BROADVIEW, Illinois: Federal officials reported the arrests of 13 people Friday protesting near an immigration facility outside Chicago that has been frequently targeted during President Donald Trump’s administration’s surge of immigration enforcement this fall.
As Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem met with employees inside the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview, a crowd grew over several hours, some riled by newly installed barricades to separate them from law enforcement officers stationed outside.
Noem also accompanied agents Friday on a raid near a local Walmart store and later engaged in a tit-for-tat over unannounced visits — and even bathroom use — with the Broadview mayor.
Immigrants’ rights advocates and residents separately reported that federal agents had used tear gas near grocery or hardware stores they had targeted for enforcement elsewhere in Chicago on Friday and detained a city council member as she questioned the attempted arrest of a man. The federal government has restricted airspace over Broadview, officials said Friday, and Gov. JB Pritzker called for an investigation into an immigration raid on the city’s South Side early Tuesday morning.
Objections to barricades, local police step up
At the ICE facility, some protesters have aimed to block vehicles from going in or out of the area in recent weeks, part of growing pushback to a surge of immigration enforcement that began in early September. Called “Midway Blitz,” the US Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that it has resulted in more than 1,000 immigration arrests.
Federal agents have repeatedly fired tear gas, pepper balls and other projectiles toward crowds in response and at least five people have faced federal charges after being arrested in those clashes.
While Friday’s demonstration was quieter at Broadview, about 12 miles west of Chicago, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin reported 13 protesters were arrested. Charges were not released but McLaughlin said they included alleged assaults on federal officers.
The Illinois State Police, whose officers patrolled the grounds wearing riot helmets and holding batons, set up concrete barriers Thursday night to segregate protesters and designate spaces to demonstrate, with several adjacent streets being closed. Many demonstrators ignored the zones to protest on the other side of the building, saying the corrals prevented free speech rights.
Others were angered by local and state officers standing shoulder-to-shoulder with federal agents, including Homeland Security Investigations, ICE, the Bureau of Prisons and others. At one point, Illinois State Police joined Border Patrol in pushing back a crowd.
Jonny Bishop, a 28-year-old former teacher from Palatine, Illinois, and from a Mexican immigrant family, said the cooperation concerned him.
“ICE acts with impunity,” said Bishop, who’s previously encountered tear gas and pepper balls. “They know that they can shoot at us. They can tear gas us. And Broadview Police Department is not going to do anything.”
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed it has restricted Chicago airspace, with Border Patrol citing “a credible threat” against law enforcement amid ongoing clashes with protesters at the Broadview site. The restriction, which is in effect from Oct. 1-12 and targets drones, extends in a radius of 15 nautical miles and includes Broadview. Critics question the length of time and the geographic breadth of the prohibition, worried about oversight of ICE operations.
Tear gas used on quiet street; city council member handcuffed at hospital
In a Chicago neighborhood, Andrew Denton, 39, stopped at a grocery store for lunch and heard honking from an SUV stopped behind a motorcycle parked in the middle of the street. He realized ICE agents were in the SUV and started shooting video just before the agents threw canisters of gas near passersby.
“There was no reason to use tear gas on the crowd,” he said. “No one was threatening them in any way.”
Denton said he immediately began tearing up. His nose began running, and he felt like he was choking. He said the 20 or so people in the area included seniors, families with children and children outside at recess at an adjacent elementary school.
“Every week, ICE escalates its violence against us,” said Demi Palecek, a military veteran and candidate for state representative. “With this level of escalation, it’s only a matter of time before someone is killed.”
In a near West Side neighborhood a few miles away, Chicago Alderperson Jessie Fuentes shared video appearing to show her being handcuffed as she confronted federal agents at a hospital. She said a resident had fallen and broken his leg while chased by ICE agents who then transported him to the emergency room.
Fuentes arrived after an emergency room staff member called to say there were ICE agents in the room with him. In the video, none of them answers when she asks if they have a signed warrant. One agent then says, “You need to leave,” and handcuffs her from behind as she repeats her question about a warrant and then says, “You’re hurting me.” Fuentes said agents escorted her outside and released her.
Noem participates in raid, engages in restroom dispute
Noem, alongside Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent of the US Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, appeared on the Broadview building’s roof, surrounded by armed agents and a camera crew while standing beside a sniper’s post, according to footage shared online by conservative media personality Benny Johnson.
Johnson also posted video outside a Walmart store where he said agents, accompanied by Noem, had conducted a raid. Another video showed detainees in a parking lot where Noem noted “consequences for breaking the law and jeopardizing our law enforcement.”
Noem attempted to visit Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson at the village hall, but she was not there, and Noem was turned away when she asked to use the facilities.
“The city police wouldn’t even let us use the restroom,” she said in a video.
Broadview village spokesperson David Ormsby said Thompson later “returned her visit” at the ICE facility, where she too was refused access.
“We are distressed to hear that the bathrooms are unavailable at the ICE facility,” Ormsby said in a statement.
Governor decries anonymous, ‘inhumane’ tactics
Pritzker, the governor, lashed out at the Trump administration for the way federal agents, many of them masked to hide their faces, have treated protesters over the past month. He castigated officers’ “inhumane” tactics including slamming protesters to the ground, arresting a reporter and firing chemical agents into the crowds.
“It is clear federal agents cannot be trusted to act to protect the safety and constitutional rights of the public,” the Democrat said.
Pritzker also ordered state agencies to coordinate possible action to “hold federal agents accountable” for a raid on an apartment building in the city’s South Shore neighborhood early this week in which residents, regardless of status and including children, were detained for hours, some handcuffed. Children were separated from their parents, while officers smashed windows and tore through apartments, leaving piles of debris in the hallways.
Homeland Security officials said 37 undocumented immigrants were arrested, some with criminal histories and two allegedly members of a criminal Venezuelan gang.
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US Homeland Security chief visits Chicago area ICE facility as agents arrest 13, raid city neighborhoods
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US Homeland Security chief visits Chicago area ICE facility as agents arrest 13, raid city neighborhoods
New Trump strategy vows shift from global role to regional
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration said in a long-awaited new strategy document Friday that the United States will shift from its historic global role toward increasing dominance in Latin America and vigorously fighting migration.
The national security paper, meant to flesh out Trump’s norms-shattering “America First” worldview, signals a sharp reorientation from longstanding US calls to refocus on Asia, although it still identifies China as a top competitor.
The strategy also brutally criticized allies in Europe and said that the United States will champion opponents to European Union-led values, including on immigration.
Breaking with decades of attempts to be the sole superpower, the strategy said that the “United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself.”
It said that the United States would also prevent other powers from dominating but added: “This does not mean wasting blood and treasure to curtail the influence of all the world’s great and middle powers.”
The strategy called for a “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”
The strategy speaks in bold terms of pressing US dominance in Latin America, where the Trump administration has been striking alleged drug traffickers at sea, intervening to bring down leftist leaders including in Venezuela, and loudly seeking to take charge of key resources such as the Panama Canal.
The strategy cast Trump as modernizing the two-century-old Monroe Doctrine, in which the then young United States declared Latin America off-limits to rival powers, then from Europe.
“We will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine,” it said.
- Championing Europe ‘resistance’ -
Trump has sharply reversed many longstanding US principles since returning to office in January.
He rose to political prominence demanding sweeping curbs on immigration to the United States, fanning fears that the white majority was losing its status, and since taking office has ordered drastic and high-profile raids to deport undocumented people.
“The era of mass migration must end. Border security is the primary element of national security,” the strategy said.
The strategy made clear that the United States under Trump would aggressively pursue similar objectives in Europe, in line with far-right parties that have made strong gains in much of the continent.
In extraordinary language in speaking of close allies, the strategy said: “Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”
Germany quickly hit back, saying that it does not need “outside advice.”
The strategy pointed to Europe’s lower share of the global economy — which is the result largely of the rise of China and other emerging powers — and said: “This economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”
As Trump seeks an end to the Ukraine war that would likely favor Russia gaining territory, the strategy accused Europeans of weakness and said the United States should focus on “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”
- Less on Middle East and Africa -
The strategy paid comparatively little attention to the Middle East, which has long consumed Washington.
Pointing to US efforts to increase energy supply at home and not in the oil-rich Gulf, the strategy said: “America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.”
The paper said it was a US priority for Israel to be secure, but stopped short of the fulsome language on Israel used even in the first Trump administration.
On China, the strategy repeated calls for a “free and open” Asia-Pacific region but focused more on the nation as an economic competitor.
After much speculation on whether Trump would budge on Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy claimed by Beijing, the strategy made clear that the United States supports the decades-old status quo, but called on allies Japan and South Korea to contribute more to ensure Taiwan’s defense from China.
The strategy predictably puts little focus on Africa, saying the United States should transition away from “liberal ideology” and an “aid-focused relationship” and emphasize goals such as securing critical minerals.
The national security paper, meant to flesh out Trump’s norms-shattering “America First” worldview, signals a sharp reorientation from longstanding US calls to refocus on Asia, although it still identifies China as a top competitor.
The strategy also brutally criticized allies in Europe and said that the United States will champion opponents to European Union-led values, including on immigration.
Breaking with decades of attempts to be the sole superpower, the strategy said that the “United States rejects the ill-fated concept of global domination for itself.”
It said that the United States would also prevent other powers from dominating but added: “This does not mean wasting blood and treasure to curtail the influence of all the world’s great and middle powers.”
The strategy called for a “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”
The strategy speaks in bold terms of pressing US dominance in Latin America, where the Trump administration has been striking alleged drug traffickers at sea, intervening to bring down leftist leaders including in Venezuela, and loudly seeking to take charge of key resources such as the Panama Canal.
The strategy cast Trump as modernizing the two-century-old Monroe Doctrine, in which the then young United States declared Latin America off-limits to rival powers, then from Europe.
“We will assert and enforce a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine,” it said.
- Championing Europe ‘resistance’ -
Trump has sharply reversed many longstanding US principles since returning to office in January.
He rose to political prominence demanding sweeping curbs on immigration to the United States, fanning fears that the white majority was losing its status, and since taking office has ordered drastic and high-profile raids to deport undocumented people.
“The era of mass migration must end. Border security is the primary element of national security,” the strategy said.
The strategy made clear that the United States under Trump would aggressively pursue similar objectives in Europe, in line with far-right parties that have made strong gains in much of the continent.
In extraordinary language in speaking of close allies, the strategy said: “Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”
Germany quickly hit back, saying that it does not need “outside advice.”
The strategy pointed to Europe’s lower share of the global economy — which is the result largely of the rise of China and other emerging powers — and said: “This economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure.
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”
As Trump seeks an end to the Ukraine war that would likely favor Russia gaining territory, the strategy accused Europeans of weakness and said the United States should focus on “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”
- Less on Middle East and Africa -
The strategy paid comparatively little attention to the Middle East, which has long consumed Washington.
Pointing to US efforts to increase energy supply at home and not in the oil-rich Gulf, the strategy said: “America’s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.”
The paper said it was a US priority for Israel to be secure, but stopped short of the fulsome language on Israel used even in the first Trump administration.
On China, the strategy repeated calls for a “free and open” Asia-Pacific region but focused more on the nation as an economic competitor.
After much speculation on whether Trump would budge on Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy claimed by Beijing, the strategy made clear that the United States supports the decades-old status quo, but called on allies Japan and South Korea to contribute more to ensure Taiwan’s defense from China.
The strategy predictably puts little focus on Africa, saying the United States should transition away from “liberal ideology” and an “aid-focused relationship” and emphasize goals such as securing critical minerals.
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