A crowd reported to be up to 200 strong gathered at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention center in the suburban area of Chicago on a recent Friday. The collective chant of the assembly was, according to the Department of Homeland Security, “shoot ICE”.
The site in focus, located in Broadview, Illinois, has been noted as a repeated venue of anti-ICE protests in the Chicago metropolitan area in recent weeks. WLS-TV reports that this particular protest had escalated to a standoff at the Broadview site, with the potential to turn deadly due to the presence of a firearm.
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One Elias Cepeda, a 41-year-old volunteer with Pilsen Defense and Access, was arrested at the scene. Reportedly, Mr. Cepeda had been participating in the protests at the facility for several weeks. His mother, asserting that he is a licensed concealed-carry holder, is demanding his release.
This incident occurred within days of another, a violent incident at an ICE facility in Dallas. The Department of Homeland Security took to social media to express its concerns, labeling the crowd as a “mob of over 200 violent psychopaths” and demanding that @GovPritzker and @ChicagosMayor, namely Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, moderate their rhetoric about @ICEgov and condemn the protests. The Department’s post concluded with a strong statement: “Terrorism will never stop our mission to defend the homeland.”