The Immigrant Rights Working Committee is a committee within the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, united in our struggle towards the national campaign of Legalization For All. In Chicago, our committee is organizing around closing the Broadview ICE Facility.

Read more and get get involved in our work below.

THE CAMPAIGN:

For at least the past two months, the Broadview ICE Staging Facility has been used as a de facto immigration detention center. The Broadview ICE Staging Facility is meant to hold detained immigrants for up to twelve hours. In the past two months, there have been reported and confirmed cases of detainees held in the facility for far longer, some for more than a week. 

The facility was not designed to house detainees for even a night; it does not have beds or showers. ICE detention standards require three hot meals a day to be provided to detainees; at Broadview, detainees report receiving one meal.

President Trump’s funding bill gives ICE an additional $45 billion to detain hundreds of thousands of immigrants. We know the Trump Administration has targeted Chicago and Cook County in the past and will continue to do so. This massive increase in enforcement funds will embolden ICE to ramp up detentions in Cook County. Overnight and longer stays at Broadview will increase and conditions will further deteriorate.

In June, Representatives Delia Ramirez, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Danny Davis, and Jonathan Jackson were denied entry to the facility despite Congress’ authority to inspect under federal appropriation laws. The last publicly available audit of the Broadview ICE Staging Facility was conducted in 2018. Given the changed circumstances in immigration enforcement, we need transparency to ensure the rights of our neighbors and your constituents are being protected. We need to take all possible legal avenues against ICE’s inhumanity. 

As the Broadview ICE Staging Facility is located in Cook County, we, the Immigrant Rights Working Committee of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, are calling on your offices to: 

1. Conduct an investigation into the ownership and rental contracts and any others related to the Broadview ICE Staging Facility;

2. Demand access to and a full inspection of the Broadview Facility; and

3. Use any other legal or moral authority of your offices to close the Broadview Facility.

Our state government has enacted a series of laws refusing to allow ICE detention in Illinois to separate families and line the pockets of for-profit prison companies. Unfortunately, ICE has changed its tactics. Our state and county must react accordingly to protect all Illinoisans.

We demand that the offices of Kwame Raoul and Eileen Burke take immediate action to stop the abuse at Broadview and to shut down the facility. Our loved ones are being abducted and forced into abhorrent conditions without any recourse. We will not allow Cook County to be complicit in the terrorism ICE has brought to our state.