UPDATE: 8:45 p.m. ― After initially planning to temporarily close the Broadview facility, the Department of Homeland Security decided Sunday to keep it open and operational, according to agency communications. A DHS spokesperson said allegations the facility was being evacuated were “false.”
PREVIOUSLY: The Trump administration plans to evacuate an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility outside Chicago that has become the site of protests over the president’s immigration crackdown in the city, according to Department of Homeland Security communications viewed by HuffPost.
ICE officials are expected to take detainees and equipment out of the facility in suburban Broadview, where demonstrators said they were tear-gassed and arrested on Friday, and move them to a different ICE location. It isn’t clear how many detainees are held in Broadview, or when operations would resume there.
The decision to abruptly relocate staff underscores the impromptu nature of ICE’s surge in cities where it may not have the necessary infrastructure in place to safely hold detainees or handle protests. Chicago is one of several Democratic strongholds where Donald Trump has promised to boost deportations and take a hard line on crime.
DHS, which includes ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images
The agency has said it has arrested nearly 550 people over the past two weeks as part of the operation known as “Midway Blitz.” The arrests follow similar swells in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., with more promised in Boston and elsewhere.
The influx of masked agents roving the streets has frightened immigrant communities in these cities, and led to pushback against the administration’s hardline tactics. Demonstrators have been showing up at the Broadview office outside Chicago for weeks, calling for it to be shut down.
Dozens of protesters arrived at the facility early Friday morning, when they believed detainees were being removed for deportation. Kat Abughazaleh, a journalist who’s declared a run for Congress, said she was thrown to the ground and hit with pepper balls after blocking a van.
“This facility is committing crimes against humanity,” Abughazaleh alleged to HuffPost in an interview Friday. “It is a processing facility, so people are not supposed to be held for more than 12 hours at a time. They are being held for days or even weeks at a time. It’s horrific.”
A DHS spokesperson said protesters had “thrown tear gas cans, rocks, bottles, and fireworks at law enforcement” and slashed the tires of agency vehicles. Federal law enforcement had made 16 arrests, according to DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
“Secretary [Kristi] Noem’s message to rioters is clear: you will not stop us or slow us down. ICE will continue to enforce the law,” McLaughlin said.
Daniel Biss, the Democratic mayor of the Chicago suburb Evanston, accused ICE agents of driving a van into the group protesters he was part of, calling it a “violent show of force” in a video post on X.
“They are trying to intimidate us, to stop us from standing up and being a part of a nonviolent resistance, and we will not be intimidated,” Biss said.
The protest on Friday included Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, an ally of Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whose administration has promised to resist Trump’s crackdown in Chicago.
“We are seeing the Constitution being stomped upon,” Stratton told CBS Chicago. “All of us need to be speaking with moral clarity and saying this is not right.”
An ICE official recently told The Associated Press that there was “not an end date in sight” for the Chicago operation.