By Heather Schlitz
BROADVIEW, Illinois (Reuters) -Police arrested several people on Friday as hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in suburban Chicago that has been the focus of protests since a federal immigration enforcement surge began last month.
Tensions have been high in recent weeks in Chicago as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has ramped up his efforts to deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, arresting many without criminal records.
This week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said the Trump administration had requested the Pentagon to send troops to the Democratic-run state.
Outside the detention facility in Broadview, behind barriers erected by ICE, protesters initially stood peacefully on Friday, singing Christian hymns and Jewish morning songs. Then Gregory Bovino, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commander who is leading the federal enforcement effort in Chicago, arrived with agents in gas masks and armored vehicles.
Protesters began jeering and scuffling with police, some shouting obscenities.
Illinois State Police officers, some carrying rifles, night vision goggles and clubs, made several arrests, including of an elderly woman, who appeared to hyperventilate as she was shoved to the ground and handcuffed.
“It’s outrageous. I’m just out here silently protesting and they’re pushing us off the street and sidewalk and they’re using violence against us,” said Kevin Ryan, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate.
An Illinois State Police spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ESCALATING PROTESTS
People in the Chicago area have staged repeated protests condemning the stepped-up federal presence, and the facility in Broadview, a majority-Black village about 13 miles west of Chicago, has become a focus of them.
On at least four occasions, about a dozen demonstrators sitting on the ground attempting to block ICE vehicles from carrying detainees into the facility have been repelled by heavily armed ICE agents using physical force, chemical munitions and rubber bullets, evoking combat scenes.
Protesters have decried what they call similar heavy-handed policing in other Democratic-run cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and Portland, Oregon.
Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Department of Justice officials on Monday to “defend ICE facilities, specifically in Portland and Chicago.”
At Broadview, masked ICE agents have regularly fired volleys of rubber bullets, tear gas and pepper powder into the crowd.
Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson said earlier this week that the clouds of tear gas were affecting residents who lived near the facility, and that a fence ICE had erected without village approval was blocking access for emergency vehicles. The city’s police department has opened two criminal investigations into ICE officers’ actions at the facility, including allegedly targeting the vehicle of a local TV news reporter.
“We will not allow sanctuary politicians or violent rioters to stop us from enforcing the law,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Heather Schlitz in Chicago, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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