BROADVIEW — Federal agents shot rubber bullets at and tear gassed demonstrators during a Friday morning protest outside the Broadview ICE facility.
Demonstrators have regularly gathered outside the facility, 1930 Beach St., in recent weeks as part of resistance to federal operations Midway Blitz and At Large, which are targeting undocumented people in Chicago and throughout Illinois. But the protests have grown violent recently as agents have used force against protesters who try to block access to the facility.
About 8 a.m. Friday, agents threw tear gas canisters at protesters and shot at them with rubber pellets and pepper spray balls near 25th Avenue and Harvard Street.
“Someone’s gotta stand in the front,” said Kurt Evans, who carried an American flag and led a group of protesters as agents bombarded them.
Demonstrations have been held every Friday morning since Operation Midway Blitz began this month; this week, some organizers called for people to gather daily in a bid to shut down the facility.
For this Friday’s protest, organizers were forced to move locations because federal immigration officials put up a fence in the street near the processing center. Broadview officials have said the fence was put up illegally and have demanded ICE remove the fence, but it was still up as of Friday morning.
People passing by in cars and trucks honked their horns, seemingly in support of the protest. Demonstrators marched in a circle from one sidewalk to the other, chanting, “How do you spell racist? I-C-E!”
Ten protesters were detained and later released in last week’s protest, according to the National Lawyers Guild.
That protest also saw federal agents tear gas and shoot pepper balls at protesters.
And on Wednesday, protesters said an ICE agent hit a protester with a car. Block Club has not been able to verify the driver was an agent. Broadview police are investigating.
Levi Rolles said he was one of the 10 people arrested during last week’s protest — but he returned Friday morning. Agents yelled at Rolles to “go home” and shot him with pepper balls.
Rolles said that after he was detained, he was taken to an empty section of the facility for several hours. At one point, he saw another protester, who was Latino, and saw an agent hit that protester and call him slurs because the agent thought that person “was an immigrant,” Rolles said. But Rolles, who is white, was treated respectfully, he said.
A sniper with rubber bullets stationed at the top of the ICE facility and shot protesters, breaking another building’s window at one point. The sniper shot one protester’s guitar, breaking the wood.
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