the Empathy List #158: "Jesus is Being Teargassed at Broadview"
Clergy protestors at Broadview Detention Center in Chicagoland give me hope.
Hi friends, Liz here.
In the past few weeks, authoritarianism has descended on Chicago—
in the form of zip ties, tear gas, pepper balls, rubber pellets, and ominous white vans of masked men in green fatigues.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are the masked men in green. They’ve been joined by the Illinois State Police, AKA “the brown shirts” as one commenter called them, and together, they have descended upon the city to carry out “Operation Midway Blitz.”
There is SO MUCH INFORMATION being chucked into the void right now—if you go on social media, you’ll be overwhelmed with news about immigration, deportation, and the organization known as ICE. Some of it’s true, some is false.
Today, I want to narrow your scope with a glimpse into one scene of ICE, immigrants, and protestors in Chicago: Broadview Detention Center.
…it’s still a LOT of information, though, so buckle up. ;-)
[BTW Chicagoans, legal experts, and immigration advocates, feel free to chime in if I get something wrong! I’m not an expert, just a fascinated researcher trying to understand what’s happening in Chicago. But I care about this being factual, so please let me know if you catch an error!]
First, what is “Operation Midway Blitz”?
“Operation Midway Blitz” refers to ICE’s descent into the Chicago region to perform targeted raids within the city and surrounding suburbs. (Midway is the name of a local airport.)
Millions of immigrants live and work in the region. As in most places, some immigrants in/around Chicago are documented and have governmental permission to be in the U.S.; others don’t. They may be partly documented, incorrectly documented, or waiting for court cases. They may be here on a visitation visa, but be living and working. To immigrate “the right way” to a country takes deep knowledge of bureaucratic systems within our government. Even seasoned legal professionals can get the process wrong, partly because it’s always changing. So, when an immigrant arrives, it’s easy to get a step wrong, which then makes them vulnerable to deportation. Others came here on purpose, intending to hide and do wrong. Both are true. But the former is more true.
However, Chicago is a “sanctuary city,” meaning a safe place from border prosecution for immigrants. The city government has passed a “Welcoming City Ordinance”—that means, Chicago policy does not allow government programs or workers to ask about an immigrant’s legal status in the country, will not disclose information about an immigrant’s status to the authorities, and will not deny services to anyone, based on immigration status.1
Many democratically run cities have passed statutes like Chicago’s, with the aim of making their cities attractive to newly arriving border crossers.
The Department of Homeland Security has stated that their targeted effort in Chicago is part of a larger strategy to capture and deport undocumented border crossers—particularly ”the worst of the worst.”
They seem to assume that more of these “worst” immigrants will be hiding within Sanctuary Cities, making these cities catnip for Border Patrol agencies.
Of this “worst of the worst” deportation policy, the DHS website states:
“Day-in and day-out, DHS law enforcement is removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from American communities, including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and more. 70% of ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens charged with or convicted of a crime in the U.S.”2
Several of the words in the above statement do some heavy lifting: the word “criminal,” for example, generally refers to federal crimes which a person has been “charged with or convicted of.” Those legal designations matter, and they imply that a person has received some form of justice within the U.S. court system.
However, border crossing without the correct documentation is a civil misdemeanor, not a federal crime.3 So, when DHS says that “70% of ICE arrests are criminal illegal aliens,” readers who take them literally will assume that 70% of ICE arrests are those who have committed a crime other than crossing a border, or at least that those arrested have crossed into our borders more than once (reentry causes the misdemeanor to advance to a federal offense).
However, outside fact checkers have taken issue with the stats provided by DHS.
For example, the claim about arresting only “illegal aliens” is false. In one single day, federal agents arrested six U.S. citizens in the Chicagoland area.4 Some were protestors, including clergy; others were citizens who were racially profiled by ICE agents and swept up in immigration raids.5
This tracks with a wider DHS trend this year, according to ProPublica, who identified over 170 American citizens whom ICE illegally “kicked, dragged, and detained for days... without being able to called loved ones or a lawyer.”6
Further, even among those ICE detains who are immigrants, ICE has overwhelmingly failed to capture those with criminal records.
An NBC-5 investigation found that 18 out of 22 detainee names that ICE had released to the public had no criminal record in Illinois or nearby states Wisconsin and Indiana. Nationally, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data tracking org out of Syracuse University, has noted that as of September 21, 2025, ICE held nearly 60,000 people in detention across the country, and of those, 71.5% had no criminal convictions.
So, then, what exactly is ICE doing?
Broadview Detention Center: A Microcosm of Immigration Policy and Response
Since “Operation Midway Blitz” began in September, Chicagoland’s Broadview Detention Center has played out this scene of U.S. immigration policy and response in miniature.
The government’s force, unaccountability, and disorganization is on display. So, too, is the determined dissent of protestors on the street outside.
Add to this the omnipresent white vans that shuttle in and out of the compound, arriving with the newly detained and then sending detainees elsewhere once the first round of processing is complete. The Trump administration has tasked ICE and DHS with quotas—3,000 arrests per day. So the white vans are in constant motion.
What do detainees experience inside of Broadview Detention Center?
First, a note about the center itself: Broadview was never meant to host overnight detentions, but to act as a pass-through processing center, moving immigrants from their holding cells at Broadview to more permanent detention (or release) within 12 hours.7 However, the center has begun holding its 200+ detainees at a time for much longer. Lawyers and detainees have reported stays as long as three days, with the longest stays clocked at 5+ days.
That’s a problem because the facility does not have appropriate facilities for hundreds of people to stay for days on end. Detainees forced to spend days at the crowded center experience inhumane conditions.
For example, no way to wash themselves. Broadview has only one single shower in the building, a shower that was last noted to be out of commission, according to a 2023 congressional audit. Detainees also do not receive soap or toothpaste from agents.
Another problem: no medical personnel or chaplain work on site, a violation of the law.
The center also provides no opportunity for food preparation, limiting how detainees can eat during their stay. In fact, detainees described their meals as exclusively ham and cheese Subway sandwiches (the childrens’ meal at Subway), plus bottles of water. That’s if they were lucky. Other detainees described only bread and water rations. Some described not even receiving water.
Cells contain no cots for sleeping, “only scant plastic chairs for dozens of men” and a cold, crowded, filthy cement floor on which to lay out.
One cell is stuffed with 30+ people, and inmates described overcrowding, with people “stacked one next to the other one.”
One toilet and one sink is installed within each holding cell. Toilets sit “out in the open.” Women, in particular, found this unacceptable, as they were being held in glass cells. So, for privacy, three to four women would stand to shield each other from the gaze of agents, just to use the toilet. Some menstruating women described being handed a single pad and a bit of toilet paper daily.
Yushell Alejandro Yin Del Toro of Mexico City summarized his three days spent at Broadview:
“They treated us like animals, or worse than animals, because no one treats their pets like that.”
Eréndira Rendón, vice president of immigrant justice at The Resurrection Project, described the isolation of detainees:
“We are not allowed to speak to any of our clients that are held in that facility. It is a black hole, and people go missing for days.”8
Protest Outside of Broadview
If the inside of Broadview is disorganized and inhumane, outside is chaos.
Outside, in picketing zones marked on the sidewalks and driveways surrounding the facility, protestors agitate for the sake of those without the opportunity to resist. They hold signs, chant, and scream at agents. Protestors also pray and sing, their hands raised toward those held within the brick walls.
Several priests, pastors, nuns, and interfaith leaders have volunteered to deliver spiritual counsel or to officiate communion for those inside; ICE has refused them all entry.
A History of Clergy Protest at Broadview
Several of the clergy protestors at Broadview have been praying outside the facility for decades. A group of Catholics—originally two nuns and a local immigration attorney9—held vigil every Friday since 2006, spurred by the coordinated raids of six Swift & Company meat packing plants in the Midwest.
Sister JoAnn Persch, now 91 and one of the original to attend these weekly vigils, said she’s shocked by the changes in policy toward immigrants and toward those who meet outside the facility to pray:
“The things I see happening at Broadview are so against what I believe Christianity is. To be shooting [protesters] with chemicals, pushing them down, even people with collars on; and inside [Broadview], the denials of pastoral care, of legal help, of family contact—everything that’s happening is just the opposite of everything my faith challenges me to do.”10
Because she’s been advocating for immigrants for 40+ years, even longer than she’s been praying in front of Broadview, she’s seen this change in policy firsthand. The Sisters of Mercy, the order of both Sisters, have provided housing and mentoring to asylum-seeking families in Chicago over decades.
In a co-authored article about their ministry, the two Sisters wrote, “Over the years, we [have] built good relationships with immigration officials at local processing and detention centers in Chicago, and one even came to Sister JoAnn’s 90th birthday party last year. But they will no longer talk with us — they too are afraid.”11
The policy changes have shifted how DHS agents engage the community, including protestors like Sister JoAnn and Sister Pat.
(By the way, you can read a delightful day-in-the-life essay from 2020 on these two activist nuns here.)
“A Campaign of Intimidation Against Dissent”
You won’t be surprised to hear that Border Patrol agents are no longer attending protestors’ 90th birthday parties. (womp womp)
Both ICE and Illinois State Police have used “excessive force” against (the rowdy, but peaceful) protestors at Broadview—agents have deployed bully clubs, rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper pellets, and riot gear.
And that’s not just the word of protestors against agents, but the findings of a report via the Human Rights Watch12 and a justice who agreed that the agents had used excessive force.
Agents of both agencies have also arrested and detained clergy and journalists, often releasing them without charges.
Last month, one of the most visible protestors was Reverend David Black of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. (above) A photographer captured the reverend at Broadview: off balance, arms splayed, he turns toward the photographer and away from the masked man in fatigues who squeezes a blue aerosol bottle inches from his face.
The agents who stand across from him are unrecognizable, an anonymous force; meanwhile, he is a white blonde man in a clerical collar. And agents had already shot him in the head with rubber bullets before deploying tear gas into his face twice, at close range.
(In footage of the event, Black yells, “God damn you! You’re pathetic! Your country is ashamed of you! God is watching you! God is watching you! And you will pay for this!” as walked away after being hit by bullets from officers on Broadview’s roof.13)
Rev. Black described the ordeal to a journalist later:
“There is a video that shows an ICE truck coming out at that moment, but instead of ordering us to disperse or giving a warning, they shoved us down, slammed protestors into the concrete and maced us with so much chemicals that I was drenched. My denim jacket, my jeans, my long underwear were drenched by the amount of chemical weapons they were deploying against me and others,” the reverand said.
“I just want Chicagons to be thinking if this is what they are doing to pastors, and to journalists, and to teachers, and to mothers and elders who are gathering to sing and pray outside of this facility, what might they be doing to our neighbors who are behind those walls?”14
Another clergy member, Rev. Hannah Kardon, was arrested at Broadview. A video shows her quietly facing down a line of Illinois state troopers in riot gear before being dragged to the ground and handcuffed as protestors beside her chanted, “Who do you serve? Who do you protect?” As police walked her away, she told them, “This is wrong, God stop them.”
She told writer Mara Richards Bim at Baptist News Global that she’s never been arrested before, that officers beat her with a baton as she prayed with those in her group, then dragged her away.
She said, “I hope if anyone sees this video and is disturbed by it, …think…, if they are willing to do that to a clergy in broad daylight, imagine what they are doing to detainees in the dark. We have to end ICE’s kidnapping and detentions. We must remove them from our communities or this violence will continue.”15
Another clergy member, Reverend Abby Holcomb of Urban Village Church, was also shot with rubber bullets by agents at Broadview.
She told UM news, “I told [ICE] they might not have to answer to me for this one day, but they will have to answer to God for what they’re doing — and that they need to put their weapons down immediately.”16
Rev. David Swanson, pastor at New Community Covenant Church on Chicago’s South Side, was also harrassed by DHS “Midway Blitz” chief patrol officer, Greg Bovino, while attending a peaceful protest at Broadview, the only demonstration he’s attended.
Jack Jenkins at Religion News Service reported that at one point, Bovino walked over to a group of protestors and began shoving the pastor while yelling in his face. Swanson, who was wearing a clerical collar, said Bovino yelled, “I’m not going to tell you again,” even as the pastor continued to move backward. Jenkins continued:
Swanson said the experience differed dramatically from demonstrations elsewhere he has attended. In the past, he said, he has tried to be “a presence for peace in situations that can get volatile” and a “person who different sides can be able to approach and talk with and have conversations with.” But his experience at Broadview felt different.
“This was the first time that I felt like there was absolutely no regard and no respect for a person who was visibly associated with a faith tradition,” Swanson said. “It did not seem like it made one iota of difference.”17
A Lawsuit
A group of protestors, including many of the clergy mentioned above, recently joined a suit with journalists and community groups, who complained the ICE had used “excessive force” to restrain their protests.
The judge ruled in their favor, issuing a temporary restraining order on ICE activities, and saying that the DHS officers had violated the protestors first amendment rights and the freedom of religious expression. She banned DHS members from deploying “riot control weapons” on “members of the press, protesters, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.”
What now?
Protestors aren’t certain the judge’s order will be followed.
As one pastor, Rev. Abby Holcombe of Urban Village Church, told United Methodist news, just after the judge ruled, as clergy gathered to offer eucharist, ICE agents barged out of the building, headed toward them. “We’re serving communion, and they walk out with gas mask. All of a sudden, some troopers had gas masks on, and I thought, ‘What do you think I’m going to do here?’”
Yet, just this past Friday, October 24, organizers held a peaceful sit-in at Broadview—and no one was arrested, no pepper balls were deployed, no batons brandished. Yet DHS has announced plans to expand its operations, using Broadview as its base, including deploying “tactical teams” and “mini tanks” throughout the city.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has urged Chicago residents to resist: “I am counting on all of Chicago to resist in this moment. Because whatever particular vulnerable group is targeted today, another group will be next. …This is a necessary fight for all of us to be able to push back. Whether we use the courts or whether we continue to protest or raise our voices, dissent matters in this moment. Look, [Trump] is abusing his power. We warned people though. You all know we warned people.”18
(When asked if the Chicago Police Department planned to coordinate with ICE’s efforts, CPD’s Superintendent said that immigration is “not something we do,” to the relief of city residents.)
In the meantime, Chicago clergy are continuing to resist. So far, they have led thousands of people in peaceful rallies to support immigrants, and they continue to show up day after day outside the detention center.19 They wrote a letter, entitled “Jesus is Being Tear Gassed at Broadview.”
As Rev. Black told MSNBC,
“There is such a deep sense of solidarity and mutual aid in these protests. Protestors are gathering in a way that is totally pluralistic and autonomous. The group has no leaders. It has no sponsors. It’s a group of people who are in love with their neighbors and in love with their communities, and showing up to be in solidarity with people who cannot speak right now—who are hiding in their homes, or who have already been abducted or disappeared. … We’re gathering to sing and pray and chant and sometimes speak words of condemnation.
“But fundamentally, this is an act of solidarity [motivated] by a deep desire for those who are inside the facility to know that they are not alone. They can hear our voices and know that we are with them, that we are for them, that we will seek justice for them [so that] they can return to our communities where they belong.”20
Broadview is a microcosm of authoritarianism. Broadview is also a microcosm of resistance.
At Broadview, resistance looks like a multi-generational, interfaith coalition of those who are standing up to say, we will not stand by. We will not ignore injustice. We will stand with our neighbors.
While that, on its own, will not stop the policies of ICE, it provides a compelling picture of solidarity that, I hope, will pressure lawmakers to take action on behalf of our immigrant brothers and sisters.
And don’t forget that the clergy at Broadview have become an arrow pointing toward those inside the Center’s walls. Those who hold signs on the sidewalk, who find themselves soaked in pepper spray, who face arrest and detainment or whose bodies are assaulted by rubber bullets—they are telling the story of their care for immigrants in their bodies.
And immigrants can hear their voices—their chants, prayers, songs, shouts—as they sit inside on the cement floor, shoulder to shoulder, awaiting whatever the U.S. government will do to them.
These immigrants see white American citizens on their side. They hear Americans refusing to submit to the corruption of the Trump administration. Those who protest tell these immigrants that they are not invisible, they are seen by their neighbors, and they are honored as human beings.
Even if a demonstration is “just for show,” presence matters. Presence speaks. And presence reminds us that we, each of us, are humans made in the image of God. And for that, I will march.
The protest of these clergy has, at least, inspired me to follow their example.
Thanks for reading, my friends.
Warmly, Liz Charlotte Grant
Notes and Sources
FAQ about Chicago as a “Sanctuary City”: https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/depts/mayor/Office%20of%20New%20Americans/PDFs/SanctuaryCitiesFAQs.pdf
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/10/27/dhs-removes-more-half-million-illegal-aliens-us
The American Immigration Council writes, “Physical presence in the United States without proper authorization is a civil violation, rather than a criminal offense. This means that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can place a person in removal (deportation) proceedings and can require payment of a fine, but the federal government cannot charge the person with a criminal offense unless they have previously been ordered deported and reentered in violation of that deportation order. Likewise, a person who enters the United States on a valid visa and stays longer than permitted may be put in removal proceedings but cannot face federal criminal charges based solely on this civil infraction. Those who enter or reenter the United States without permission, however, can face criminal charges.” (https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/immigration-prosecutions/)
https://www.newsweek.com/border-patrol-arrests-us-citizens-chicago-ice-protests-10934883
U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino admitted to this racial profiling. When asked by a reporter why his agents had pursued a man on the streets of Chicago, he said,
Bovino: There’s various indicators [for why we’ll approach someone], we call them articulable facts, and he exhibited articulable facts that made us take a look and then we took a look and our suspicions were proven true. It does appear right now he’s an illegal alien.
White Reporter:: How can you tell by appearance?
Bovino: You know, there’s many different factors that go into something like that. It would be agent experience, intelligence that indicates there’s illegal alienage in a particular place or location. Then obviously the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you? How do they appear in relation to what you or other people look like?
(https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2025/09/30/transcript-audio-gregory-bovino-arrestees-downtown-chicago-chosen-how-they-look)
https://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-dhs-american-citizens-arrested-detained-against-will
Much of what I learned about the interior and detainee experience within Broadview comes from WBEZ’s excellent reporting: https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2025/10/01/broadview-immigration-processing-center-detention-ice-dhs.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/inside-broadview-ice-facility-arrested-protester-shares-view/3832911/
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-03-05/these-nuns-advocated-for-immigrant-rights-for-40-years-now-in-their-90s-theyre-not-slowing-down
https://www.wbez.org/immigration/2025/10/23/clergy-say-religious-rights-are-under-attack-inside-and-outside-the-broadview-ice-facility
https://www.sistersofmercy.org/stand-up-for-immigrants/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/10/23/united-states-federal-agents-use-excessive-force-in-illinois
Watch part of Rev. Black’s encounter with ICE: https://x.com/FordFischer/status/1976022374127456322
https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/i-wonder-about-their-intentions-chicago-pastor-speaks-out-after-ice-agents-shoot-him-in-head-with-pepper-balls-in-broadview/
https://baptistnews.com/article/united-methodist-pastor-violently-arrested-in-chicago/
https://www.umnews.org/en/news/with-warm-faith-pastors-seek-to-counter-ice
https://religionnews.com/2025/10/09/federal-judge-bars-ice-agents-from-taking-some-violent-actions-against-religious-activists-journalists/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/06/mayor-brandon-johnson-chicago-national-guard-deployment/
https://www.christiancentury.org/features/dhs-lying-about-us