Federal Agents Arrest Southwest Side Organizers As They Filmed ICE Activity, Officials Say 

This is part our series of daily recaps of ICE activity in the Chicago region. Have a tip we should check out? Email newsroom@blockclubchi.org.

CHICAGO – Several Southwest Side immigrant rights organizers were detained by federal agents Sunday “without any stated reason,” according to an area alderman and a social media statement by the local rapid response group.

At approximately 9:30 a.m. Sunday, members of the Southwest Side Rapid Response Team responded to a tip of federal agents in Back of the Yards. While they were in the area, three members were “followed, harassed, physically kettled in their vehicles and intimidated by federal officers aiming a firearm at them,” according to the group’s statement.

Federal agents were “aggressive” and started to intimidate organizers when they noticed they were being filmed, Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) told Block Club. A few blocks down, agents in multiple vehicles surrounded organizers, detained them and moved them to an immigration processing center in Broadview, Ramirez said. They were later released, Ramirez said.

Members “were illegally detained, threatened, harassed and intimidated, without any stated reason for their detainment, nor information about their whereabouts,” the Southwest Side Rapid Response Team’s statement reads.

Ramirez said that organizers and neighbors have a right to film and record federal agents’ actions. Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd) also decried the arrests of residents as they exercised their First Amendment rights.

“This is tyranny and should not be allowed in our city,” he said. “Donald Trump is trying to distract from his problems by scapegoating immigrants.”

It is not the first time residents have been improperly arrested by federal agents, according to watchdog groups.

Civil rights and immigrant justice groups filed a notice in federal court Friday representing 27 people, including United States citizens, who were unlawfully arrested without warrants or probable cause since May.

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and the National Immigrant Justice Center said federal agents have continued to violate a consent decree that limits ICE from making arrests without a warrant or probable cause, according to the court notice.

The groups have identified over 27 people who were illegally detained without probable cause since May, the groups’ lawyers said in the court notice.

More than 70 additional cases of potential violations of the Castañon-Nava settlement have been identified, according to the court notice. Earlier this year, the groups sued federal authorities over the arrests of 22 people in the Midwest – including one U.S. citizen.

On Sunday afternoon, armed border patrol agents patrolled some of the most high-trafficked spots in the city, detaining several people, including a family at Millennium Park, according to witnesses and local officials.

Gregory Bovino, the chief U.S. Border Patrol agent, told the Sun-Times/WBEZ that people were being targeted based on how they look.

It is unclear how many people were detained during the operation. Multiple construction workers at a Downtown site and a street vendor near the Art Institute of Chicago appeared to be among those detained, officials said Sunday at an emergency press conference.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said the patrols are a “brazen provocation” by Trump’s administration.

Agents Escalate Violence Against Protesters, Journalists In Broadview

Federal authorities arrested at least one journalist and used chemical weapons on protesters and members of the press in suburban Broadview over the weekend.

Broadview police are investigating the alleged assault of a local television journalist by federal immigration authorities Sunday, the local police chief said. CBS2 Chicago Reporter Asal Rezaei said she was outside the ICE processing facility Sunday when a masked ICE agent inside the fenced area fired a pepper ball, hitting the news truck, “causing the chemical agents to engulf inside.”

The Sun-Times reported that agents fired pepper balls into a group of about 75 protesters Saturday evening and made several arrests outside the ICE Broadview processing center.

Steve Held, a journalist with investigative startup Unraveled, was among those detained, according to Unraveled and other journalists on the scene. Held was “safe” and released overnight, Unraveled said in a social media post Sunday.

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Charles Thrush and Mack Liederman contributed.

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