Days after a 70-year-old Air Force veteran was among five people charged while protesting outside a suburban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, fellow veterans and others gathered Thursday at the same spot in Broadview to speak out against ICE’s increased presence in the Chicago region and the Trump administration’s increased use of military tactics.
Nearly two dozen people attended the event sponsored by the veteran and military organization Common Defense, of which the veteran, Dana Briggs, was a member. Briggs, of Rockford, was protesting on Saturday outside the two-story ICE building in Broadview when he was accused of making contact with a border protection agent’s arm while trying to hand his cellphone to another protester, allegedly “causing pain” to the agent’s wrist.
Briggs is facing a felony count of assaulting a federal officer. Earlier this week, he was ordered released on an appearance bond.
The Broadview facility has become a flash point for protests over the Trump’s administration’s ongoing crackdown against illegal immigration. Since “Operation Midway Blitz” began in early September, ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol have made more than 800 arrests, according to a statement on Wednesday from the Department of Homeland Security.
On Thursday, the group of protesters in Broadview said they were rallying to bring attention to the arrest of Briggs. They said actions by ICE and the Border Patrol are undermining democracy and civil rights.
Demi Palecek, a member of the Illinois National Guard, also said the surge of immigration officers is scaring communities.
“This was never about lower costs, it was never about energy or health care or groceries,” Palecek said of the Trump’s administration’s goals. “This is to help billionaires. This is about scapegoating, it’s about the immigrants used as political fraud, while private prison companies cash in while taking away our civil rights.”
Robert Held, a 68-year-old Air Force veteran, attended the rally and said he was among those arrested Saturday during the protest in Broadview, along with Chicago journalist Steve Held, to whom he is not related. Robert Held said he was chased by federal agents before being arrested, without charges, but not before he was interrogated for eight hours and released at 1:30 a.m. Sunday.
“This is all about political theater and the suppression of the First Amendment rights of protesters like myself,” Robert Held said.
Steve Held, a journalist for Unraveled Press who had been detained by federal agents at a Broadview protest Saturday night, was released Sunday. After his release, he described his experience on the Bluesky social media app, saying that while getting processed, he noticed the “heartbreaking” look on detainees’ faces.
“We have never witnessed anything like what ICE has unleashed on our communities this week,” Unraveled Press posted on social media Sunday morning.
During the rally, Shawn Campbell, 30, of Plano, interrupted to accuse the protesters of being the problem.
“People are not innocent, you are the agitators,” he said.
“I’ve shown up and shown my pride in my country, shown my patriotism in my country, shown my love for my country,” Campbell said in an interview with the Tribune. He said President Donald Trump’s use of federal agents is a sign of “America’s law and order.”
“You have to have structure, order and discipline,” Campbell said. “Once you allow chaos and carnage to ensue, society will begin to fall and fail.”
But Ed Yohnka, communications director of ACLU of Illinois, said the Trump administration’s increasing reliance on military tactics and the president’s threats earlier this week that he may use major American cities, such as Chicago, as “training grounds” for the military are “incredibly dangerous.”
“It is dangerous that a president thinks that it’s a training ground for lethal force to be used in a city and in a major urban area in the United States,” he said.
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