How the small suburb of Broadview became a flash point in ICE’s crackdown

A woman handed out Taylor Swift-style friendship bracelets with a number for protesters to call if they are arrested. Other demonstrators held signs declaring “ICE out of Chicago.” Several wore gas masks.

Across the street, Vince Jones, 54, sat on a foldable chair and watched as the community he has called home for 25 years once again became a national headline.

“Never in a million years would you think that we’d be getting all this attention,” he said. “It’s really not our fight. But the fight has been brought to us.”

That fight is between President Donald Trump, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. And over the last month, the feud has often played out in Broadview, a quiet suburb that is home to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility where most of those detained in “Operation Midway Blitz” are initially taken.

Since the Department of Homeland Security’s operation began in early September, Broadview has drawn weekly protests and clashes. Demonstrators have tried to block vehicles from entering the facility. And federal agents have used tear gas, rubber bullets and at times their own hands to forcefully repel protesters and journalists.

For the leaders and residents in this village of some 8,000 people, the chaos has taken a toll.

The Broadview Police Department has opened three criminal investigations into ICE’s alleged conduct over the past month. One investigation involves a CBS reporter who said a masked federal agent fired a pepper ball at her truck. She said that the attack was unprovoked. The department is also investigating two incidents involving a protester allegedly hit but not seriously injured by ICE vehicles, said Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills.

DHS says that the protesters are “violent rioters” assaulting law enforcement officers and that Broadview’s leaders are choosing to “smear ICE” and launch “a bogus criminal investigation.” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that no CBS employee was targeted and that an officer fired a pepper ball in front of the vehicle in question after directing it to stop and turn around.

Mills said in an interview that the past few weeks have exhausted his 24-person department and pulled resources away from other responsibilities. Days off are being canceled, and officers are working 16-hour days.

“Every time we have to dedicate any type of extra resources over there, it is a strain to the village,” he said.

The village’s mayor, Katrina Thompson, described the past month as “overwhelming.” Thompson said some senior citizens living in Broadview are afraid because they grew up in the South during the civil rights movement and the violence they are seeing “brings that trauma back.” Other residents said their children are frightened. One mother is considering moving.

A ‘siege’

Broadview, 12 miles west of downtown Chicago, has been home to an ICE facility housed in a nondescript two-story brick building for decades. The facility isn’t designed to house immigrants for long periods of time; rather, it is meant to serve as an intake location where people are held for a few hours and then sent to detention centers.

When Thompson learned in late August that ICE planned to kick off a new operation the following month, she put out a letter to residents. The immigration facility would be the “primary processing location” for the effort, Thompson wrote, and ICE planned to keep the building open seven days a week for 45 days.

Days after Operation Midway Blitz began, protesters — many of them not from Broadview — arrived in the village.

Mills described the morning of Sept. 12 in a declaration he submitted as part of Illinois’ lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard. He said there were 80 to 100 protesters singing and chanting. Around 10 a.m., about 20 to 30 federal agents parked across the street and walked toward the building. The mood changed, and the protesters got louder.

“The agents were dressed in camouflage tactical gear and had masks covering their faces,” he wrote. “September 12 was the first day that I recall seeing federal agents on scene dressed in that manner. It was a very noticeable shift in my mind.”

He said some protesters stood in the driveway as ICE vehicles carrying detained migrants attempted to enter or leave. At one point, federal agents told the crowd to disperse and threatened to use chemical agents. About 30 minutes later, they deployed tear gas and pepper spray.

A week later, clashes erupted again. Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old Democratic candidate running for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, was thrown to the ground by an armed and masked federal agent outside the ICE facility, according to video footage posted on social media. DHS accused protesters of assaulting law enforcement, throwing tear gas cans, slashing tires of cars and blocking the entrance to the building. The agency also claimed Broadview police had refused to answer “multiple calls for assistance,” which David Ormsby, a Broadview spokesperson, denied.

“The violent targeting of law enforcement in Illinois by lawless rioters is despicable and Governor JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson must call for it to end,” McLaughlin said at the time.

But Mills, whose department has been continuously recording the area, said ICE’s use of tear gas and pepper spray has “often been arbitrary and indiscriminate.” He said he was “not aware of any occasion on which an ICE vehicle was actually prevented from entering or exiting.”

Broadview’s mayor wrote to ICE’s field office director, Russell Hott, in late September that the “relentless deployment” of tear gas and rubber bullets was endangering residents and harming first responders. Thompson also accused ICE of illegally placing an eight-foot-tall fence across the street in front of the building, blocking access for firefighters and creating a public hazard. DHS has contended it is needed to protect the facility.

“In effect, you are making war on my community,” she said. “And it has to stop.”

Acting ICE director Todd M. Lyons responded with a letter of his own. He said there had been “physical attempts” to breach the facility that could not be dismissed as “peaceful protest.” He said there were “direct threats” to the lives and safety of federal officers.

“The only siege in Broadview is the one being waged against the United States government,” he wrote.

A village on edge

Brandon Lee, a spokesperson for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said he believes Broadview has become such a flash point in part because “there aren’t many sites where you can physically protest ICE.”

ICE’s use of the facility has changed during Operation Midway Blitz, but government figures obtained by the Deportation Data Project show that shift had begun even before surge teams arrived in Chicago. Immigrants have been staying at Broadview for longer periods of time since Trump took office again in January. On average, people spent nearly 11 hours there this year through the end of July — almost twice as long as those who were processed at the facility last year.

The data shows a sizable number of people have been sent to Broadview for even longer periods of time. Last year, 88 people stayed at Broadview for 12 hours or more. That number has ballooned to more than 800 since Jan. 20. In June, 77 people stayed at Broadview for at least three days. More recent figures are not available.

“It’s a processing center. Under their own policies it’s intended to be 12 hours or less,” said Mark Fleming, associate director of federal litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center. “They don’t have medical. … There’s no beds, there’s no food service, and so that’s just started to cause really, really significant harm to immigrants.”

McLaughlin said that in late June ICE began permitting the use of “hold rooms” for up to 72 hours and that such facilities are operated in compliance with national detention standards. She said “any claim there are subprime conditions” is false.

Residents in the Broadview area say they are ready to give up their front-row ticket to ICE’s surge in Chicago.

“It’s unbelievable that a community of 8,000 could be on the national stage for something like this,” Jones said. “When is it going to stop?”