Ten protestors were sprayed with mace by ICE officers Sept. 19 while protesting outside the Broadview ICE facility.
Ten protestors were sprayed with mace by ICE officers Sept. 19 while protesting outside the Broadview ICE facility.
Ten people were sprayed with mace by ICE officers Sept. 19 while protesting outside the Broadview ICE facility in the western suburb Broadview. Two of the ten injured were taken to Loyola Hospital in Maywood, Village of Broadview spokesperson David Ormsby said in a statement to CBS News Chicago.
The protesters claim the ICE officers used unnecessary force and acted in an extreme manner, while a statement from the Department of Homeland Security given to ABC 7 Chicago claimed the protesters were blocking their access to the facility by staging in the street.
Some of the injured protesters were with the Chicago Activist Coalition for Justice, a social justice and human rights advocacy organization founded by Rabbi Michael Ben Yosef.
He said the protestors were “peacefully protesting and exercising their constitutional right to assembly and freedom of speech.”
Ben Yosef continued, saying that in recent months, he and the Coalition have been increasingly advocating against the proliferation of ICE agents and deportations, and for the total dissolution of ICE as a federal agency.
“Over the years, we’ve been consistently working to advocate against wrongful deportations and harassment from ICE agents,” Ben Yosef said. “With Operation Midway Blitz that was activated last year by the current [federal] administration, we amped up our advocacy and began to mobilize at the Broadview ICE facility.”
Ben Yosef said after the attack on their protestors, the Coalition responded publicly with a list of demands, which included the release of bodycam footage of all officers involved and for the officers who attacked the protestors to be held accountable.
Another organization involved in activism against the Broadview ICE facility is the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL), a Catholic-rooted community coalition in Chicago and its western suburbs. CSPL runs various social justice campaigns related to clean water, immigration and more, also engaging in liberatory faith formation work, according to Director of Training and Formation Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez.
One of CSPL’s main projects against ICE is their work on returning pastoral care to those detained in the Broadview ICE facility after access had been revoked following the COVID-19 pandemic. In November, CSPL filed a federal lawsuit against ICE, hoping for a return to pastoral care being given to detainees.
After CSPL spent nearly six months entangled in the legal battle, a judge finally ruled in their favor. Through an agreement with ICE, ministers are now allowed daily access to the facility to celebrate the sacraments and offer a listening ear and spiritual direction to those detained.
“This has been a lifeline to them because they’ve been in utter trauma and despair, and now they’re hearing from someone that’s saying the church is with you, and we stand with you,” Arellano-Gonzalez said. “We are against any and all the ways that this administration is dehumanizing you, and you deserve to be with your family.”
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