Following a protest outside Aurora City Hall on Thursday, Mayor John Laesch is condemning federal immigration enforcement activity in the area.
Federal agents have been in the Aurora area in recent days, state Rep. Barbara Hernandez, D-Aurora, and state Sen. Karina Villa, D-West Chicago, said in Facebook posts recently. According to a statement by Laesch on Friday, the city was also notified of federal agent sightings, which incited “panic and fear among residents.”
“This unconstitutional deployment of federal officers resulted in multiple snatchings of community members, targeting, specifically, our city’s strong and diverse Hispanic population,” Laesch said in the statement. “I utterly condemn the wrongful use of federal funds to violate the civil rights of our residents.”
Laesch also said this “overarching power grab by the presidential administration” is “rooted in intimidation and racial profiling,” which he said he opposes.
Aurora didn’t previously put out a statement about immigration enforcement activities “to protect our most vulnerable residents from being targeted,” but the “large presence” of federal officers in Aurora has demanded a response, Laesch’s statement said.
Federal immigration enforcement has been ramping up throughout the Chicago area.
Many have been protesting this activity, including at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Broadview. Aurora saw protests on Thursday, including a march Laesch said he attended.
On Thursday morning, there were federal officers on Aurora’s East Side around New York Street and Madison Street, the Aurora Police Department previously said. Officers responded to a report of a disturbance, finding a crowd gathered around federal officers in the roadway.
Officers said they ultimately saw a man break the window of a moving vehicle at the scene, and the police department took him into custody, according to past reporting. Laesch told The Beacon-News that the vehicle was a federal immigration enforcement vehicle.
Hernandez, in a statement on Friday, referred to federal immigration enforcement the day prior as “the heartbreaking sight of masked men coming into our community and taking our neighbors away.”
A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday about federal immigration enforcement activity in the area.
On Thursday afternoon, a crowd gathered outside City Hall to protest immigration enforcement activity in the area, holding signs and chanting as cars driving along Downer Place honked their horns. Laesch and city officials briefly made an appearance outside City Hall during the protest.
Some of the gathered protestors alleged that the Aurora Police Department was assisting federal agents.
Laesch disputed those claims on Thursday, saying that the department is in compliance with the state’s 2017 Trust Act, which generally prohibits state and local law enforcement from getting involved in deportation efforts with federal policing agencies on immigration matters, unless there is a federal criminal warrant involved, according to past reporting.
He made similar comments in his statement Friday, saying that body camera footage does not show the Aurora Police Department helping federal immigration enforcement on Thursday.
“APD officers are not permitted to stop, arrest, search or detain individuals solely based on their citizenship or immigration status,” Laesch said in the statement. “Our public safety personnel have one mission: to protect and serve the citizens of Aurora. This will not change, even with the enhanced presence of ICE in our community.”
Still, he called for residents to continue peacefully protesting. He also said residents can go to www.aurora.il.us/MarchApplication to better coordinate with city officials in planning a protest.
Hernandez, in her statement on Friday, also encouraged “nonviolent vigilance, despite the provocative tactics that these officers are often so quick to employ,” saying that the community “can weather this storm together if we remain committed to peaceful resistance.”
Laesch marched alongside community members from downtown Aurora on Thursday “to the site of one of the ICE snatchings to show my support for those whose lives have tragically been affected by these raids,” he said in his statement Friday. That march took place after the protest outside City Hall.
Later on Thursday, protesters “put themselves and the public in danger by walking in the roadway, blocking streets and driving recklessly” near East New York Street and North Madison, Laesch said in the statement Friday. That’s around where federal immigration officers were sighted earlier in the day.
Responding police officers attempted to disperse the crowd, eventually calling in additional personnel, according to a statement from the Aurora Police Department. The area was cleared before 11 p.m., the statement said, and there were no reports of injuries or arrests made.
Laesch said in his statement on Friday that he “will never stop working to protect each and every one of our residents.”
“We have your back, and we are here to both denounce and fight against any form of fascism, militarization and hate,” he said.
According to Laesch’s statement, the Mayor’s Office is working with local, state and federal elected officials to put together citizen-led patrols to make residents more aware of federal immigration enforcement activity and to coordinate conversations with the families of residents who are detained.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com