Dozens protested outside an immigration processing center in Broadview on Friday morning as the mayor of the near-west suburb said in a letter to residents that Trump administration officials have told her and other leaders in town that a “large-scale enforcement campaign will soon be underway” and is likely to continue for about 45 days non-stop.
The two-story brick building used by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will be the “primary processing location” for the expected federal immigration incursion, according to the letter from Mayor Katrina Thompson to residents.
The letter follows two weeks of threats and declarations from President Donald Trump and members of his administration that an influx of federal agents was set to arrive in Chicago. Trump has also said he has considered sending National Guard troops to Chicago to focus on crime in the city, even though crime numbers have declined in recent years. A deployment of ICE and U.S. Border Patrol agents is expected to be more focused on the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on immigration.
Gov. JB Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and dozens of other mostly Democratic officials have vehemently voiced their opposition to any additional federal enforcement measures, especially the positioning of Guard troops on the streets of the nation’s third-largest city. Still, Pritzker and the others have said they expect an increased federal presence as soon as Friday or Saturday, when Mexican Independence Day festivities are expected to occur.
In the letter to Broadview residents, Thompson wrote that with the ICE facility — which is located at 1930 Beach Street — expected to serve as the primary processing location for the operation, it is also likely to be a location that will “draw protests and demonstrations, like those seen earlier this year in Los Angeles, where property damage and assaults against law enforcement were reported.”
“Our priority is to maintain transparency, protect the interests of our residents and ensure the vitality of our business community,” Thompson wrote.
The ICE facility has been a magnet for protests for months and was the location of another protest on Friday morning.
One key issue about the ICE processing center is the length of detention for individuals there. It is designed to hold people for no more than 12 hours before transferring them to a formal immigration detention facility. But an investigation by the Chicago Tribune earlier this year found immigration detainees have been held there for days. Data earlier this year show the typical detainee was held two or three days — far longer than the five or so hours typical in years past, the investigation found.