Illinois State Police arrested at least eight people in a scuffle with hundreds of protesters demonstrating Friday morning outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Broadview processing center.
The arrests are the latest to come from a string of protests outside the west suburban facility as the Trump administration’s so-called “Operation Midway Blitz” wears into its second month in and around Chicago.
Local officials have struggled to manage hundreds of people who gather mainly on Fridays and Sundays outside the processing center, where federal agents have repeatedly deployed chemical crowd controls and less-lethal ammunition in an attempt to subdue crowds.
Friday’s confrontation was the first in almost a month to take place on Beach Street after federal officials removed what the town called an illegally constructed fence from outside the facility. Protesters began to chant around 8 a.m. Friday in violation of Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson’s recently issued order that protests only occur between 9 a.m. and 6 a.m.
Thompson has been highly critical of federal agents’ actions outside the processing center, declaring that “this is not Putin’s Russia” and demanding that federal authorities cooperate with a set of criminal investigations. On Monday Thompson shrank the designated protest area previously established alongside state and county police, saying that demonstrations last week “degenerated into chaos” at the expense of the village’s roughly 8,000 residents.
Around 8:05 a.m., the group pushed toward the building, overpowering a handful of state police and Broadview officers. About five minutes later, dozens of state police in helmets with batons walked toward the crowd and began to push them back.
Troopers tackled and dragged several people, including a woman with an accordion. None of the people arrested appeared to be seriously injured. All sat quietly on a curb with their hands zip-tied as legal observers shouted for their names and dates of birth behind a set of concrete barricades in a so-called “media area.”
Protesters face off against Illinois State Police troopers outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview on Oct. 17, 2025. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
A group of federal agents in military fatigue stood about a hundred feet away beside the building itself, watching quietly as sheriff’s police loaded arrestees into a van.
State police didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In a text message statement on the morning’s events, Thompson said “the most effective protests are those that inspire our better angels, not incite our worst demons” and said that “hostile behavior” would hurt the interests of immigrants who protesters were looking to support.
Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills and Deputy Chief Brandy Johnson could be seen among county and state police following the pushback as chants of “say it loud and say it clear, immigrants are welcome here” echoed down the street over a makeshift drumbeat.
Behind a set of concrete barriers, a woman stood in front of a sign that read “God’s Love Knows No Borders” holding an American flag upside down.
Originally Published: October 17, 2025 at 9:50 AM CDT