Protest and State Violence at Broadview ICE Facility: A Photo Essay
On On Friday, September 19, several hundred people gathered outside the Broadview Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, just west of Chicago. The Friday protest followed a morning action—part of a wave of resistance to the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz, a new immigration campaign that has brought a heavy federal presence to Illinois. Protesters came to oppose what they view as unjust raids and detentions, to defend family members and immigrant neighbors facing deportation, and to bear witness to escalating state violence.
Many of the arrests have stemmed from traffic stops or have taken place in public without any specific appointment, criminal record, or removal order. And outrage has only mounted since the fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas-González, a restaurant cook killed during a traffic stop in Franklin Park on September 12.
South Side Weekly obtained firsthand accounts of what happened Friday in Broadview from Bushra Amiwala, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois’ 9th District, and Kelly Hayes, an organizer, author, and educator. Both described federal agents firing tear gas, pepper spray, and pellet bullets into the crowd as protesters linked arms and tried to block vehicles leaving the facility.
Amiwala said she arrived at Broadview at 7:15am and that “around 8:30, when an ICE van was trying to leave the premises, dozens of peaceful protesters and I locked arms to prevent this vehicle from leaving.” She said the response was immediate and aggressive. “The ICE agents from the roof let out tear gas, pellet bullets, and pepper spray.”
She was at the very front of the crowd. “I was directly in front of the vehicle as it drove into us,” she said. The line broke apart as people gasped for air. “All the protestors had to break with intense difficulty to breathe, and pain, burning, and stinging sensation in my eyes and on my skin.”
Chaos broke out around her. Amiwala said, “My eyes were full of pepper spray. It was hard to breathe.”
Amiwala has been campaigning for Congress in Illinois’ 9th District on a platform that includes immigrant rights. She said she has also spent months organizing against ICE locally, visiting small businesses to educate owners and workers about their legal rights during raids. On Friday, she said that work brought her directly into the line of fire.
“In the United States, we have a Constitutional right to peacefully assemble. That right isn’t waived when ICE agents want to terrorize our neighbors. That right isn’t waived when a sitting president wants to appoint himself dictator.”
Kelly Hayes explained why she joined the protest. “I went to Broadview Friday night because I was moved by the images of state violence that I saw on social media on Friday morning. I had been meaning to go, but after seeing those images I felt compelled to attend at the next opportunity,” she said.
Hayes told the Weekly the images online hadn’t prepared her. “Within moments of arriving, I saw a man shot in the head with a pepper ball.” He had been standing on the sidewalk, she said, “appealing to the humanity of agents standing on the roof, and they fired at him.”
“What I saw on social media didn’t prepare me for the intensity of Friday night’s violence.”
Religious leaders were not spared. In a widely circulated video, Reverend David Black of First Presbyterian Church stood on the sidewalk, pleading with agents on the roof to stop abducting migrant neighbors. Within minutes, they fired at him, striking him in the head with a pepper ball. He staggered back, shouting “God damn you” at the agents, as people rushed to shield him from further injury.
“They filled the street with tear gas, charged the crowd multiple times, only once were they ensuring the passage of a vehicle,” Hayes described. “Every other time they exited the walls and fences of that facility to attack people.
According to the Sun-Times, ten protesters were arrested during Friday’s protest.
Amid the chaos, Hayes said she found herself tending to others. “I flushed the eyes of a man who was hit in the forehead with a pepper ball while standing next to me.” What struck her was the way people cared for one another. “I was moved by the care protesters rushed to show that man and others who were injured throughout the night.”
Even as they were beaten and gassed, she said, people stood their ground. “The defiance and love that people embodied that night are a symbol of our values. We love our stolen neighbors and we want them back.”
Alma Campos is the Weekly’s immigration reporter and project editor. Paul Goyette is an independent protest photographer.
