The first thing I saw when I arrived at a protest site near the Broadview ICE facility was a pile of stuffed animals and a sign encouraging us to throw them at ICE vehicles while heckling the agents inside.
This was not an official function of the protest.
The demonstrations that have been held outside and around the Broadview detention facility — the central processing center for ICE’s ongoing assault on Chicago, which the agency has dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz” — are autonomous in nature, allowing a variety of tactics, messages and imagery to emerge at each demonstration. I approached the intersection of Harvard Street and 25th Avenue in Broadview, a secondary protest site that has recently emerged in the ongoing struggle to disrupt ICE’s comings and goings from the facility. The second site began to draw protesters after the Department of Homeland Security erected a streetwide fence, against the wishes of Broadview officials, to keep protesters away from the facility on Beach Street. Some protesters gather near the fence, defiantly attaching banners and messages of solidarity for detainees to it, as ICE agents fire punishing rounds of pepper balls and, at times, tear gas. Others have shifted their efforts to block ICE vehicles around the corner on Harvard Street. Within a half hour of arriving at the Harvard Street site around 6:45 Friday morning, I saw sign-toting protesters picketing in the roadway, musicians performing in the street, a pop-up workshop on treating pepper spray and tear gas exposure, and, yes, people throwing stuffed animals at an ICE vehicle — while crowds of protesters put their bodies on the line to stop that vehicle.
Over the last few weeks, the Department of Homeland Security claims to have arrested over 700 people in Chicago and surrounding towns and suburbs. The national press largely ignored this violent surge after Trump — at least temporarily — rolled back plans to send the National Guard to Chicago. However, protests outside the Broadview facility have played a significant role in reclaiming national visibility for the current crisis. The Broadview protesters have established a regular moral presence outside the detention center — Protesters at the contested intersection made way for cars that did not appear to be affiliated with ICE, yelling, “Real job!” to each other as an indication that those cars should be allowed to pass. When an ICE vehicle attempted to pass through, protesters put their bodies on the line, placing their hands on the vehicle’s hood and leaning into it. The vehicle continued to push forward, and protesters scrambled to stay on their feet while trying to remain in front of the vehicle, slowing its progress. Eventually, a team of ICE agents emerged from behind a nearby fence and began firing tear gas, pepper balls, and “foam” baton rounds at protesters…