Clip from 'No Kings' rally misrepresented as anti-ICE Chicago protests

"Chicago makes it clear that ICE is not welcome in their city!!" says a September 7, 2025 post on X. "In one of the biggest protests in the cities history, Chicagoans took to the streets to push back and raise their voices!!"

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Screenshot from X taken September 10, 2025

Another post on Threads adds: "Chicago. September 6, 2025. What Trump has done."

Similar posts spread across platforms as Trump threatened to unleash his newly rebranded "Department of War" on Chicago, replicating a move that surged federal agents and National Guard troops to the US capital city of Washington, ostensibly to crack down on crime -- and before that to Los Angeles.

The administration announced a new immigration enforcement operation in Chicago September 8, building on an uptick in deportation raids carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

The crackdown followed a September 6 Truth Social post from Trump that shared an apparently AI-generated image of him in front of a burning Chicago skyline and said, "I love the smell of deportations in the morning" -- a reference to the 1979 Vietnam War film "Apocalypse Now."

Anti-Trump protesters took to the streets of Chicago September 6, carrying signs that called to abolish ICE or read: "No Trump, no troops" (archived here).

The march was routed past Chicago's Trump tower, and protesters made rude gestures at the president's building (archived here).

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People march past Trump International Hotel & Tower during a demonstration against the planned deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago on September 6, 2025 (AFP / KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI)

But the video spreading online was from a previous anti-Trump protest in the city.

Reverse image searches traced the clip -- which shows an aerial view of a large group of protesters outside the LondonHouse Chicago hotel, located across the Chicago river from Trump tower -- to a June 14 post on X (archived here, here, here and here).

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Screenshot from X taken September 9, 2025

Waves of demonstrations decrying the policies of "king" Trump were organized that day in cities and towns throughout the United States, including Chicago.

AFP reached out to the X user and apparent Chicago resident who shared the footage for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

AFP previously debunked another misrepresentation of a "No Kings" protest video here.