For consecutive Fridays, the federal detention facility in southwest suburban Broadview has been the site of confrontations between immigration enforcement agents and protesters.
Scenes of mobs of protesters attempting to forcefully impede federal vehicles, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel shooting pepper balls and tear gas into crowds of people protesting peacefully, display a situation that is getting increasingly out of control.
Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons have pointed fingers at each other, with Thompson accusing the feds of emulating Vladimir Putin and Lyons accusing Broadview of putting his officers at risk. Both parties in our view have reason to complain.
ICE agents in many cases have proven themselves poorly trained for conflict, throwing demonstrators to the ground, for example, and in one viral moment over the past weekend almost comically chasing a man on a bike around downtown Chicago after he taunted them. But state and local police haven’t done enough either to keep demonstrators and federal law enforcement from coming into physical contact with each other at Broadview.
We do appreciate Thompson encouraging protesters to “raise your voices and not your fists.”
But we believe state and local authorities can do more to defuse the growing tension and fear, and allow protesters to make their voices heard while enabling ICE to carry out its enforcement responsibilities without simultaneously having to control demonstrators.
This is a moment for Gov. JB Pritzker to show leadership beyond calling President Donald Trump names and exhorting ordinary folks to document on their phones what the federal agents are doing. We understand that the governor is building his political brand nationally as a preeminent leader of the Democratic Party resistance to Trump, but a higher priority must be keeping Illinoisans safe. And in that task we believe he and state law enforcement can do considerably more to assist a village of less than 8,000 that seems understandably overwhelmed with being the focal point of anger around the ongoing federal immigration-enforcement surge in Chicago.
There’s a need to separate protesters from ICE agents, and state and local police are in our minds best equipped to accomplish that. Pritzker said Monday that he understands Trump intends to send 100 federal troops, National Guard or otherwise, in response to the Broadview issues. Trump on Tuesday reiterated that “we’re going into Chicago very soon.”
If state and local police were establishing designated protest areas around the detainment facility that facilitated ingress and egress for federal vehicles without coming into contact with demonstrators, there would be no justification for federal troops — and likely no legal way for Trump to deploy them.
We’re told senior staffers of Pritzker and Mayor Thompson have been in frequent communication. That’s good, but it’s not enough by itself. There’s nothing standing in the way of Broadview asking for more assistance from Illinois State Police in keeping people secure while exercising their First Amendment rights.
An ISP spokeswoman tells us state police are “providing general support in response to the Broadview Police Department’s request around maintaining public safety during planned protests.” People who’ve protested in Broadview say the state and local authorities haven’t done much other than direct traffic and maintain watch over the proceedings.
In the end the governor’s first responsibility is to keep the residents in his state safe.
So we hope that when Friday dawns there will be a far better plan for keeping the chaos of the past two weeks from recurring. If that means coordinating with the Trump administration — especially in light of all the questions about the entry of National Guard or other troops — then that should happen. Notwithstanding how much Pritzker detests Trump — and vice versa.
As Pritzker and various municipal officials have said repeatedly, they can’t legally stop ICE from enforcing federal immigration laws on the streets of Chicago and in the region. They’re right.
But it’s not responsible for them to call on ordinary people to protest these federal actions — as the governor and others have done more than once — while doing little to protect those folks when a small minority crosses the line from peaceful protest to something more forceful.
Authorities throughout the Chicago region can’t be everywhere at once during these ICE operations. But we know full well there will be more trouble at Broadview. Tempers on all sides are flaring, raising the chances that someone will be seriously hurt or worse. It’s time for our state and local leaders to step up and do more than jawbone.
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