The Illinois State Police (ISP) waded into a crowd of anti-ICE protesters in the Chicago suburb of Broadview on Saturday and arrested several people for “unlawful assembly” after the mayor of the small town imposed a protest curfew from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Following weeks of increasingly violent protests outside the Broadview ICE facility, the Illinois State Police were called in after the Trump administration threatened to send in Texas National Guard members to protect the federal facility.
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The ISP response came after Broadview’s Democrat Mayor Katrina Thompson tried to impose a curfew on protests.
Thompson admitted to NewsNation that she is “in a position where every decision that I have to make, people are not going to like,” but she also stated that allowing protesters to gather all night was affecting the quality of life of local residents who live in neighborhoods across the street from the industrial area where the ICE facility is situated.
Thompson ordered that demonstrators may only gather between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. This new rule provided the ISP a reason to clear out demonstrators on Saturday evening.
ISP officers arrested at least 15 demonstrators on Saturday evening and have established a substantial presence outside the ICE facility.
Dr. Alli Muhammad, an activist who claims to represent the Mississippi-based Revolutionary Black Panther Party, says Mayor Thompson’s curfew has infuriated him and other anti-ICE protestors.
“We’re agitated by this restriction, by the way,” Muhammad told the media. “We feel that the mayor of Broadview, she considers herself an ally, but we’re not comfortable with this 9 to 6 curfew, so we’re going to present this cease and desist to remove the curfew.”
Despite the outrage, the audience had shrunk to a few by 7 p.m. on Saturday.
