Legal battle continues over federal agents' use of force, judge requests updates from Border Patrol chief
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The Chicago area is seeing an increase in federal immigration enforcement.
President Donald Trump says the surge in immigration enforcement activity in the Chicago area is about getting dangerous criminals off the streets.
Some 300 federal agents are using North Chicago's Naval Station Great Lakes as the logistical hub for ramped-up operations.
Protesters and federal agents have continued to clash outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center in Broadview, Illinois.
ABC7 is tracking the latest news in the city and suburbs. Here are the latest developments.
A so-called aid tent outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview has been ordered to be removed.
The village says the now 24-hour site is creating a sanitation issue with furniture, space heaters and a log-burning fire pit.
Village officials say that area is meant for protesters, not for an encampment.
Activists argue the tent is a symbol of hope, amid despair for families of those detained
ABC7 Chicago obtained a letter late Wednesday sent by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
In it, he asks them to suspend immigration enforcement operations in the Chicago area over the weekend so children can celebrate Halloween.
This comes just days after tear gas appeared to be dropped on the city's Northwest Side as children were attending a Halloween parade.
Indictments and arrests against protesters have become part of Operation Midway Blitz. Whether the cases stick could depend on the legal definition of obstruction.
The Broadview Ice Facility has been the place of protest for many politicians running for public office, including progressive Congressional Candidate Kat Abughazaleh. She and five others have been indicted with a series of felonies related to a protest where she allegedly "banged aggressively and pushed an ICE agents vehicle."
Abughazaleh says she was exercising her First Amendment rights.
"It's going to depend on a lot of factors and circumstances that are difficult to tell or discern from a short video snippet," UIC School of Law Prof. Steven Schwinn said.
Schwinn says physically interfering with a federal agent doing his job is the clearest definition of obstruction or impediment. The Trump administration has used both terms to arrest people protesting ICE enforcement
"We have seen how they try to intimidate people that are alerting the community by saying that they're obstructing, by saying that they're impeding," Little Village Community Council President Baltazar Enriquez said.
Enriquez has witnessed in his community federal agents claiming obstruction against protesters with less than physical interference, which Schwinn says can be interpreted as legal.
"A person can interfere with a federal officer doing their job through things like even intimidation or some kind of other interference that is short of actual physical involvement," Schwinn said.
But, in his legal opinion, Schwinn says the Trump administration has stretched the limits of what obstruction means when they have prosecuted protesters.
"If the Department of Justice seeks to lodge a charge, they very well may do it, but then it's a different question entirely, whether that'll survive the legal system," Schwinn said.
Schwinn says charges likely won't survive, if it is proved federal agents were acting unlawfully while doing their jobs.
In the meantime, Enriquez is not taking any chances. He advises his volunteers who look out for ICE to no longer follow the agents in caravans, stay six feet away and don't engage.
"So we're telling them not to get in any conversation with them," Enriquez said. "Just blow the whistle. Back off. Do not get near them."
Enriquez says by abiding by those rules, none of his volunteers have been arrested. He is convinced federal agents are is trying to provoke protesters to react in a violent way as a reason to send the National Guard.
The U.S. Department of Justice has appealed a federal judge's order that mandated Customs and Border Protection Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino to check-in with the judge daily to ensure compliance with a temporary restraining order that restricted federal agents' use of force.
The DOJ filed the appeal just hours before Bovino was slated to check-in with the court for the first time Wednesday.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals responded to the appeal later Wednesday and decided to temporarily pause the order requiring Bovino to appear in court daily.
The first meeting with Judge Sara Ellis was set to be an opportunity for the judge to review with Commander Bovino any use of force incidents that may have taken place between Border Patrol agents and residents.
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