A day after at least 10 immigrants were arrested by federal immigration agents upon arrival to routine immigration check-ups in a South Loop office, advocates, political leaders and civil rights attorneys are questioning the way those arrests were carried out, and CPD’s role in them.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has defended the arrests, saying everyone who was arrested had “executable final orders of removal.” But some Chicago alderpersons said the incident, including the way immigrants were allegedly tricked into showing up only to be arrested, should prompt the city to strengthen its sanctuary status.
Those who were on the ground during Wednesday’s mass arrest said ICE agents used excessive force to quell peaceful protests taking place outside the office. They also said they believe Chicago police officers who were at the scene violated an Illinois law that prohibits cooperation with federal immigration agents.
“It was a violent, chaotic scene, and the violence was entirely caused by federal law enforcement,” said Sheila Bedi, a clinical professor of law at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law who was at the protest. “When [federal law enforcement] came on the scene, they gave no orders. They didn’t ask anybody to disperse. They didn’t give any instructions. They just immediately began using their batons to push. I saw people sort of flying back from the officers because of the force that they used.”
An ICE spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the claims of excessive force.
The initial arrests drew attention from local advocacy groups and elected officials who flocked to the scene on Wednesday as families and advocates waited for more information.
Ald. Anthony Quezada entered the building where the arrests took place and said he was shocked to see Chicago Police Department officers standing by federal agents as they escorted people out. Later on, he said he was “knocked down” and “assaulted” by ICE agents as they carried out their operation.
Quezada said he still has questions about why CPD was involved in the raid at all.
“We want to make sure that our local law enforcement is compliant with the laws that we passed,” Quezada said.
Andrew Herrera, a spokesperson for The Resurrection Project, said he witnessed CPD personnel block traffic on Michigan Avenue and secure the perimeter outside the building — both of which he believes violate the Illinois Trust Act.
“Our concern here is that when you have sanctuary policies like the Trust Act … and then you have federal agents coming in and literally physically assaulting aldermen, representatives of our elected government … It’s sending a message that people should be afraid,” Herrera said.
In a statement, a Chicago police spokesperson said officers did not assist in immigration enforcement and that all actions taken by the department during this incident were “in accordance with CPD policy and the City of Chicago Municipal Code, including the Welcoming City Ordinance.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Thursday he had already spoken to Police Superintendent Larry Snelling and some of the City Council members who rushed to the scene and plans a “complete review” by Snelling’s “entire leadership team” to provide “an accurate account of what happened.”
“There are obviously some concerns that, I believe, all of us have about how the federal government showed up in our city,” Johnson said.
The thorough assessment will “make sure that we are doing everything in our power to protect the residents of Chicago while “holding onto our values as a Welcoming City,” the mayor said.
Gov. JB Pritzker defended the Chicago officers.
“Chicago police followed the law,” Pritzker said Thursday. “We’ve tried to make sure that our police are focused on deterring violent crime and not engaged in administrative deportation proceedings like the ones that ICE are now turning into something criminal.”
If an arrest is made with a court-ordered warrant, it is “absolutely appropriate for police to be engaged,” he said.
Alexa Van Brunt, director of the Illinois office at the MacArthur Justice Center, disagrees.
“A perimeter is a law enforcement tactic to detain and arrest someone,” Brunt said. “That is its purpose. So if that’s what was going on, then it seems very clearly to be crossing the line of state and local law.”
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez told WBEZ’s Reset on Thursday that the people who had been arrested during the raid were still in custody, but attorneys had not been able to review the warrants that led to their arrest.
A spokesperson from ICE said everyone arrested had “executable final orders of removal by an immigration judge and had not complied with that order.”
But Sigcho-Lopez said he believes the immigrants were arrested without due process. He said after Wednesday’s event, he wants to look at strengthening Chicago’s sanctuary city status to mandate that Chicago police officers “ask for a warrant” from ICE officers detaining people in Chicago.
“The number of police officers that were deployed and the level of inhumanity that we saw, those demand a call for action,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “So absolutely, we’re going to look into ways to strengthen our legislation.”
Johnson, meanwhile, accused President Donald Trump’s administration of “setting human traps” in order to “kidnap innocent people” in broad daylight, branding tactics of federal immigration agents “sickening and unconscionable.”
“We saw armed masked men walk down our streets in broad daylight. They kidnapped mothers and fathers. We saw them brutalize protesters and shove crying grandmothers into the back of unmarked vans,” the mayor said.
During a reception at the Harold Washington Library’s Winter Garden honoring National Immigrant Heritage Month, Johnson told the assembled audience that, “These are difficult days.” But, he said, “This “not a time to cower in silence.”