A Dum-Dums lollipop, one pack of Swedish Fish — or Sour Patch Kids — Lifesavers gummies and a Reese’s cup, plus a hand-signed note.
Around Bobbie Aguilera, piles of candy lay strewn across folding tables as fellow neighbors filled their own assortment of plastic goodie bags, each bound for families who will be staying inside come Friday night as their concerns about safety shroud trick-or-treating plans.
“This is someone’s Halloween,” Aguilera said as she packed the treats into a small zip-close bag in a second-floor room of Irving Park’s Kilbourn Fieldhouse Monday night.
With both the Trump administration’s now monthslong local mass deportation mission and the impending loss of federal food aid looming over the city and suburbs, the Chicago area is celebrating Halloween more cautiously this year.
Amid the fear and trepidation, community members are stepping up where they can to combat hampered festivities and traditions with a helping hand, including by delivering pint-sized candy baskets for those who don’t feel safe enough to go door-to-door, and handing out nonperishable food items alongside sweets to trick-or-treaters. Still, the differences are hard to ignore.
All the while, benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP, are set to abruptly stop on Saturday as the government shutdown persists. The U.S. Department of Agriculture posted a message Monday affirming that no federal food assistance will be distributed after the end of the month. The cuts stand to affect nearly 2 million Illinoisans.
Aguilera, 45, called the past few weeks “pure chaos.”
“There are kids that are only going to receive these three little pieces of candy for Halloween, and that’s it, because their parents are concerned,” Aguilera said Monday as she looked at her 9-year-old daughter helping her stuff goodie bags. “It’s those little things that are hitting Chicago in different ways.”
President Donald Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz” has encroached on nearly every facet of everyday life across Chicago and the suburbs since launching in early September. The weeks of heightened federal immigration enforcement activity have brought tear gas to the city’s streets; immigration raids far and wide, from workplaces to O’Hare International Airport; wild manhunts and violent confrontations; solidarity signs to businesses; as well as fear to schools and anguish to families.
And in the days leading up to Halloween, when families are supposed to only worry about getting those final costume details in place and snagging a supply of candy before the grocery store shelves run empty, federal immigration enforcement operations have crept in on the holiday, too.
Last weekend, federal agents deployed tear gas on a quiet street in Old Irving Park as children were preparing to march in a Halloween parade to a nearby grammar school. Days later, an elementary school on the city’s South Side announced on social media that it was canceling a “Trunk or Treat” event scheduled for Thursday, citing “safety reasons.”
Federal immigration agents deploy tear gas on Northwest Side streets as Chicagoans bellow, ‘Get out of our city!’
At a news conference in Springfield Thursday morning, Gov. JB Pritzker called on Trump and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to put a pause on federal immigration enforcement operations through the weekend, while children celebrate Halloween.
“I’m asking for basic human decency. I think their response will be revealing,” he said. “They disrupted everything for more than two months already. Shouldn’t the children and the families of Illinois have a break?”
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks Oct. 30, 2025, at the Gary Chicago International Airport in Gary. (Michael Gard/for the Post-Tribune)
Later in the day, at a news conference in Gary, Noem dismissed Pritzker’s plea.
“No, we’re absolutely not willing to put on pause any work that we will do to keep communities safe,” Noem told reporters.
“The fact that Gov. Pritzker is asking for that is shameful and I think unfortunate that he doesn’t recognize how important the work is that we do to make sure we’re bringing criminals to justice and getting them off our streets — especially when we’re going to send all of our kiddos out on the streets and going to events and enjoying the holiday season,” she said. “We want to make sure that they’re safe.”
Gov. JB Pritzker pauses before speaking on recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics and their effect on immigrant families at the Illinois Capitol during the legislative session on Oct. 30, 2025, in Springfield. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
‘This was our worst fear come to reality’
With Halloween tunes like the “Monster Mash” and “Ghostbusters” joining the crinkle of candy wrappers around her, Aguilera took part in Monday night’s event to try to give families “a little piece of normalcy,” the Portage Park resident said. She was one of about three dozen people who spent the evening packing treats to go at the event organized by the office of Ald. Ruth Cruz, 30th.
Last week, Cruz’s office put out a call for candy donations across her ward. As of Thursday, her office had amassed about 11,000 goodie bags of candy, Cruz said in a call with the Tribune. The office planned to distribute the bags to students at school dismissals across the Northwest Side on Thursday and Friday afternoon.
A few tables over from Aguilera, Alyssa Bailey fiddled with mini Snickers bars and gummy bears. Eight months pregnant, the 36-year-old Kilbourn Park resident said the moment was bittersweet.
“Every story that I see, especially involving kids, is just so heartbreaking,” she said, her husband sitting beside her. In neat handwriting, she penned a small note to the recipients of her goodie bags. “Tus Kilbourn Park vecinos,” she wrote. “Your Kilbourn Park neighbors.”
“I can’t believe that we have to do this,” she said.
Volunteers assemble Halloween candy bags for families too afraid to trick-or-treat this year, at the Kilbourn Park Fieldhouse in the Irving Park neighborhood on Oct. 27, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
Volunteers assemble candy bags for families too afraid to trick-or-treat this year, at the Kilbourn Park Fieldhouse in the Irving Park neighborhood, Oct. 27, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
Two days before, less than a mile away from where Bailey sat, federal agents unleashed tear gas along North Kildare Avenue as an annual neighborhood Halloween parade and party was set to get underway. Brit Churukanti, who’s lived in Old Irving Park for more than four years and helped organize the party and parade, said she was waiting for attendees to arrive when she got a text from another volunteer that federal agents were in the area. Her heart dropped.
“This was our worst fear come to reality,” the 36-year-old mom of three said.
Ultimately, organizers canceled the parade portion of the event and focused festivities on an area elementary school playground where they had other activities lined up. Old Irving Park neighbor Claire Imber recalled seeing the moment Churukanti received word there were federal operations nearby.
“I just sort of immediately knew what it meant,” Imber, 35, said.
In the wake of last weekend, Imber said she wouldn’t be surprised if federal agents ramp up activity Friday night.
“Because it did,” she said. “It did happen, in our neighborhood.”
As an extra precaution, Cruz’s office has organized a group of volunteers who will be patrolling Old Irving Park on Halloween to keep an eye on the area as community members hit the streets to trick-or-treat.
Similar patrols and precautions are planned around the city. In Little Village, organizers of the La Villita Halloween Parade on Friday have invited volunteers to accompany children around the neighborhood. In Rogers Park, a network of volunteers will be working to ensure children, families and community members stay safe through the night, according to local rapid responders.
As her family sets out on their trick-or-treat routes, Churukanti said she already plans to have her phone fully charged and a whistle at the ready, just in case. Despite seeing “every parent’s worst nightmare” unfold less than a week ago, Churukanti is resolved, she says, to stand with her community.
April Baker intends to do the same. Not by way of patrols, the Brookfield single parent said, but with what she plans to hand out on Halloween. Baker will have a table set up outside her west suburban house on Halloween with shelf-stable food items for trick-or-treaters to take as they please. The idea was inspired by posts she saw circulating on social media encouraging people to pass out nonperishables along with candy this year in light of the anticipated pause to SNAP benefits.
“Everyone needs to eat,” Baker, 50, said.
She plans to donate any items left over to her local food pantry. If all goes well, Baker said she might make nonperishables an annual Halloween tradition.
Even before the government shutdown, Stephanie Hickey had been seeing neighbors brainstorming ways to help those feeling the weight of heightened federal immigration activity, the Evergreen Park mom of three said. But with food stamps at risk, Hickey wondered how and if she could help neighbors persist despite both pressures. She decided her own version of a Halloween goodie bag was the way to go.
For her twin daughters’ preschool class on Friday, Hickey has made treat bags with not just candy but mac and cheese cups and a packet of instant oatmeal. She’s also planning to slip in a note with her phone number. The idea, Hickey said, is to give parents and guardians an open line should they need help with groceries or lining up their next meal.
“Hope is a very powerful thing,” Hickey said. “I think community is one of the ways that we can be really rebellious right now.”
Chicago Tribune’s Olivia Olander and the Associated Press contributed.
tkenny@chicagotribune.com
