On Sunday afternoon in downtown Chicago, as couples strolled along sidewalks and kids ran around Maggie Daley Park and diners filled outdoor cafes and the Joffrey Ballet wrapped its final performance of “Carmen” at the Lyric Opera House, U.S. Border Patrol agents wearing tactical gear and carrying long guns patrolled the city’s streets.

It was a surreal scene, but one we may grow accustomed to as Washington directs more and more Department of Homeland Security and military personnel to cities run by Democrats. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump told 800 of the country’s senior military leaders, gathered at a Virginia base, that American cities should be used as “training grounds for our military.”

Sunday’s show of force targeted Chicago’s immigrant population, with a top U.S. Border Patrol official telling WBEZ that agents were arresting people based on “how they look.”

“Gregory Bovino, commander at large of the border force, contrasted the people being arrested with a white WBEZ reporter, saying agents consider a person’s appearance before taking them into custody,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday.

“You know, there’s many different factors that go into something like that. It would be agent experience, intelligence that indicates there’s illegal aliens in a particular place or location,” Bovino said. “Then, obviously, the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you?’”

He was talking to a white reporter.

One family of four, visiting Millennium Park on Sunday, was arrested, loaded into a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle and taken to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in west suburban Broadview — the site where federal agents deployed a chemical agent on protesters the week prior, and where, over the weekend, an independent journalist for Unraveled Press was detained by federal agents and CBS reporter Asal Rezaei’s truck was shot with a pepper ball.

“An ICE agent took a direct shot at my car today,” Rezaei posted on social media Sunday. “Absolutely unprovoked. My window was open and chemicals went all over my face. Been puking for two hours.”

The scene at Millennium Park played out like this:

“Dasha Ramirez, 8, and her little brother were playing with the water at the Crown Fountain in Chicago’s Millennium Park when federal agents approached their parents on a sunny Sunday afternoon,” Laura Rodríguez Presa reported in the Chicago Tribune Monday.

“She ran toward her father, Jaime Ramirez, who was suddenly surrounded by a group of heavily armed agents in full camouflage.” Rodríguez Presa continued. “A second group encircled her mother, Noemi Chavez, who had been sitting quietly on a nearby bench, helping her 3-year-old son put on his shoes.”

“They approached me and asked me if I had my documents,” Chavez told Rodríguez Presa during a phone call following their detention. “I told them I was not going to answer any questions and demanded a warrant.”

Her request was ignored, Rodriguez Presa reported.

Who is this serving?

The majority of immigrants arrested by ICE have no criminal record, according to government data released in September. Not surprising, given that research consistently shows immigrants commit fewer crimes than U.S.-born individuals. Even if someone is proven to be undocumented, that is not a crime in the United States. It’s a civil offense.

In more than a dozen cases, agents have arrested U.S. citizens, simply on suspicions they’re here illegally.

“While many of those detained have immediately declared their U.S. citizenship to officers, they have routinely been ignored, according to interviews with the men, their lawyers and court documents,” the New York Times reports. “In some cases they have been handcuffed, kept in holding cells and immigration facilities overnight, and in at least two cases held without access to a lawyer or even a phone call.”

Additionally, immigrants attempting to navigate the system to become U.S. citizens are often being arrested and detained when they show up for routine hearings and check-ins. A viral video showing a federal agent shoving a woman to the floor of an immigration courthouse in Manhattan was taken after the arrest of her husband, who came to the courthouse for an asylum hearing.

It's awfully hard to believe these policies — this blitz — have anything to do with preserving public safety or ensuring people come to the United States the so-called right way.

Chris Glover, a writer and filmmaker who goes by Generic Art Dad on social media, posted a video interrogating the notion what we’re witnessing right now is about illegal border crossing.

“Why is this the crime where we’re going to throw our humanity out?” he asks. “This is the one where we get to traumatize children, terrorize families. We get to raid elementary school graduations and watch parents fleeing and children mortified because they have no idea if they’re going to see their parents again. … This is the one where we’re no longer going to be decent human beings.”

To what end?

How is any of this making America safer? Crueler? Certainly. Merciless? Absolutely. Heartless? We’re heading there.

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