CHICAGO (WLS) — A Chicago alderperson said federal immigration agents handcuffed her, while she was questioning them at a Humboldt Park medical center Friday.
Alderperson Jessie Fuentes said she was at Humboldt Park Health Friday, after there was a report of immigration agents at the facility.
There has been an increased presence of federal agents across much of Chicago Thursday.
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She said when she asked the agents if they had a warrant to make an arrest at the medical center, they would not respond and shoved her.
Fuentes said she was later handcuffed and threatened with arrest.
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“This is violence,” Fuentes said.
Video shows the incident. Agents are seen claiming Fuentes was impeding their work.
The director of the hospital said, while United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can come into the emergency room, they cannot go into the operating room.
The hospital has no plans of releasing the person agents were originally trying to detain, who had broken his leg.
Fuentes said he broke his leg running from the agents. Attorneys were brought in to represent the person.
Fuentes also said federal immigration agents have brought a number of people to local hospitals, when they were injured during arrests.
“ICE’s abusive tactics have no place in our city, and our elected officials will continue to stand with residents against this attempt to stoke fear and intimidation,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. “Chicago’s elected officials have a First Amendment right to document ICE’s actions and to inform their constituents of their rights without federal interference. Any attempt to block this work is a direct attack on democratic accountability and an assault on the rights of the people of Chicago.”
Fuentes said there was an increase in immigration enforcement activity Friday in Humboldt Park.
She said tear gas was used on passersby at the Home Depot on Cicero Street and Armitage Avenue and at Rico Fresh on Armitage and Central Park Avenue, as well.
Several Chicago aldermen spoke out Friday, amid “ongoing militarized immigration enforcement in Humboldt Park.”
Fuentes, state Sen. Graciela Guzmán, Cook County Commissioner Jessica Vásquez, Alderman Anthony Quezada, Alderwoman Rossana Rodríguez-Sánchez and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights spoke out Friday outside Humboldt Park Health’s emergency room.
A Chicago alderperson said federal immigration agents handcuffed her, while she was questioning them at a Humboldt Park medical center Friday.
A viewer posted cell phone video showing what appears to be a federal agent inside an SUV stuck in traffic in Logan Square Friday.
The agent then throws what witnesses say was some sort of gas canister out the window.
There has been an increased presence of federal agents across much of Chicago recently.
In the Back of the Yards neighborhood, many people were around when at least five men were detained Thursday.
This comes as the Department of Homeland Security says it has made more than 900 arrests so far across Illinois in “Operation Midway Blitz.”
There was also an immigration raid in Humboldt Park about 6 a.m. Thursday morning. A woman says federal agents knocked down her front door.
She says her husband and two other men in the home were detained by ICE.
The woman says she is a migrant from Venezuela, and her family has been in the U.S. for three years now, as they’ve been going through the process of seeking asylum.
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