Wheeling prohibits agents from using village property to prepare for immigration enforcement activities

Just days after federal agents sought to use a Wheeling fire station’s parking lot to prepare for immigration enforcement operations, the village board on Monday formally banned such activity on municipal property.

Effective immediately, federal agents are prohibited from using parking lots, vacant lots and garages that are owned and controlled by the village as staging areas, processing locations or operations bases for immigration-related activities.

Signs will be posted.

Any village employee who learns of such activity must immediately report it to a supervisor, who will notify Village Manager Jon Sfondilis.

The ordinance doesn’t describe how village employees or police officers should enforce the prohibition if agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other organizations refuse to leave.

“The Village’s option, at this point, would be to seek a civil injunction from the circuit court requiring that ICE leave the property and refrain from further use of Village owned property for a staging area, processing site or operations base,” Sfondilis said in an email. “This is the same answer for any community passing such resolutions.”

Federal agents are not prohibited from using village property for activities unrelated to immigration enforcement.

The ordinance passed 6-1. Trustee Joe Vito stood alone in opposition.

Village President Pat Horcher backed the plan. On Tuesday, he voiced objection to federal agents using vehicles with heavily tinted windows to snatch people off the street.

This past Saturday, agents asked for permission to use a lot at Fire Station No. 44 at 499 S. Milwaukee Ave., for their operation. They left the station voluntarily after a firefighter contacted a supervisor and activists began blowing whistles to warn people in the area of the agents’ presence, officials said.

“The situation resolved itself,” Horcher said.