Two Aurora aldermen on Tuesday delayed a vote on an ordinance that would ban federal civil immigration enforcement efforts on city property, saying they needed more time because of the multiple changes made to the ordinance throughout the course of the day’s meetings.
The proposed restrictions come amid what President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” a surge of immigration enforcement in the Chicago region that started in September. Aurora has recently seen an increase in federal immigration enforcement agents, and last week, many residents spoke at a meeting to urge the city to pass restrictions around immigration enforcement efforts.
Such an ordinance was on the agenda of multiple meetings on Tuesday. But Ald. Juany Garza, 2nd Ward, and Ald. Patty Smith, 8th Ward, after hours spent in meetings listening to comments from local residents and voting on changes to the proposal, used a section of city code to push the item back to the next regularly-scheduled council meeting without a vote from the full Aurora City Council.
Immediately after a vote on the last change made to the ordinance, which she was in favor of, Garza moved to push the item back because she said aldermen need a clear copy of the ordinance and an understanding of exactly what they are doing. While they want to do this to protect residents, she said, they also want to do it in the right way.
Smith told The Beacon-News on Wednesday that, while she was in favor of the spirit of the ordinance, aldermen were being asked to vote on something they hadn’t had the time to read from beginning to end, which she said was “irresponsible.”
When the vote was pushed back, some people from the crowd shouted “shame” and walked out of the meeting room.
The proposed ordinance would restrict any city-owned or controlled property — including buildings, parking lots or city parks — from being used as a staging area, a processing location or a base of operations for civil immigration enforcement efforts. The restriction would not stop criminal enforcement efforts or those with a judicial warrant.
Plus, the ordinance would not cover city-owned property that is being leased out to a separate organization.
Chief of Staff Shannon Cameron told aldermen during presentations on Tuesday that the proposed ordinance extends principles laid out in the state TRUST Act, which prohibits the city from using its resources to support federal civil immigration enforcement efforts.
Under the proposed ordinance, city employees who observe the ordinance being violated would need to report it to their supervisor as soon as practical. The supervisor would then need to report it to the Mayor’s Office, which would document the incident. Cameron stressed that the city would not be asking employees to put themselves in harm’s way or to interfere with enforcement efforts.
The city would share this documentation with the recently-established Illinois Accountability Commission, city officials said last week in a news release about the proposal.
Mayor John Laesch, addressing the crowd at one of Tuesday’s meetings, said the proposed ordinance “offers no real safety” against the federal government, but it does give the city a way to document times when residents’ rights may be violated.
When asked about why the city was putting forward this proposal, Laesch told The Beacon-News that it was something residents had been advocating for the city to do for a while, basically since Chicago did something similar in early October. Other jurisdictions in the area have adopted similar measures, including East Aurora School District 131, Carpentersville, Will County, Lake County and Cook County.
Laesch said this ordinance is important because, for example, the city doesn’t want a parent be detained at a city park, leaving their child abandoned, or for someone to get taken when in City Hall paying their water bill.
Based on what he’s heard, federal agents are now in Aurora “on a near-daily basis,” he said.
Early last month, several demonstrations were held in Aurora, including one at City Hall and another that Laesch said he joined in, after federal agents were seen across the city. Since then, two local residents have said they were detained despite being U.S. citizens and were harmed by federal agents, and a woman has said her car was hit with pepper-spray projectiles.
Last week, a large number of residents came to an Aurora City Council meeting to urge the city to pass restrictions on federal agents. Speaking about the federal immigration enforcement push, sometimes through tears, many spoke of neighbors scared to leave their homes alongside what they said were warrantless arrests and the use of excessive force.
Again on Tuesday, many residents spoke during the various meetings’ public comment periods in favor of the ordinance prohibiting civil immigration enforcement efforts on city property. At the Aurora City Council’s Committee of the Whole meeting, which started at around 5 p.m., the room was so packed with audience members that some stood along the walls, although some were there to speak about a different proposal.
An ordinance that would ban federal civil immigration enforcement efforts on city property was considered at three back-to-back meetings on Tuesday. Those meetings started at 3 p.m. and went to nearly 11 p.m., and this proposal was just one of the significant topics of discussion at the meetings.
The proposed ordinance went through various changes as it was considered at the three meetings.
It was first formally proposed at the Aurora City Council’s Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee meeting at 3 p.m., where it saw two changes: a minor change to which city entity internal reports would go to and a more significant change basically clarifying that the ordinance didn’t guarantee anyone’s safety.
Ald. Shweta Baid, 10th Ward, also tried to change it so that city employees were not required to report instances of the ordinance being violated, though they could if they wanted to, but the other committee members shot the proposal down.
The proposal was then recommended for approval by that committee with four aldermen voting in favor and Baid abstaining.
Next, it was considered by the Aurora City Council’s Committee of the Whole. There, Ald. Smith proposed something similar to what Baid did at the previous meeting, but the idea was again shot down.
Ald. Keith Larson, at-large, then proposed a change that would require police officers to report additional information about immigration agents using city property, including the identity of the agents and the identify of anyone detained by the agents. That proposal was discussed at length, including with police and legal officials, but went without a formal vote.
A similar proposal was made when the ordinance was considered at the Aurora City Council meeting that night, which began at around 9:50 p.m. It was made by Ald. Mike Saville, 6th Ward, and basically would require the police to create their own procedures around reporting on violations of the ordinance.
Larson was the lone vote against Saville’s idea, as he said it didn’t hold the police to any of the reporting requirements he laid out in his proposal.
It was after this vote that Ald. Garza moved to delay the final vote on the ordinance. Under the section of city code used by Garza and Smith to push back the item, it will now go back to the Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee before going back before the Aurora City Council at its next regularly-scheduled meeting.
A special meeting of the Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee has been called for Friday at 2 p.m. to discuss the proposed ordinance further.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com