A proposed “welcoming ordinance,” up for approval by the Oak Park Village Board on Monday night, would be “exactly what we were looking for,” Mony Ruiz-Velasco said as a group of hundreds gathered in Scoville Park on Saturday afternoon.
Ruiz-Velasco, who serves as executive director of PASO/West Suburban Action Project, a social justice and legal organization based in Melrose Park, spoke during a rally PASO hosted in partnership with local groups including Suburban Unity Alliance, the Oak Park Progressive Women for Action, Collaboration for Health Equity Cook County, Democratic Part of Oak Park and Community of Congregations.
The event was dubbed a “Rally for Sanctuary in Oak Park: No Loopholes, No Collaboration.”
Organizers said the rally was held to boost support for the progressive ordinance up for consideration by village trustees Monday that would protect the community’s undocumented immigrants from persecution based on their immigration status and bar Oak Park officials and law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration officials to identify and apprehend them.
Rally-goers, who ranged widely in age and ethnicity, carried signs that read “protection, not collaboration” and “hate has no home here.” At various intervals, they chanted slogans including “no ban, no wall, sanctuary for all.”
Pem Hessing, a member of both SUA and the Oak Park Progressive Women for Action, said during an interview before the rally that the push to encourage Oak Park officials to adopt the legislation, also referred to as a sanctuary city ordinance, began shortly after Donald Trump was elected president. She said the need for such an ordinance “is even more crucial” in light of the Trump administration’s recent executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations.
Chicago and Evanston have already passed measures to protect their undocumented residents from persecution by federal immigration officials, but Ruiz-Velasco, Hessing and Anthony Clark, an Oak Park River Forest High School teacher and founder of SUA, say those ordinances don’t go far enough and include “loopholes” that would allow for collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Oak Park officials considered a proposed “welcoming ordinance” at a meeting held last month. Hessing, Clark and Ruiz-Velasco said the initial piece of legislation did not adequately protect the village’s undocumented immigrants.
Oak Park Trustee Bob Tucker, who was one of a number of local and state elected officials present at Saturday’s rally, said in an interview after the event that the board revised the ordinance after discussions with staff, community organizations and police.
He told the crowd gathered that on Monday night he would be honored “to vote on a truly inclusive welcoming ordinance for Oak Park — an ordinance without loopholes, an ordinance that speaks to Oak Park’s true values of including everyone and protecting everyone.”
The ordinance up for consideration at the Monday night meeting “is exactly what we were looking for,” Ruiz-Velasco said.
She said it bans local officials from sharing information with or collaborating with ICE except in circumstances in which a legal warrant has been issued.
Oak Park resident Kaidrea Stockman, 35, said she attended the rally as a show of support for her friends who are immigrants and who she said are terrified about what may happen to them under the current administration. Making Oak Park a sanctuary city sends a message to fearful immigrants that the community is “willing to stand up and say we love you and we’re not afraid to support you,” she said.
When asked after the rally whether trustees were concerned about the possible ramifications of passing such a law given that Trump has threatened to cut funding to cities with sanctuary ordinances on the books, Tucker said the village’s elected officials had considered the threats but above all believed they needed to “remain true to our values.”
“I really do think [the ordinance] will be a model for the country,” he said.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
