Shorewood seniors, neighbors make ‘good trouble’ protesting ICE, federal budget cuts

A group gathered outside The Timbers of Shorewood senior living facility Thursday in protest of Trump administration policies.

About three dozen protestors lined up along North River Road, some as old as 90, holding signs expressing their disapproval of recent policies.

The protest was part of a series of nationwide rallies called “Good Trouble Lives On” in memory of the late Congressman John Lewis, who first gained prominence as an organizer in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Lewis died July 17, 2020.

More than 1,500 marches were scheduled across the U.S. with the aid of progressive grassroots groups such as Indivisible and Move On.

“It all started watching Rachel Maddow,” one of the protest organizers and Timbers resident Jean Engstrom said. “She had a man from Indivisible on, and he said, ‘If there isn’t a protest near you, start one.’ Most of us here need walkers or scooters or power chairs, so I thought we could do this here because it is important.”

This is the second protest organized by residents at The Timbers to oppose Trump administration policies after the “No Kings” rally held June 14.

Althought attendees listed a number of Trump administration policies they oppose, Engstrom said the biggest issue for her is immigration.

“To me, the top thing is picking people up off the streets and sending them to detention centers that are really more concentration camps and deporting them without any day in court,” Engstrom said. “I’m old enough to remember Nazi Germany, and I don’t want to see it in my country. It’s awful. They’re trashing our Constitution right and left. If I can help at all by holding up a sign, I’ll be out here.”

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has increased funding to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has ordered increased raids to arrest those suspected of being in the country illegally.

Many raids have targeted Democratic states such as Illinois and California, including recent activity in Joliet, which U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville, called “unacceptable” and a “flagrant violation” of the law.

“They’re bullies. They’re all just bullies,” protester Chris Kenney said of the administration and immigration hardliners. “I don’t know how we got here.”

Another organizer, Dorthy Brumbaugh, said her biggest concern is the cuts to Medicaid, which were passed in the recent federal budget bill.

“The biggest threat now that will have the biggest impact on my family is Medicaid,” she said. “The budget cuts will have an impact on that, and they’ve already had an impact on my granddaughter when they closed Job Corps. She was a student there.”

Joliet Job Corps was shuttered as part of spending cuts at the Department of Labor in June.

Brumbaugh said her granddaughter was referred to a different program in Naperville, but she has not yet been contacted by the program.

While most of the protesters were residents of The Timbers, some friends and neighbors of the seniors also joined the event, including Lee Delaughter and Lexi Miller, who were attending with their “adopted grandma,” Barbara McIntosh.

The three recently moved to Illinois from Texas, where Miller said his sister is a paramedic who recently responded to the deadly July 5 flooding. Authorities in Texas said the death toll from that disaster was 116 people as of Thursday.

“There’s just so much to protest, but the cuts to [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] are the worst to me,” Miller said. “Trump has the audacity to go down there and say he supports Texas and first responders when he absolutely does not and helped gut systems used to save people. It’s terrible.”

Delaughter said that her top issues are the cuts to Medicaid and veterans’ benefits, but added “there are too many to list.”

“This is my first protest,” Delaughter said. “I absolutely plan to be at more, though – every chance I get.”

“I’m really tickled to have people from the neighborhood coming out to support the same things we support,” Brumbaugh said. “I love the horns honking in support. It doesn’t take much to create a sense of community.”