A host of local government officials from Oak Park spoke out passionately this week against the temporary detainment of Oak Park Township Trustee Juan Munoz on Oct. 3 at the Broadview Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and the actions of ICE.
Munoz and a host of other Oak Park elected officials were protesting at the Broadview ICE facility on the morning of Oct. 3. According to published reports Munoz was taking video at the Broadview facility Friday morning when he was pulled to the ground by Greg Bovino, the chief patrol agent for the United States Border Patrol’s El Central Section. Munoz was detained for a few hours and then released without being arrested or charged with any crime.
“After a long and disorganized process involving multiple agencies, I was led to a black ICE van with other protesters, still unclear if I was to be released or transferred to another location,” Munoz said in a social media post the following day. “Ultimately, we were told we’d be dropped off at a gas station across the highway with no additional information.
While detained, I spent the majority of the day in a group detention cell with a shared toilet, overfilled trash cans, and a foul odor. Outside the cell windows, immigration officials went about their work with cold efficiency; processing detainees, filing paperwork, making calls, and bureaucratically dismantling people’s lives.”
Munoz was the first to speak at the Oct. 6 news conference and was followed by Oak Park Village Board members Brian Straw, Jenna Leving Jacobson, Derek Eder and Chibuike Enyia, Oak Park Public Library Board members Kristina Rogers and Annie Wilkinson, Oak Park village President Vicki Scaman and Oak Park Township Supervisor Tim Thomas.
“Today I’m speaking because we can’t stay silent anymore,” Munoz said at the outdoor press conference that was held in the parking lot next to the Oak Park Township offices on Oak Park Aveenue. “Not when elected officials are being detained, not when citizens are being profiled and held without bond, not when people are being beaten and denied care in federal custody.”
A number of speakers became emotional when speaking about what they witnessed in Broadview. Many of those who spoke were at the ICE facility in Broadview on Friday morning. Enyia called the actions by federal agents shameful, completely unnecessary and unconstitutional.
“Having attended many protests throughout my life I had no idea how very different this one would be,” Enyia said. “I watched as orders got carried out down the chain from ICE agents to agents whispering to each other. Quickly all the enforcement agents threw on gas masks, then a large group of ICE agents in tactical gear approached. Peacefully protesting seniors, religious leaders, electeds, residents, military veterans, family, friends and media members were met with aggression and force from ICE agents in an attempt to de-escalate non-existent threats. We were being herded like cattle, some shoved along with batons, others were tackled to the ground. I witnessed some getting dragged as if in some sort of horror movie.”
Eder, who also was at the Broadview facility on Oct. 3, said that ICE is destroying the peace of the community and called on people to speak out.
“None of us can afford to stay quiet about it,” Eder said. “The presence of ICE in Illinois destroys our peace. It is a violent, untrained, unidentified, unaccountable agency sent by a tyrannical administration to terrorize and silence us. If you are watching this don’t stay quiet. Join up your voices with ours and demand that ICE leave and never come back.”
Rogers said as she and others were leaving the protest a federal officer in an armored vehicle pointed a gun at her.
“He was holding a firearm and he pointed it directly at each of us, Rogers said. “There were probably five or six of us and he went one by one down the line and he pointed it at each of us. These actions were not normal; none of this is normal and severity of this escalation cannot be overstated. In fact I feel that we are largely underreacting.”
Wilkinson, who was also at the Broadview facility Friday morning, also had strong words for ICE.
“I have to say what surprised me the most was the agents sadistic enjoyment in causing chaos and what they promised to be a shitshow,” Wilkinson said. “To those who are treating our homes, our working families, our streets, and our rights like this is a game with no regard for our constitutional rights nor our humanity I have this to say: You want create a spectacle, turn our lives and neighborhoods into political theater, well we see you, we know what this is, retaliation for Illinois refusing to support a regime of bullies for billionaires. You think you can divide and silence us, intimidate us into giving up our First Amendment rights you are wrong. Oak Park and Chicagoland stand for inclusive democracy, pluralism and collective care. We know how to take care of ourselves and each other. ICE, CBP (Customs and Border Protection), you came to wrong place. We are Oak Park, we’re Illinois and there is enough room here for everybody, except you.”
In a telephone interview Wilkinson said on Oct. 3 she saw federal agents shove and push people to and everyone who fell was arrested.
Oak Park Village President Vicki Scaman also said federal forces were not needed.
“There is no emergency here,” Scaman said. “We do not need ICE or the National Guard. What I need from our federal government as a municipal village president are dollars for housing, education, mental health, physical health, support for transgender individuals, youth programs and food, just to name a few.”
Bob Skolnik is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Originally Published:
