Broadview Mayor Calls on ICE to Stop ‘Making War’ After Using Tear Gas, Rubber Ammo Against Protesters
- Staff Admin
- Sep 26
- 3 min read
Matt Masterson | September 26, 2025, 2:30 pm
Broadview’s mayor decried the “relentless deployment of tear gas, pepper spray, mace, and rubber bullets” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents against protesters outside a suburban processing facility.
Mayor Katrina Thompson in a letter to the ICE Field Office Director Russell Hott on Friday claimed ICE’s response to protesters exercising their First Amendment rights outside the Broadview facility is “endangering nearby village residents” and harming Broadview’s police and firefighters.
“In effect, you are making war on my community,” she wrote. And it has to stop.”
Thompson’s letter comes after yet another confrontation between ICE and demonstrators at the Broadview processing facility Friday morning. ICE agents reportedly deployed rubber pellets and tear gas against the protesters — the latest in a series of heated confrontations at the facility.
Illinois Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh posted a video Friday morning claiming ICE agents “tried to run dozens of protesters over with an SUV as we walked on a public crosswalk.”
“He kept driving for about a full football field until ICE barraged us with pepper balls,” she wrote in the social media post.
According to Thompson, Broadview police officers have been forced out of action while they recover from their exposure to ICE’s tear gas. Firefighters, first responders and other ambulance personnel have also been exposed, she said.
“Beleaguered Broadview residents are begging for relief from your center’s siege of our neighborhood,” she wrote in the letter. “They are texting me. They are calling me. They are streaming into Village Hall looking for help.”
The Department of Homeland Security — which repeatedly referred to the protest as a “riot” — claimed 200 people blocked gate access outside the Broadview facility while 30 others “swarmed” another gate and attempted to “forcibly and illegally trespass on federal property.”
“Just days after the vile terrorist attack on an ICE Dallas Facility, over 200 rioters gathered outside the Broadview Processing Center in Illinois, and some began chanting ‘shoot ICE.’” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “These violent threats and smears about ICE must stop. There is no place in American politics for violence.”
The department also claimed one person was arrested while carrying a firearm. In a separate statement, DHS said 17 protesters have been arrested at the Broadview facility since last week on multiple charges.
Relatives, lawyers and activists are concerned by immigrants’ accounts of what happens once they are inside the brick building in Broadview. Once routine protests outside the building have grown in recent weeks, with federal agents using chemical agents and physical force to push protesters back.
Advocates say up to 200 people are being held there at a time, with some held up to five days in a space that doesn’t have showers or a cafeteria. Immigrants report they are being given little food, water and limited access to medication. Communication, including with attorneys, is limited.
“It’s a black hole,” said Erendira Rendón of The Resurrection Project, which has received requests for legal help from nearly 250 arrested immigrants. “You can’t call the center. You can’t talk to anybody.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Thursday called the claims on the conditions false, adding that “detainees are briefly processed” before they are transferred.
U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez joined U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth in calling for an urgent meeting with Hott to discuss “pressing matters,” including ICE’s ongoing “Operation Midway Blitz” and oversight of the Broadview Processing Facility.
ICE also constructed fencing around the facility following protests there last week, but Broadview’s fire chief has said that the fence was “illegally built” without a permit on a public street that falls under the jurisdiction of the village.
Thompson again demanded ICE take that fencing down and “stop putting our residents, our police officers, our firefighters, and our citizens in harm’s way.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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