Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Robert Peters

Chicago must remain a sanctuary city by law. It’s who we are in practice

2023-12-03T06:15:00-06:00

Anmani Rendon of Venezuela feels the forehead of her daughter, Sofia Barragan, 2, outside the 12th District police station in October.

Erin Hooley/AP

Let me start by saying something other politicians won’t say: No one knows what to do in the face of the current migrant crisis. We’re making good progress, thanks to city and state funding commitments, but we need federal assistance. Short of that, the crisis will continue.

However, a cohort of strange bedfellows in Chicago’s City Council — including members of the Black and Latino caucuses as well as descendants of Irish and Italian immigrants — are proposing a different tact: repealing Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance, also known as our sanctuary city ordinance.

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They say this will deter Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from continuing to send asylum-seekers to Chicago with one-way bus tickets, but in reality, we’d be playing right into Donald Trump and his fanboys’ racism.

The Welcoming City ordinance is the product of Mayor Harold Washington’s legacy and has nothing to do with asylum-seekers. It specifically pertains to the rights of undocumented residents and protection from being hunted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Being a sanctuary city is a demonstration of Chicago’s principles: We welcome immigrants and respect their humanity. The notion that repealing it will somehow stop the flow of migrants or give us moral “cover” to bus them to other cities is nonsense. All we will accomplish is humiliating ourselves and the Democratic Party.

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Chicagoans do not subscribe to Trump’s “build the wall” politics. We rejected his xenophobia in 2016 and 2020, and we need to reject it now as we approach the 2024 presidential election and the Democratic National Convention that will be held in Chicago in August.

The convention is a once-in-a-generation moment for the city to shine. Instead, some of our city’s leaders are flirting with embarrassing us on the world stage and causing deep fissures within the Democratic Party, which needs to be unified to prevent Trump from becoming president for a second time.

Fear of ‘the outsider’

Be it by choice or force, we are all descendants of people from someplace else. Whether your family immigrated in the 1920s or in 2020, by boat or by bus from the American South, all of us have experienced persecution and oppression as the outsider.

That’s why it’s particularly disappointing to see members of currently marginalized communities parrot the same racist talking points that are routinely and successfully used to oppress us. We are seeing weird, bizarro reverse freedom rides, where Black people are rallying to stop arriving buses. We are seeing small groups in immigrant communities — often funded by right-wing partisans — protesting sheltering migrants in their communities.

No matter your background, embracing Trumpist racism, xenophobia and isolationism won’t stop with the current wave of asylum-seekers. Instead, if the Chicago City Council takes the bait and validates Trumpism in one arena, it gives his ideology life and the ability to spread to people and places he’s never had access to before.

Trump and Abbott would be tickled pink that tough-talking Chicago preaches tolerance, cross-cultural understanding and basic human rights for all, but when push comes to shove, we fall flat on our face.

Chicago must not fall. We must remain a sanctuary city by law because that is who we are in practice. Our 77 neighborhoods are home to immigrants from all over the world. There are Black, Brown, Middle Eastern and Asian communities across the city. Our diversity, resilience and commitment to our democratic principles should be on full display at the Democratic National Convention. That’s the only way we beat Trump and his racist ideas back into the shadows where they belong.

Chicago and Illinois sit at the crossroads of America. We are the land of Lincoln and Barack Hussein Obama, two men who weren’t born in our state but came here to change the world. That’s what we should be displaying to the world next year.

State Sen. Robert Peters (D-Chicago) has served in the Illinois Senate since 2019 and represents the 13th District.

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The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.

I discovered my Jewish heritage. Now I’m speaking out for a ceasefire in Gaza.

2023-11-16T15:10:33.631-06:00

State Sen. Robert Peters speaks out against the war in Gaza at the Accenture Tower on Nov. 13, when Jewish peace activists and supporters blocked the entrance to the Israeli consulate to demand U.S. support for a cease-fire.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Earlier this week, I stood with fellow Jewish people of conscience from across the Midwest to speak out against Israel’s mass bombing campaign that has killed more than 11,470 civilians in Gaza, and to demand that the Israeli and U.S. governments focus on negotiating a ceasefire and Hamas’ release of hostages.

I’m an adopted child. Last year, I found my Jewish biological father. In my 20s, I considered converting to Judaism, and so this discovery only confirmed something I had always known about myself on some level. I began the process of formally converting to Judaism, and joined my local congregation. I learned about the history of my ancestors, and their escape from Ukraine and Lithuania to settle here in North Lawndale. For this adoptee, I had found another home.

When I woke up and read the news on Oct. 7, I felt ill as I read about Hamas’ brutal violence targeting Israeli civilians. In the days that followed, my unease grew as I realized that the overwhelming military response to Hamas would lead to many more civilian deaths in Gaza.

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My process of conversion led me to delve deeply into my Jewish education. I learned of the concept, in Jewish law, of pikuach nefesh, פיקוח נפש. Pikuach nefesh teaches us to value saving lives above all else. In this moment of intense grief, we need to ground ourselves in that idea.

I watched the unprecedented bombing campaign rain down on a densely populated community in Gaza — one that had no easy means to escape — and I saw that it was being done in our name, as Jews and as Americans. I thought of the story of my own biological father’s family. I knew that the massive humanitarian crisis that is still unfolding in Gaza will not make the world safer for Jews, whether in Israel or anywhere.

That’s why I stood with a thousand others like me at the Israeli Consulate on Monday. I was taught that as Jews, we must speak out against injustice. I believe that as Jews, we have an obligation to stand together to ensure that our grief and devastation are not used to perpetuate war and bring about even more civilian deaths. We stood at the consulate in hopes that the Israeli and U.S. governments would hear our plea for an end to the blood-letting in our name, and that they instead focus on a negotiated ceasefire and a release of all hostages, who are currently in grave danger from Israeli bombing as well as Hamas.

As a state senator, I work with a lot of survivors of violence, particularly gun- and gender-based violence. And I work with people who work to interrupt gang violence and stop more bloodshed from happening. I remember hearing the story of a mass shooting on the West Side, and the risk of that incident escalating into more bloodshed. I remember the violence interrupters who stepped in to interrupt the cycle of retaliation and revenge that is all too prevalent in Chicago. They bonded with people who experienced violence and trauma, but they also got these survivors to take a deep breath before reacting.

It may seem naive to think de-escalation in Chicago can teach us something about the Middle East. But fundamentally, stopping this vicious cycle requires a commitment to intervention and a return to negotiation, whether by interrupters at home or diplomats abroad.

I hope that other legislators will join me and thousands of other Jewish Illinoisans in calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities as well as the release of hostages. It is time to abide by the law of pikuach nefesh.

State Sen. Robert Peters represents the 13th District.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.

The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.