3 Arrested at Chicago-Area ICE Facility

BROADVIEW, Illinois—Three protesters were arrested in clashes with Illinois State Troopers at an ICE facility near Chicago on Oct. 10.

Mara R. Blumenstein, 28, Emmett J. Matlock, 19, and Peter M. Reimer, 31, were all charged with resisting and obstruction by the Illinois State Police.

The arrests came one day after a federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to remove fencing around an ICE facility in Broadview.

On Thursday, another federal judge for the Northern District of Illinois, April Perry, announced a temporary restraining order against the deployment of the National Guard in that state—a move made at least partly in support of ICE’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Chicago, dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.” The Trump administration has appealed the ruling.

On Oct. 7, Judge Jeffrey I. Cummings, also in the Northern District of Illinois, extended a consent decree that limits ICE’s ability to conduct warrantless arrests in and around Chicago. He found that the agency had violated that decree.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Oct. 10 that ICE planned to grow its footprint in both Chicago and Portland, Oregon, including through the purchase of new buildings in the cities.

Hours after the arrest of the protesters at Broadview, the state’s two Democratic senators, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, sought to gain access to a site they allege does not meet the basic needs of detainees.

The senators told reporters that they were denied access.

“The detention facilities in that building are very limited,” Durbin said. “We don’t know for sure, because they won’t let us in.”

Demonstrators and content creators, some anti-ICE and others pro-ICE, crowded around the lawmakers as they maneuvered around barricades near the facility. Beyond the barricades was the fencing, now set to be taken down.

Some protesters chanted for the fencing to come down.

When asked about that order, Duckworth said, “I urge the protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights, but to do it in a peaceful way, and to respect law enforcement officers as they tell them what they need to do in order to keep everybody safe.”

Though sometimes peaceful, the scene on the ground remained tense through the early afternoon. As the day waned on toward evening, when a protest curfew was set to begin at 6 p.m., protesters and counter-protesters edged into verbal confrontations, though no physical violence was observed by The Epoch Times.

Zully, an anti-ICE protester who held a sign reading “We Are the People,” told The Epoch Times she was looking forward to the removal of the fencing.

“They want to hide behind these fences,” she said of ICE.

Not far away, a pro-ICE demonstrator held a sign urging officers to “stand proud.”

The pro-ICE protester had an extended back-and-forth with a man bearing a Mexican flag, who said he was of indigenous heritage.

The man with the Mexican flag also debated conservative influencer Cam Higby, who later spoke with former CNN host Don Lemon.

“Do you know this was once Mexico?” the man with the Mexican flag asked Higby.

“Not Illinois,” Higby replied.

At around 5 p.m., Rabbi Michael Ben Yosef, president of Tikkun Chai Inter-National, arrived on the scene bearing the green, black, and red African-American flag. He carted a speaker system behind him.

Ben Yosef, who told The Epoch Times he is a Hebrew, said he wanted ICE to shutter its Broadview facility.

Elsewhere, a woman in a bright yellow chicken costume walked around the protest areas, occasionally honking a blue rubber chicken. She told The Epoch Times the media was not conveying how peaceful many demonstrators have been. She said protesters had offered first aid to counter-protesters and law enforcement.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled the name of U.S. District Judge Jeffrey I. Cummings. The Epoch Times regrets the error.