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Hard-Fought Battle at Chicago Area ICE Processing Center 

ICE agents fire tear gas and sting balls, pull guns on protesters attempting to block Broadview facility.

Chicago is a sanctuary city, and Illinois is a sanctuary state. This means there are no ICE “detention centers” in the state. There is a “processing center” for ICE detainees in the predominantly Black “Village of Broadview” 12 miles from the city limits of Chicago. It has been a site of immigrant rights protests for many years. Horror stories about the conditions at the center, including that detainees were kept there for days, forced to sleep on floors and brutalized, led to sporadic protests outside the center after Trump’s election. With the September launching of “Operation Midway Blitz,” Trump’s escalating ICE assault on Chicago and the surrounding area, protesters started gathering more regularly outside the Broadview center, especially on Friday mornings after they discovered this was the key time that detainees were moved into and out of the center.

Noche Diaz speaks to: Chicago man killed by ICE's lawless tyranny. Join the Call to amass in D.C. Nov. 5

On Friday, September 12, there were calls on social media for people to be there from 7 am until 7 pm. Protesters came in shifts. They shouted at ICE agents and attempted to block ICE vehicles with their bodies. A video of Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh being thrown to the ground by ICE agents went viral on social media. This was the same day ICE shot and killed Silverio Villegas-González in the Chicago suburb of Franklin Park.

On Friday, September 19, ICE escalated their assaults on protesters. They shot pepper balls, used tear gas, and arrested at least ten people at the gates of the ICE facility. Among those in the crowd were the mayor of Evanston (suburb just north of Chicago) and Illinois Lieutenant Governor Julianna Stratton. Kat Abughazaleh was at this protest again. The September 19 protest broke into the national media, and viral videos were all over social media.

Rachel Cohen, who quit her job at Skadden law firm in protest to their capitulation to Trump, has been a regular protester at the Broadview ICE facility. You can follow developments there via her Instagram: @cohen.489.

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