your Rights with ICE and Migrawatch. These were well-attended and aimed at both allies and affected communities. The intention behind both trainings was to arm community members with the information needed to assess their risk levels, protect themselves and their neighbors, and recognize immigration enforcement operations.
Now that Chicago Summer has finally arrived, we are conducting regular outreach in Pilsen and Little Village. The IRWC collaborated with CFIST on a teach-in to highlight our interconnected struggles and the importance of continued solidarity, especially facing down Trump’s attacks. A CFIST-IRWC fundraiser is planned for June 26th, the day after our mobilization to the June CCPSA meeting. Our goals for the coming months are to continue pressuring the CCPSA, CPD Superintendent Snelling, and Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen Burke to hold federal immigration enforcement officials accountable, to ensure that Chicago police officers are not collaborating with ICE, and to investigate clear violations of the Welcoming City Ordinance during last year’s Operation Midway Blitz.
CPD, KK, ICE-- THEY'RE ALL THE SAME! LA MIGRA, LA POLICÍA, ¡LA MISMA PORQUERÍA!
Fundraising
Our CFIST X IRWC Campaigns are hosting a fundraiser: Building Power, Demanding Justice, Funding Freedom.
When: Friday June 26th
Where: Casa Michiacán 1638 S Blue Island Ave, Chicago, IL 60608
You’re Invited! Join us for a powerful night of community, resistance and solidarity. Topics for the evening will include, torture survivors and the wonfully convicted, legal defense and post conviction advocacy and for police accountability, community control and to end CPD / ICE collaboration!
Get your ticket online at this link: bit.ly/CFISTxIRWCfundraiser
If you can’t make it to the event, you can still support our work by donating! caarpr.org/fundraising
The Chicago Alliance is a working class, volunteer based organization. We do not rely on big donors or funding, we are by the people and for the people and every dollar counts! Please consider becoming a monthly donor today to help us fund our work.
IL Divest from Genocide!
On December 19th 2025, the coalition joined the Illinois Divest From Genocide network at its quarterly protest at the Illinois State Board of Investments (ISBI) meeting. While there, several members of the coalition took part in a sit-in to demand the divestment of millions of tax payer dollars into weapons manufactures and more who are currently committing a well documented genocide in Gaza. Organizers and community members were violently thrown out of the open meeting, a clear violation of the Illinois Open’s Meeting Act. Despite this, the coalition and network will continue to show up at every single quarterly ISBI meeting until divestment demands are met. The next one is on the morning of Monday June 22nd, 2026 at 160 N Lasalle St.
