Roughly 100 protesters gathered near the Medinah Country Club in DuPage County Thursday morning, where President Donald Trump is expected to appear this Sunday during the final round of the President’s Cup golf tournament — just over a year after Operation Midway Blitz first launched in the Chicago area.
One protester stood at the corner of Irving Park and Medinah Roads wearing only an Eagle mascot head and Speedos and holding a picket sign that read, “Stop Trump before he strips everything away.”
“The Eagle is an American icon, right? So it’s basically a stripped-down version of the eagle,” the protester, a 44-year-old man who declined to share his name but goes by “Speedo Eagle Man,” said. “It’s basically the idea of Trump and his administration … stripping things away from the American people.”
The rally began sometime after 9:30 a.m. Protesters gathered for a variety of reasons, from decrying the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics to voicing displeasure over inflation.
Protesters gather Thursday at Medinah Road and Irving Park Road, near the Medinah Country Club, to decry President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance this weekend at the Presidents Cup golf competition.
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Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Protesters gather Thursday at Medinah Road and Irving Park Road, near the Medinah Country Club, to decry President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance this weekend at the Presidents Cup golf competition.
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Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Ellen Zhou, 31, of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, drums and chants with protesters gathered Thursday at Medinah Road and Irving Park Road, near the Medinah Country Club, to decry President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance this weekend at the Presidents Cup golf competition.
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Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Protesters gather Thursday at Medinah Road and Irving Park Road, near the Medinah Country Club, to decry President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance this weekend at the Presidents Cup golf competition.
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Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Cristóbal Cavazos, of Casa DuPage Workers Center, leads a chant for protesters gathered Thursday at Medinah Road and Irving Park Road, near the Medinah Country Club, to decry President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance this weekend at the Presidents Cup golf competition.
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Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Protesters gather Thursday at Medinah Road and Irving Park Road, near the Medinah Country Club, to decry President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance this weekend at the Presidents Cup golf competition.
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Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
“He has done nothing to help immigrant communities,” said Ellen Zhou, an organizer with Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “And it’s not just immigrant communities. Everybody is suffering under this administration. We are all feeling benefit cuts, SNAP cuts, access to Medicaid. All of that is getting cut.”
The PGA Tour, the organizer behind the President’s Cup, announced that Trump would attend the gold tournament last month. The tournament, which kicked off on Thursday, includes 24 of the world’s top golfers — 12 on Team USA versus 12 golfers from around the world, excluding Europe.
Trump will serve as honorary chairman at the event. It will be his first visit to the Chicago area since his reelection in 2024.
The PGA Tour didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment.
Chants of “Up, up with liberation, down, down with deportation” and “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here” filled the air as passing cars on the busy intersection honked in support.
Luis Rodriguez, 26, of the Southwest Suburban Immigrant Project, leads a chant Thursday at Medinah Road and Irving Park Road, near the Medinah Country Club, to decry President Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance this weekend at the Presidents Cup golf competition.
Among those leading the chants with a megaphone in hand was Luis Rodriguez with the Southwest Suburban Immigrant Project.
When asked what brought him out to the protest Thursday, he said, “What didn’t bring me out here?”
“The attacks on our community really led me out here today,” Rodriguez, 26, said. “The injustice, the violence, the unnecessary [and] senseless hatred and racism that’s out there from these masked ICE agents and just the people in general.”
“It’s really lit a fire in me to be like we have to do something about it,” Rodriguez said.
As the rally continued, the message from protesters to Trump was increasingly clear — “You’re not welcome here,” they said.
Jackie Rodriguez, vice president of the home care division in Illinois and Indiana for the Service Employees International Union, said Trump’s visit is “par for the course” and shows “no respect for what Illinoisians believe in.”
“We stand against what he has done to our communities,” she said. “This is another effort to show him.”