The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has already declared him to judge by the scenes of violence that happened in recent days, Chicago has become a battlefield. Numerous people have been injured and several arrested in the clashes between the federal forces and the protesters who protested the weekend against the migrant detention operation that the Government launched in the city last month. Immigration agents used tear gas and made excessive use of force against citizens who denounced the abuses committed against migrants and the deplorable conditions in which they keep them in the detention centers.
The call Operation Midway Blitzstarted in early September, has already resulted in more than 500 arrests of migrants, according to government data. The protests against the operation have been multiplying in recent weeks, which has led President Trump to authorize the mobilization of the National Guard to contain the demonstrations and protect federal agents. The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, made available to Texan troops, although it is not clear if they have already reached the third most populated city in the country. Chicago authorities and the state of Illinois responded on Monday with a lawsuit against the administration to block the deployment of troops in its streets.
The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has accused the government of wanting to “create one” to justify the deployment of the soldiers. “They are using all the resources at your disposal to prevent us from maintaining order,” he said.
The violence was intensified last weekend in the meetings of protesters and agents of the order in front of the Broadview Detention Center, a suburb close to west Chicago where the majority of the population is black and Latin. Videos that were quickly disseminated on social networks showed the aggressiveness used by the agents of the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE).
The Department of National Security (DHS) acknowledged that federal agents shot a woman on Saturday morning in southwest Chicago. The DHS declared that the woman was an American citizen and had a semi -automatic weapon. Tricia McLaughlin, department vice -secretary, said that the woman went by her own means to a hospital to receive treatment. The DHS said the shots occurred when a group of people rammed with their cars the vehicles of immigration officials. “The forces of the order were forced to deploy their weapons,” McLaughlin said.
Jesse Fuentes, a Councilor for Health of the 26th district of Chicago, was assaulted by federal agents in the hospital in his neighborhood, where he went because they had warned him that ICE agents were scaring the personnel and patients. “There was an emergency person with my leg completely shattered. I asked them if they had a court order. They refused to show me anything and treated me very aggressively. They pushed me twice before handcuffing for doing nothing, just asking them if they had a court order to stop the individual who was in the emergency room,” he said before the media. They took it out and put it in a border patrol vehicle, to release it later.
“Free ICE” zones
In response to chaos in the city, the mayor of Chicago, the Democrat Brandon Johnson, announced Monday that it would establish “free zones of ICE”, which would prevent federal agents from being presented without a court order. In addition, several citizens, media and representatives of the clergy filed on Monday denouncing police violence in the demonstrations of recent days.
“Never in the modern era the federal government has undermined the fundamental constitutional protections on this scale, nor has the police power of the States usurped by ordering federal agents to carry out an illegal mission against the people for their own benefit,” says the demand, which will defend, among others, the Union for the Defense of Civil Liberties (ACLU).
The organization denounces that “this unbridled violence by the federal government is a flagrant attempt to interfere with the most precious and fundamental rights enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States: freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of religious beliefs and the right to meet peacefully and express their disagreement with the government.”
The judicial document includes the experiences lived by several of the plaintiffs. “During that time, at least four of our independent employees or workers have told me that federal agents attacked them with pepper and tear gas on Broadview,” says Stephanie Lulay, executive and co -founding editor of, in demand.
Pastor David Black, of the first presbyterian church in Chicago, in the Woodlawn neighborhood, in the most marginalized areas of Chicago, declares having received shots in the head with almost lethal and tear gas in the face. “I extended my arms, with the palms of the extended hands, towards the ICE agents, in a traditional Christian position of prayer and blessing,” says the pastor’s story in the demand. “Without prior notice, and without any order or request that I and the others dispersed, the ICE agents suddenly shot me. In a fast shooting, I was impacted seven times on my arms, face and torso with explosive pellets that contained some type of chemical agent. I was clear that the agents pointed to my head, where they hit me twice.”
William Paulson, a 67 -year -old retired union painter, tells in the same lawsuit as on September 27, ICE agents launched an indiscriminate attack against protesters without prior notice. “They shot gas cartridges in front and behind me,” he recalls. “I started inhaling the gas and I couldn’t see or breathe. Around me, I heard how they threw people on the ground. So, stunned grenades began to explode near me. I was disoriented … I burned my eyes and nose … I fell to cats and I vomited. I had an extreme pain in my eyes and nose. My skin burned. [enfermedad pulmonar crónica]so the gas affected me a lot. ”
Trump has been threatening with the National Guard to Chicago for weeks, justifying him with an emergency for the crime of the city and to protect federal agents, as he did in Los Angeles, Washington DC, on Sunday, a federal judge in Oregon blocked temporarily. Now, Trump claims to be considering invoking the insurrection law to avoid judicial blockages.
The lawsuit presents this Monday by the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago adds to three other complaints against the unprecedented use of, suppress protests and reinforce the application of immigration laws nationwide, arguing, without evidence, the increase in crime in the cities governed by the Democrats.
