Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson on Tuesday said federal authorities were using disinformation tactics that would “make even Russia blush” following protests around a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in the village.
Thompson said village officials were “exploring our options” to force federal agencies to cooperate with local laws and investigations as tensions continue to rise around ICE’s presence in the west suburb.
Thompson, flanked by several other suburban mayors, emergency personnel and former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, again condemned federal agents’ copious use of chemical crowd controls on people demonstrating in Broadview as authorities execute a renewed surge of immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
Agents on Sunday also allegedly shot at a TV news reporter’s truck, prompting Broadview police to open one of three investigations into alleged criminal activities by federal agents. Police Chief Thomas Mills said the feds acknowledged all three probes.
Mills said the high volume of chemical crowd control was creating “an immediate public safety crisis” and said both police and fire personnel are being forced out of action to recover from exposure to tear gas and pepper balls.
That surge is escalating rapidly: Armed federal agents marched in downtown Chicago Sunday afternoon, detaining several people, and Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday announced 100 troops would deploy to Illinois at the request of Department of Homeland Security officials.
In a response letter to Thompson dated Sept. 26, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons condemned what the agency has called “outlandish accusations” from village officials, which he said amount to “fearmongering, misinformation or misplaced blame.”
“We have repeatedly requested assistance from state and local law enforcement, including your own police department, to disperse these unlawful assemblies,” Lyons wrote. “Instead, local inaction has enabled agitators to escalate violence and placed federal officers, first responders, and Broadview residents in harm’s way. … Failure to help provide relief makes you a party to the obstruction of justice.”
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday morning in Broadview, Thompson denied federal claims that Broadview police have not responded to agents’ calls for service at the facility and demanded that federal authorities cooperate with local investigations into alleged criminal conduct.
“Lots of rhetoric oozes from the White House about ending crime in urban areas,” Thompson said. “Well, from where I sit, ICE has generated criminal activity in Broadview.”
Lyons said Thompson was “distorting reality, pointing her finger in the wrong direction, while our officers are protecting her community — and others — from real threats, while also facing skyrocketing violence against them, including at the Broadview facility.”
The mayor and emergency services officials also demanded that federal authorities take down a fence that went up outside the building Sept. 23. When Thompson wrote to ICE Field Office Director Russell Hott to “stop making war” on protesters and residents nearby, federal agents allegedly threatened village leaders with “a s–––show,” increased enforcement on residents of the suburb and increased use of chemical crowd controls.
“There will be no change in our operational posture until these unlawful activities cease,” Lyons’ letter said, referring to protests as “violence and unlawful activity by rioters.” He continued: “The only siege in Broadview is the one being waged against the United States government.”
Federal agents have repeatedly deployed tear gas and pepper balls to subdue hundreds of protesters, including elected officials and people running for office as they have attempted to block vehicles’ movement in and out of the facility and occasionally thrown plush toys and other objects at agents.
The heated statements from President Donald Trump have increased with the action on the ground.
Trump told top military brass on Tuesday that American cities run by Democrats should serve as “training grounds” for troops as the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a highly anticipated meeting with more than 800 leaders in Virginia.
“I told Pete,” referring to Hegseth, “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump said. “The ones that are run by radical left Democrats — what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. They’re very unsafe places and we’re gonna straighten them out one by one. This is gonna be a major part for some people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s war from within.”
Activity has continued across the city, including overnight Monday when agents descended on a building in the South Shore neighborhood.
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and local leaders held a news conference to discuss the raid, saying some 40 people had been detained in the operation at the southwest corner of the intersection of East 75th Street and South Shore Drive at about 1 a.m. Tuesday.
Veronica Castro of ICIRR said she and other organizers had not been given any information about how many people had been released over the course of the day, but said children were among those arrested and condemned the “inhumane and violent” manner in which authorities executed the raid.
Hundreds of masked agents knocking down doors and dragging families out in the middle of the night, some of them unclothed,” she said. “Does that look like safety to you?”
State Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, called the raid “disgusting” and ripped the Trump administration’s “propaganda of terror,” saying it did nothing to improve the quality of life in South Shore.
“Instead of having a president who is bringing the investment that the community needs … he is spending billions of dollars putting helicopters over people’s heads and housing and sending masked men to abduct people,” Peters said.
On Friday, agents in Broadview shot baton rounds and other less-lethal ammunition at demonstrators and detained an independent journalist among some 27 others who have been arrested during protests so far, prompting condemnations from civic watchdog organizations such as the ACLU and the National Lawyers Guild.
Thompson urged protesters to continue demonstrating but to “raise your voices and not your fists” and decried the federal government’s handling of the protests.
“This is not Putin’s Russia,” she said. “This is the United States of America. It has to stop.”
Broadview’s acting Fire Chief Matt Martin said federal officials are ignoring their demands to take down a fence that went up outside the building.
“The federal government is not above our local laws,” Martin said. “Each day this fence remains, the risk of tragedy increases.”
Outside the building, the scene was calm Tuesday afternoon. Vehicles moved in and out of the facility without incident on the south side of the fence.
Chicago Tribune’s Rebecca Johnson and Sam Charles and The Associated Press contributed.
