Broadview mayor says ICE is ‘making war on my community’ after latest protests at immigration facility
As federal officers again fired rubber pellets and chemical irritants into crowds of protesters gathered Friday outside a facility where immigrants are held in suburban Broadview, the village mayor accused U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of “making war on my community” and called for an end to the “siege.”
The compound — which was fenced off this week — has become a hotbed for protests since President Donald Trump’s administration announced the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” on Sept. 8, bringing a flood of federal immigration officers to the Chicago area to conduct raids and arrests.
On Friday, west suburban Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson had a clear message for Russell Hott, director of the ICE Chicago field office: “It has to stop.”
A protester holds out his arms as smoke fills the air outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Officers hold paintball guns and grenade launchers outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters try to prevent a vehicle from passing outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters try to prevent a vehicle from passing outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters try to prevent a vehicle from passing outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters try to prevent a vehicle from passing outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Several protesters surround a black SUV approaching the Broadview ICE facility Friday morning.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Federal agents gather outside the Broadview ICE facility Friday morning.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A Border Patrol officer stands guard outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester is approached by officers outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters stand in front of ICE officers outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester runs outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Broadview police officers stand across the street to manage traffic as protestors gather outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
ICE officers allow a vehicle to pass through outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester is wrestled to the ground outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester is wrestled to the ground outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester is detained outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester is detained outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester is approached by officers outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester is detained outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Federal officers stand guard as a protester is detained outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A smoke grenade is thrown outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
An officer atop the roof of a federal immigration facility holds a grenade launcher in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester holds a sign as she walks away from smoke outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester puts up his arm to protect himself from pellets outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester holds up an umbrella to protect themselves from pellets outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester with a bloody lip outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
An officer holds a grenade launcher outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A federal officer stands guard outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A leftover cartridge of a baton round is on the ground outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A window is broken by a baton round outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Smoke fills the air outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester dressed as Jesus stands outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester holds a sign outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Smoke fills the air outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Officers watch protesters outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A leftover cartridge of a baton round outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester holds up a flag outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester sprays another protester with soap outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protesterr leads a chant outside an industrial building near a federal immigration facility in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters link arms outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
A protester wears a shirt with pepper ball residue outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters link arms outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters sit outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Protesters link arms outside an industrial building leading to a federal immigration facility near 2000 South 25th Avenue in Broadview on Friday.
| Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
An ICE agent primes and points a taser at protesters and property owners after attempting to chase down a protester through a homeowner’s yard on South 25th Avenue at Harvard Street outside the ICE processing center in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Broadview police attempt to deescalate tensions between ICE agents and protesters on South 25th Avenue at Harvard Street outside the ICE processing center in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
An ICE agent challenges a protester to a fight on South 25th Avenue at Harvard Street, outside the ICE processing center in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Protesters dance outside the Broadview ICE processing center in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Protesters block the intersection at South 25th Avenue and Harvard Street outside the Broadview ICE processing center in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Broadview police officers block the intersection of South 25th Avenue and Harvard Street as protesters face off with ICE agents outside the Broadview ICE processing center in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
ICE agents detain a man after agents attempted to move a group of protesters so a black van can leave at South 25th Avenue and Harvard Street outside the Broadview ICE processing center in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
ICE agents slowly fall back to the Broadview ICE processing center on South Harvard Street as protesters move in and heckle them in suburban Broadview on Friday.
| Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
“The relentless deployment of tear gas, pepper spray, mace, and rubber bullets in the vicinity of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in the village of Broadview is endangering nearby village residents and harming Broadview Police Officers, Broadview Firefighters, and American citizens exercising their 1st Amendment rights,” Thompson wrote to Hott.
Similar scenes have played out for weeks at the facility at 1930 Beach St., where detained immigrants are brought to be processed after an arrest and are often held for a few days before being taken to detention facilities in neighboring states. An Illinois law prohibits the feds from operating immigration detention facilities in the state.
Protesters attempting to block vehicles entering and leaving the compound have routinely been pushed and targeted with rubber bullets and chemical munitions.
Several protesters surround a black SUV approaching the Broadview ICE facility Friday morning.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Despite Thompson’s plea, ICE officers appeared to escalate their force Friday, shooting rubber pellets, pepper balls, tear gas, flashbang grenades and — seemingly for the first time — baton rounds, which are larger rubber projectiles that can cause more damage.
At one point late Friday afternoon, two federal agents dressed in military fatigues ran after two protesters, shooting them with rubber pellets.
The agents chased the protesters across traffic on 26th Avenue, continuing to fire pellets and pointing a Taser as the protesters ran into a nearby yard and escaped. One of the officers appeared to injure his leg and was helped back across the street by another officer who continued aiming a Taser at protesters. ICE officers pointed their weapons at vehicles to direct them to stop as the officers crossed the street.
ICE agents chase and point weapons at protesters and reporters outside the Broadview ICE processing center in suburban Broadview.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Lynette Carr, the homeowner whose yard the chase ended in, got home about 10 minutes after the incident. Her four grandchildren — aged 8, 10, 12 and 17 — were inside with her son-in-law, Tyree, at the time.
“What if they were in that backyard when that happened?” said Carr, 59. “To come into somebody’s private yard not knowing if there’s kids playing out there or whatever. We shouldn’t have to keep our kids in the house.”
Tyree, 40, said he was in the kitchen when yelling from outside caught his attention. He declined to share his full name.
“I look out the window, all I see is two guys booking it over the fence, and then I see these cops with these guns in their hands, and I see one of them messed their leg up,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, sh—, let me get in the house and make sure the kids are alright.’”
A piece of the home’s picket fence broke during the chase. Carr later found a rubber baton round in her yard.
ICE officers donning military fatigues chase a protester into the yard of a suburban Broadview home.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
At the start of the day, a crowd slowly grew to about 100 peaceful protesters before ICE officers started firing chemical irritants around 8 a.m. They were targeting demonstrators who were yelling at passing vehicles on the other side of a heavy-duty fence that ICE erected in the roadway this week. Non-lethal ammunition and tear gas followed.
A Chicago Sun-Times photographer was struck with rubber pellets — as was another later in the evening — and a window of a nearby business was apparently shot out.
The escalation sent the crowd into a frenzy, and some protesters donned gas masks and started yelling at the federal officer who had fired the non-lethal rounds, saying they had “a right to peacefully protest.”
Protesters gather outside the Broadview ICE facility once again trying to block the entrance to the compound, used for processing detained immigrants.
Department of Homeland Security officials claimed “over 200 rioters” blocked an entrance to the facility and “another 30 … swarmed” a different gate in an attempt to trespass on federal property — and that “some began chanting ‘shoot ICE.”
A video posted to social media showed about 50 demonstrators standing some distance from the facility’s fence as they chanted “arrest ICE!” At one point, a man in the crowd yelled “shoot ICE!” and one other person repeated after him.
“These violent threats and smears about ICE must stop,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement. “There is no place in American politics for violence. We are calling on Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson to condemn these riots and tone down their rhetoric about ICE.”
ICE officers’ confrontations with Broadview protesters continue into Friday evening.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
During the tense, hourslong standoff, at least three demonstrators were arrested. ICE reported that one of them had a gun.
A woman at the scene confirmed to the Sun-Times that her friend informed ICE officers as he was being arrested that he was carrying a handgun for which he holds a valid concealed carry license.
He had been speaking with an immigration officer, seemingly trying to calm tensions, when another protester was tackled and restrained, according to his friend Julie Bruene. The man was caught up in that scene, handcuffed and taken inside the facility, where he alerted his friends of his arrest, she said.
Bruene’s friend is Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez’s (25th) constituent in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, and the other person arrested is a U.S. military veteran.
“They’re both leaders in the community,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “They represented no threat. ICE, they’re trying to spin a narrative.”
The National Lawyers Guild of Chicago slammed ICE officers for “escalating their violent attacks on speech” and “targeting members of the press and people assembled to protest,” often without warning.
The organization’s volunteer legal observers monitor demonstrations to document police use of force and arrests.
“These extreme acts of violence against people non-violently exercising their rights to free speech and assembly and targeted attacks on members of the press are a full frontal assault on the First Amendment,” Ben Meyer, a volunteer attorney with NLG, said in a statement.
The group said its legal observers saw three instances of officers pulling out their guns and pulling them at people who were complying with orders.
Bushra Amiwala, a member of the Skokie Board of Education and a Democratic contender for the 9th District Bushra Amiwala, were tying hand-written notes of support to the fence at the Broadview facility.
Thompson, the Broadview mayor, told Hott in her letter that village residents, cops, firefighters and paramedics were being exposed to “ICE agents’ tear gas volleys,” taking some of the officers “out of action until they recover.” She also called on ICE to dismantle the newly constructed fence, which her fire department previously said was installed without a permit and poses a hazard to emergency responders.
“Beleaguered Broadview residents are begging for relief from your center’s siege of our neighborhood,” she wrote. “They are texting me. They are calling me. They are streaming into Village Hall looking for help.
“In effect, you are making war on my community. And it has to stop.”
Democratic members of the Illinois congressional delegation said their planned meeting with Hott on Friday had been canceled and hadn’t been rescheduled. They’re pushing him to let them inspect the Broadview facility and answer questions about Trump’s immigration operations here.
Families of those detained have raised concerns about conditions inside the facility and possible overcrowding. One man inside told his daughter he was being held in a room with 150 other people, where agents constantly yell and call them slurs.
Protesters gather outside the Broadview ICE facility once again trying to block the entrance to the compound, used for processing detained immigrants.
Bushra Amiwala, a Democratic 9th congressional district candidate, was placing a note in support of the detainees on the new fence when the barrage of pepper balls started. Amiwala, a Skokie school board member, said the force “absolutely was beyond unprovoked.”
Two other 9th district candidates, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and internet personality Kat Abughazaleh, have protested at Broadview this month. Illinois Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton and Rep. Robin Kelly, who are both running for the seat held by retiring Sen. Dick Durbin, have also shown up.
“Resorting to trivial modes of violence in this way is a huge sign of cowardice and weakness that these ICE agents harbor, and the power trip that these people are on right now,” Amiwala said.
