CHICAGO – A state lawmaker from Chicago said federal immigration agents stopped him at gunpoint on Tuesday on the city’s Northwest Side.
What we know:
State Rep. Hoan Huynh (D-Chicago) said he was in his car on the city’s Northwest Side doing “community ICE patrol” when he was surrounded by six Customs and Border Patrol agents, according to a news release.
Huynh said one of the agents pulled a gun on him.
“They tried to bash in our car’s windows while we were doing Know Your Rights patrol in the community,” Huynh said in a Facebook post. “Thankfully, we weren’t physically harmed, but this was federal agents using violent intimidation trying to silence us. If they can pull a gun on an elected official, there’s no end to the terror they will continue reigning on our communities. We must fight back against this fascist regime that has no place in America.”
A state lawmaker from Chicago said federal immigration agents stopped him at gunpoint on Tuesday on the city’s Northwest Side. (State Rep. Hoan Huynh’s office)
Huynh said around 11:30 a.m., he was going door to door in Albany Park to inform local businesses of their rights if they encountered ICE. While he was in the car near the intersection of Montrose Avenue and Kimball Avenue, that’s when the six federal agents “blocked the front and back of the vehicle, sandwiching it on the street,” according to a news release.
Huynh’s office said his staff began filming and that the lawmaker “kept his hands visible and clearly and repeatedly states his name and office.”
In a video posted on Huynh’s Facebook page, the lawmaker can be heard repeatedly identifying himself while masked agents in camouflage uniforms are standing near the car. One of the agents is seen holding up his phone to the car’s windshield as if he were recording or taking photos.
Tuesday’s incident is just the latest incident in which local elected officials have had tense encounters with federal immigration agents amid the Trump administration’s so-called Operation Midway Blitz.
Also on Tuesday, Chicago Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) said she would file a federal claim in connection with her arrest at a Northwest Side hospital earlier this month. Fuentes said she was responding to concerns from staff when ICE showed up with an injured person they had detained. The video of an agent forcibly arresting Fuentes after she asked if they had a judicial warrant for the detained person angered many local officials and activists.