Lake County was home to at least five demonstrations over the weekend in reaction to the shooting death of Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, and two people shot and wounded by U.S. Border Patrol officers on Thursday in Portland.
The Rev. Quincy Worthington of Highland Park’s Presbyterian Church said the time has come for people to speak out.
“We need to stand up against the authoritarianism and fascism going on in our country,” Worthington said at a vigil in Highland Park.
“Everybody has to speak out,” added Rabbi Ike Serotta of Congregation Makon Solel Lakeside in Highland Park.
Hundreds of people participated in gatherings labeled as vigils, protests or demonstrations, Friday in Barrington, Saturday in North Chicago and Highland Park, as well as Sunday in Waukegan and Lake Zurich, protesting the ongoing immigration enforcement actions of the federal government.
Dulce Ortiz, the executive director of Mano a Mano Family Services and a Waukegan Township trustee, spoke at the North Chicago rally and attended the Waukegan vigil. She said the administration of President Donald Trump is purposely sewing the situation, mandating a stand.
“A mother of three sitting in her car was murdered, shot in the face three times,” Ortiz said. “We are seeing how this administration is manufacturing chaos throughout our communities by dispatching lawless immigration agents.”
Starting the Highland Park vigil was a memorial song with a drum accompaniment by Ronnie Preston, a Chicago resident, Native American, and a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. He asked people to remove their hats as he began.
“We are here for the woman who was taken,” Preston said
Preston and another drummer were introduced by Ashbey Beasley, a native American and Highland Park resident. She said she is aware of federal immigration officers detaining Native Americans because of their color.
“I know of four Native Americans taken by ICE outside the Little Earth housing project in Minneapolis because they didn’t have IDs,” Beasley said. “It’s a Native American housing project. The tribe is working on getting them back. We’ve been here 15,000 years.”
Also offering a call to action at the Highland Park event was Claire Dietz, the Democracy in Action coordinator for Mano a Mano. She said the government’s immigration enforcement action has had an impact on families.
“Kids are being separated from their parents and parents are being separated from their kids,” Dietz said. “People are afraid to leave their home.”
Carmen Patlan, the executive director of the Center for Immigrant Progress in Waukegan, also spoke at the Highland Park vigil. She explained how she and her organization are trying to make a record of what is happening.
“When ICE arrives, we organize and bear witness,” Patlan said. “All I can do is watch. Sometimes we’re the ones who have to tell a family their loved one has been taken.”
The weekend of protests began in Barrington Friday night, where Lindsay Prigge said she was one of the “liberal moms of the northwest suburbs” who feel the need to do something about the immigrant enforcement situation.
Prigge said more than 75 people arrived at Memorial Park for speeches and a candlelight vigil. Immigration enforcement is not prevalent in the Barrington area, but it has taken place in nearby Carpentersville, which is part of Barrington Community Unit School District 220.
“We had to do something when a human life was taken,” Prigge said. “She was murdered trying to warn people ICE was in the neighborhood. If something happens in a community like ours, it’s going to be covered nationally.
Besides Highland Park, more than 250 people gathered at the northwest corner of the intersection of Illinois Highway 137 and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in North Chicago on Saturday afternoon.
Vivian Swerdlow, a member of Indivisible Northeast Lake County, which was one of the four organizers of the rally, said it is important for people in the community to make their voices heard.
“We need to use a large megaphone to stand up against authoritarianism as well as what ICE is doing in our communities,” Swerdlow said.
Ortiz was one of the speakers at the North Chicago event. She talked about the time a man was taken by immigration enforcement agents “a few blocks” from where everyone stood helping a “neighbor plant a tree.” Her organization had to let the man’s family know what happened.
“We know firsthand the pain immigrant families experience when they learn their loved one has been kidnapped, taken by masked men who refuse to identify themselves and who lack the warrants required under the law,” Ortiz said. “No family should ever receive that call. And yet, far too many do.”
On Sunday, a group of more than 50 people came together at Corrine Rose Park in Waukegan. Clyde McLemore, the executive director of Black Lives Matter in Waukegan, was one of the speakers. He said there was a prayer and several speakers.
Ortiz said the Waukegan event was more subdued than North Chicago. There was a picture of Good and others taken by immigration enforcement officials. It was done with candles in the form of an ofrenda, which Mexican families use to honor their dead family members.
“It was a good way to honor her memory and peacefully protest,” Ortiz said.
On Sunday night, a vigil was also held by the Peace Pole in Lake Zurich.
