As at least 12 people were arrested by federal immigration enforcement agents in Lake County over the weekend, community organizers said they are taking a different approach than what is being done in Chicago, where demonstrators are sometimes confronting agents who have used tear gas at times in response.
Dulce Ortiz, executive director of the Mano Family Resource Center and a Waukegan Township trustee, said different forms of “community resistance” are being used to deal with Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the Waukegan area.
Ortiz said when the Border Patrol or ICE agents take people into custody, neighbors tend not to run outside to protest — as sometimes happens in Chicago — out of “fear they will be kidnapped themselves.”
“By the time our rapid response teams get there, ICE is gone,” Ortiz said. “When (community members) identify an ICE vehicle, they start beeping and honking. A line of 10 cars followed them down Sheridan Road into North Chicago. They left. This is community resistance.”
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended nine undocumented individuals in a targeted operation Saturday in Waukegan, some of whom have criminal backgrounds, according to an email from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Ortiz said she is aware of five of the arrests in Waukegan, as well as three in Gurnee Saturday in what she described as a series of quick actions, according to records kept by Mano a Mano and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR).
Since information gathered by Mano a Mano and ICIRR comes from reports by their rapid response teams, Ortiz does not have the names of the individuals, nor information about whether they have a criminal background.
Coordinating with ICIRR and HACES, Ortiz said Mano a Mano helps deploy rapid response teams as soon as there is a report of federal immigration enforcement officers in an area. They provide what help they can for those detained and their families.
While tear gas has been deployed a number of times in Chicago purportedly for crowd control, Ortiz said it has not been used during any ICE or Border Patrol operations in Lake County, where at least 48 people have been taken into custody for allegedly being undocumented in the last three weeks.
“We have not seen any of that here,” Ortiz said. “They do not have to use chemical weapons in Lake County. The pattern is to move quickly and kidnap someone before anyone comes outside to protest.”
A DHS spokesperson said in the email that the “illegal aliens” arrested in Lake County came from El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua. They had criminal backgrounds. DHS did not provide the names of the detainees so their criminal histories could be confirmed, or where any crimes took place.
Ortiz said two landscapers were detained outside a restaurant in Gurnee Saturday, and a construction worker was taken into custody near the intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and Washington Street in the village.
Another five individuals were apprehended by Border Patrol agents in Waukegan on Saturday, according to Mano a Mano and ICIRR records. One person was arrested near 10th Street and McAlister Avenue, another on 9th Street and a third at Adams and 10th streets.
Border Patrol officers took an individual into custody outside a Honduran grocery store on Grand Avenue in Waukegan, and a man was taken near the intersection of Belvidere Road and Jackson Street in Waukegan.
“He was sitting outside waiting on a bench,” Ortiz said.
Two weeks ago, 20 people were apprehended over a three-day stretch, primarily in Waukegan and North Chicago, by Border Patrol officers and ICE.
Last weekend, 16 allegedly undocumented people at places like gas stations, grocery stores, car washes and nurseries in the Round Lake area, Wauconda, Lake Villa, Lakemoor, Grayslake, Fox Lake and Gurnee were apprehended by federal agents.
As Ortiz has said many times, it is important that people know their legal rights, such as the right to remain silent, saying nothing to the enforcement agents, having the right to an attorney and not being required to open the door for an agent unless they have a warrant signed by a judge.
The Chicago Tribune contributed to this story.