A Northwest Side alderman is suing the federal government for up to $100,000, alleging federal immigration agents shoved, threatened and unlawfully detained her last fall during a sweep that went viral on social media and roiled Humboldt Park during Operation Midway Blitz.
Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th, filed the lawsuit in federal court in Chicago on Monday, more than seven months after the confrontation. In early October, as the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign descended on Chicago, Fuentes was briefly placed in handcuffs after she went to Humboldt Park Health to check on a constituent who had been injured during an immigration arrest.
Fuentes alleges in the nine-page tort claims suit that the confrontation left her with “physical, psychological and emotional injuries,” and accuses the government, among several violations, of battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and gross negligence.
“There was a level of fear that I don’t know will ever go away — not just for myself, (but for) my community, for individuals that look like me,” Fuentes said in a call with the Tribune Monday evening. “In order to restore trust, in order to show that we can turn that fear into organizing, we have to show our constituents that we are going to do everything … to hold folks accountable.”
Fuentes said she filed the suit after a six-month window for the federal government to respond to her earlier administrative claim expired without a reply. Her attorney, Jan Susler of the People’s Law Office, said Fuentes “is showing her community and her constituency the importance of standing up and holding accountable a government whose agents act as if they are above the law.”
Susler initially filed an administrative claim, a prerequisite to a lawsuit against the federal government, on behalf of Fuentes a few weeks after the Oct. 3 confrontation.
The altercation unfolded as military-style helicopters hovered over Humboldt Park that morning, and an agent threw tear gas from a car window onto a busy street near a school. Leadership at Humboldt Park Health had contacted Fuentes and asked her to come to the hospital because federal agents were there “uninvited, frightening staff and patients,” the filing states.
Once inside, Fuentes was blocked from reaching the constituent who had been hospitalized after being injured during his arrest. In a video of the altercation, Fuentes can be heard repeatedly demanding that agents present a warrant. She was released after five minutes when she insisted that officers tell her what crime she had committed.
Through the course of the confrontation, Fuentes’ complaint states that agents “physically shoved her, grabbed her, swore at her, threatened her, and handcuffed her.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, in response to a request for comment on Monday’s filing, recounted the government’s narrative of the Oct. 3 incident.
“At the hospital, nearly 30 protesters, including Alderperson (Jessie) Fuentes, attempted to gain access to the detainee,” the spokesperson stated in an email. “She was escorted out in handcuffs but NEVER placed under arrest. Once agents removed her from the area, she was free to go.”
The statement, which did not touch on Fuentes’ complaint specifically, went on to read, “We will not be deterred by rioters and protesters in keeping America safe.”
Fuentes said every available tool must be used to hold agents accountable and to show Chicagoans they can push back.
“It’s important for them to know that we’re not going to allow individuals just to come in and terrorize our communities, and that we have a justice system that we should be utilizing to hold those (agents) accountable,” she said
