After a Halloween disrupted by arrests by federal immigration agents in Evanston, several hundred people packed a community center parking lot for a vigil Saturday afternoon.
The vigil follows the arrests of five people without legal status in the area on Friday, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Nearby schools were placed on soft lockdown during the operation.
“Twenty-four hours ago, this neighborhood was under attack,” Mayor Daniel Biss said at the vigil. “And Evanston showed up.”
Biss said the Evanston Police Department, because of a new policy, is now investigating the incident. Under the policy the city will investigate federal immigration enforcement activity and take legal action or refer violations of local and state laws to state agencies.
Biss was among local elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, and religious and community leaders who spoke at the vigil.
The speakers urged the residents to care for immigrant members of the Evanston community and to stand up to federal agents. They also condemned the agents for “terrorizing a progressive sanctuary city,” to the loud boos and shouts of “cowards” from the crowd.
“The only thing you are doing is that you are uplifting and creating community leaders … to stand up to the things that are wrong,” said Evanston City Clerk Stephanie Mendoza, the city’s first-ever Latina elected official. “They are doing the opposite of what they think they are.”
Friday’s arrests were the latest development in an escalating campaign that has gripped the affluent northern suburb in recent weeks. Nearly two dozen people, including some landscapers and day laborers, have been arrested in the area since early October, according to reporting from The Daily Northwestern.
Elliott and Robyn Hurtig, both 61, came to Saturday’s vigil with a large Mexican flag on a metal pole. They said they were appalled by Friday’s arrests in their “very peaceful, livable community.”
“To see that atrocity is really frightening and horrifying,” Robyn Hurtig said. “And when we see things like that happen in our neighborhood, we have to take action.”
Elliott Hurtig said the family has displayed a variety of flags of “countries [President Donald] Trump has gone after,” including Canada and Ukraine. But he felt that the Latino immigrant community is now in need of the most support.
Christie Kersnar, 58, a recently retired Evanston public school teacher, said she encountered the federal agents’ caravan on Friday and filmed them at a gas station.
Christine Kersnar, right, a retired school teacher, and Debbie Price attended Saturday’s protest in solidarity with those arrested by immigration agents. Kersnar filmed a caravan of federal agents on Friday. “It’s creating an immense amount of stress and trauma,” Price said of the immigration enforcement activity.
Casey He/Sun-Times
“It’s terrible. They are not criminals here. Nobody wants that. We’re a community,” Kersnar said.
“It’s unconstitutional, period,” added Debbie Price, 57, who lives in the area. “It’s creating an immense amount of stress and trauma.”
Videos on social media and shared privately with WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times show federal agents’ presence and brief clashes with protesters in Evanston on Friday.
A video taken from a vehicle near Seward Street and Custer Avenue around 10 a.m. Friday shows a man, who identifies himself as a U.S. Border Patrol agent, leaning into the driver’s side window of a vehicle and telling the woman filming the video, “What you’re doing is interfering.”
“I’m not interfering,” the woman replies, to which the man responds, “I’m telling you, you are.”
The man then reaches for the woman’s phone and threatens to arrest her before walking away.
Hours later, another video shows residents with phones and cameras surrounding federal agents and a vehicle presumed to be transporting detainees. People blow whistles, shout and record as the car drives off.
A video circulating on Reddit, which social media users said was filmed in Evanston on Friday, shows a federal agent kneeling on a handcuffed man’s back and pressing the man’s face into the asphalt.
The agent then hits the man, pushes his face along the asphalt and grabs his neck as the man screams that he can’t breathe. “I’ll get off you, stop moving,” the agent says before pulling the man up by his collar to his knees.
Kersnar and Price said they’ve seen the last video, and they questioned why federal agents are using “such excessive force.”
“If they want to get the criminals, go get the criminals,” Price said. “They are not targeting anybody but a very specific demographic. It’s purely racist.”