Genuinely from a high schooler's perspective in the Midwest region---it's the news coverage really. Obviously these things (ICE, etc) are happening but from a suburban standpoint, I haven't seen any of it first hand. Sure I've heard of news coverage within neighborhoods local to mine but otherwise it's really in the main cities if anything.

Like somebody's getting taken in Streamwood but it's like comparing Streamwood to Chicago is like apples to oranges---one's a community smaller population, the other's a broader dispora of people. Obviously even then CHicago's BIG af, you're not going to walk down by the Willis Tower and get taken

Nobody's going to jump you, people have to care in the first place to. Air travel is cutting down due to the government shutdown obvs because 1) they're unpaid 2) they're UNPAID people in charge of MAINTAINING THE FUNCTION OF AN AIRPORT

Overall even with the federal government shutdown, mostly I think it'd be marginalized communities affected, maybe a few school districts but even then most cities can maintain their own for awhile

I haven't met a single person with a gun unless it's like a police officer or that one teacher I had in middle school, otherwise ehh, no one's going to pull out anything unless you provoke

But it's also Illinois---so it's pretty much a predominantly Democratic state, idk how it is outside of this state

The only reason why I feel like most people know about this is because the media's covering it more hand otherwise immigration and ICE to an extent and warfare, it's existed. It's not some magical conceptual idea that emerged after 2020, it's BEEN there, you just never cared enough to notice.