CHICAGO: Authorities arrested 21 protesters Friday and said four officers were injured outside a Chicago-area federal immigration facility that activists say functions as a de facto detention center and is plagued by inhumane conditions.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office said most faced charges of obstruction, disorderly conduct, and walking on a highway. One also faced a charge of mob action. Their ages ranged from 23 to 67.
The office said the four officers were injured while trying to redirect protesters off a roadway and back behind a barrier. Two Broadview police officers and one Cook County Sheriff’s Police officer were taken to a hospital. The Sheriff’s Police officer sustained a lower leg injury and was treated and released. The Broadview Police Department said its officers’ injuries were not life threatening. An Illinois state trooper was treated at the scene.
Just moments before the clash, demonstrators were singing and chanting. Around 10 a.m., a large group, knowing they were going to be arrested, allegedly crossed the protest barrier and attempted to walk up toward the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
Some protesters carried signs reading, “God’s Love Knows No Borders” and “God Demands Freedom.” Some of them prayed. The crowd numbered about 300 before it began to disperse.
The facility in Broadview, Illinois, has been the site of frequent protests, particularly on Fridays, against a federal immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” It has led to more than 3,200 arrests in the Chicago metropolitan area since September of people suspecting of violating immigration laws .
The aggressive tactics used by agents from Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have repeatedly come under fire through legal challenges as well as street protests.
Protesters arrested, officers injured in clash outside Chicago-area immigration facility
https://arab.news/2tpdw
Protesters arrested, officers injured in clash outside Chicago-area immigration facility
Bolivia and Israel to restore ties severed over the war in Gaza
- Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month
- The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties
LA PAZ, Bolivia: Bolivia's new right-wing government said Tuesday that it would restore diplomatic relations with Israel, the latest sign of the dramatic geopolitical realignment underway in the South American country that was once among the most vocal critics of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.
The Bolivian foreign ministry said its top diplomat would meet his Israeli counterpart in Washington later Tuesday to discuss the revival of bilateral ties, which Bolivia's previous left-wing government severed two years ago over Israel's devastating campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Bolivia said the effort came as part of a new foreign policy strategy under conservative President Rodrigo Paz aimed at “rebuilding Bolivia's international prestige, opening new economic opportunities and strengthening alliances that directly benefit the country and our citizens abroad."
Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo is in the midst of a whirlwind trip to Washington for meetings with American officials as his government works to warm long-chilly relations with the United States and unravel nearly two decades of hard-line, anti-Western policies under the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party that left Bolivia economically isolated and diplomatically allied with China, Russia and Venezuela.
Paz's government eased visa restrictions on American and Israeli travelers last month.
In announcing his expected meeting with Aramayo on Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar thanked Bolivia for scrapping Israeli visa controls and said he spoke to Paz after the center-right senator's Oct. 19 election victory to express “Israel’s desire to open a new chapter” in relations with Bolivia.
Paz entered office last month, ending the dominance of the MAS party founded by Evo Morales, the charismatic former coca-growing union leader who became Bolivia's first Indigenous president in 2006. Not long after taking power, Morales sent Israel's ambassador packing and cozied up to Iran over their shared enmity toward the U.S. and Israel.
When protests over Morales' disputed 2019 reelection prompted him to resign under pressure from the military, a right-wing interim government took over and restored full diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Israel as it sought to undo many of Morales’ popular policies.
But 2020 elections brought the MAS party back to power with the presidency of Luis Arce, who in 2023 once again cut ties with Israel in protest over its military actions in Gaza.
Other left-wing Latin American countries, like Chile and Colombia, soon made similar moves, recalling their ambassadors and joining South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the United Nations’ highest judicial body.
