Since the administration of President Donald Trump launched an immigration crackdown in the Chicago area nearly three weeks ago, a nondescript industrial street in the western suburbs has become a flashpoint for protests against “Operation Midway Blitz” — and the place to be seen for candidates running in next spring’s primary elections.
Protests have been a regular occurrence outside the two-story brick U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center on Beach Street in Broadview, with federal officials at times deploying chemical agents, shooting pepper balls and using physical force to disperse demonstrators who’ve blocked the street in front of the facility’s gate. Lately, though, a growing number of mostly Democratic politicians have joined the crowd.
This past Friday, at least five Democrats campaigning for federal office made appearances at the facility, including an activist who for weeks has been promoting her presence at the spot, a north suburban mayor, a south suburban member of Congress and Illinois’ lieutenant governor. The candidates have shared their appearances on social media, and some have even used them in fundraising appeals, eliciting criticism from Republicans and, in one instance, from Broadview’s Democratic mayor.
The use of the Broadview ICE facility as a campaign backdrop took a bipartisan turn on Wednesday when Republican candidate for governor Ted Dabrowski joined with family members of victims of crimes caused by immigrants without permanent legal status to announce his opposition to Illinois’ sanctuary law prohibiting local law enforcement from participating in immigration enforcement, which is a federal responsibility. But many of his remarks were drowned out by demonstrators who blew whistles and shouted slogans, including, “Refugees have rights!”
For candidates, participating in protests or even just appearing outside the facility offers an opportunity to demonstrate their sincerely held opposition to immigration policies while also appealing to their party’s base voters, who are most likely to turn out for the March 17 primaries. But it’s a strategy that could prove politically perilous if not executed properly.
Democrats, especially those in competitive primaries for seats the party is expected to win easily in the general election, want to “show that they’re doing something to oppose Trump, which really motivates the liberal base,” said Erik Nisbet, a Northwestern University communications professor whose areas of expertise include political communication and campaigns.
“The downside is they don’t want to overplay their hand,” Nisbet said, adding that candidates want to avoid appearing “inauthentic” or like they’re “crassly trying to capitalize on this for fundraising … or for popularity.”
“If they seem like they’re simply a media hound or going for glory … then that could hurt them among some voters,” he said. “They have to be somewhat deft in how they go about it.”
Protests at the Broadview facility have been a particular draw for candidates in the extremely crowded Democratic primary field for the North Side and north and northwest suburban 9th Congressional District, where nearly 20 candidates have filed federal paperwork to run for the seat long held by retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Evanston Democrat.
At least three candidates in the race — Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, progressive commentator and content creator Kat Abughazaleh and Skokie School District 73.5 board member Bushra Amiwala — participated in protests on Friday. Also appearing at the facility that day were Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and, later in the day, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson, both of whom are vying to win the party’s nomination to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.
All three 9th District candidates subsequently reached out to supporters to detail their experiences and solicit contributions to their campaign funds.
“I was tear-gassed last week,” read the subject line of a fundraising email from Biss on Monday, while one from Abughazaleh on Friday was titled “I was assaulted by ICE again,” after a video of her being picked up and thrown to the ground by federal agents was widely circulated across the internet.
While the Broadview facility is miles from the 9th District — it’s housed in the 7th Congressional District, where there also is a hotly contested primary — Biss said he still felt compelled to voice his opposition to what occurs inside the building where people throughout the Chicago area, including Evanston, have been detained.
“The history of authoritarianism shows us that you ultimately topple authoritarian regimes through a combination of nonviolent protest and the political system. And so we need, of course, for Democrats to win elections — God knows we need that — but we also need the people to rise up nonviolently across the country,” the Evanston mayor said.
Biss’ participation has drawn the loudest backlash, with Illinois Republicans, conservative media and even Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, a fellow Democrat, criticizing him.
In a statement last week, Thompson said Biss’ “repeated appearances and provocations at the ICE facility in the Village of Broadview, with his videographer and photographer in tow, are helping to fuel the agitation of an already tense situation” and “could endanger our police officers, firefighters, demonstrators themselves, and the surrounding Proviso Township communities.”
The mayor of the small suburb declined an interview request with the Tribune to discuss her criticism in more detail. Instead, she released a follow-up statement saying her focus was “not on Daniel Biss and his congressional campaign” but rather “my officers’ safety.” The statement noted that Biss’ Police Department did not respond Sept. 12 when Broadview “issued a request for help with the ICE protests from other police departments via the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System, to which Evanston belongs.”
A Broadview spokesperson said no other departments responded to the alert, but neighboring suburbs did send officers after Thompson reached out personally.
Biss’ name also was mentioned in the White House briefing room on Monday when a reporter for right-wing website Border Hawk News claimed the Evanston mayor participated in “rioting and protesting outside of an ICE facility” and then asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt whether federal authorities have “plans to start arresting sanctuary mayors or governors going forward.” Leavitt replied, “Unless they commit a crime, I don’t see them being arrested.”
And in an email criticizing a downstate Democratic state lawmaker who endorsed Biss’ congressional campaign, the campaign arm of the Illinois House Republican Caucus said Biss, who is also a former state representative and senator, had joined “a violent protest against law enforcement.”
The criticism lobbed at Biss may stem from the fact that “compared to some of the candidates, he’s actually an elected official,” Northwestern’s Nisbet said.
Biss counters that he’s focused on objecting to Trump’s immigration policies.
“The only people endangered right now are our neighbors being abducted off the street and the peaceful protesters being tear-gassed by masked federal agents,” Biss said in a statement responding to Thompson’s criticism. “I encourage the mayor of Broadview to join the many protesters, advocates, and elected leaders in standing up to ICE — instead of facilitating their illegal, immoral, and dangerous tactics.”
To be sure, Biss wasn’t alone in receiving criticism for protesting at the ICE facility, with Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin telling Fox News on Friday the protesting Democrats are “desperate politicians (who) want their 15 minutes of fame.”
Though Biss has taken a lot of the high-profile heat, Abughazaleh, who is also among the race’s top fundraisers in the 9th District race, appeared to lead the influx of candidates to the site. Several times earlier this month she called on supporters to join her in Broadview. Biss joined for two larger Friday protests and a news conference at the site two weekends ago, and Amiwala joined during the most recent Friday demonstrations.
In a video that her campaign and right-wing commentators both reposted widely across social media — and which she used as an animated image at the top of one of her fundraising emails — a federal agent threw 26-year-old Abughazaleh to the ground as she protested by sitting in front of what appeared to be a federal vehicle trying to leave the facility. Fox News host Laura Ingraham shared a clip of the scene and opined, “Good work,” about the federal agent picking up Abughazaleh and throwing her on the ground.
It was the second week in a row that Abughazaleh had documented an agent shoving her as she participated in demonstrations.
Abughazaleh said on Tuesday she was sore and that her finger had turned purple at one point after she fell, but that she had mostly healed.
Videos posted to social media by their respective campaigns also showed what appeared to be a law enforcement-aligned vehicle slowly ramming into a locked-arms crowd that contained both Biss and Amiwala on Friday, as agents in gas masks threw tear-gas canisters at them.
The protests resembled many other peaceful demonstrations Biss previously attended, he said in an interview Monday, but “the response was an outrageous effort to intimidate.”
Fundraising off participation in the protests shows supporters that candidates are willing to show up at a time when “people are really sick of their leaders not doing anything,” Abughazaleh said. “And, unfortunately, I think being at that facility and protesting is the bare minimum, but we don’t get that from a lot of leaders across the country.”
“I promise that there are easier ways for any politician to get attention,” she added, than waking up at 3 a.m. for an early protest and “getting repeatedly assaulted and tear-gassed.”
Her campaign manager, Sam Weinberg, said they saw a spike in contributions on Friday and planned to make donations to groups responding to the raids.
As “a visibly Muslim woman of color,” Amiwala, the Skokie school board member, said she initially was hesitant to participate in the protests, adding it was just one form of resistance against the federal immigration crackdown.
“I’ve seen others say that protesting against ICE is performative,” Amiwala said. “To that, I say that anything that entices anger and fear and reaction from others, that are getting them to speak out against ICE as an institution, is productive.”
While Democrats running in the 9th Congressional District primary have been the main candidates joining the protests, Stratton, the two-term lieutenant governor and U.S. Senate candidate, made an appearance Friday morning, standing with demonstrators and offering words of encouragement.
“Trump said that he wants to go after the worst of the worst. That’s not what’s happening,” Stratton said. “He’s going into our places of business. He’s going into houses of worship. He’s going to schools. This is not about public safety. This is about instilling fear, sowing discord. And I want you to know that I stand with you, and I will always speak out to make sure and I do everything I can to make sure the community is safe. Please take care of yourselves.”
Photos of Stratton’s appearance at the facility, including one in which she is seen holding a sign that says “ICE out of CHI,” were shared on her campaign’s social media accounts rather than through her official government channels.
“This morning at the Broadview ICE facility, people were singing, praying, and linking arms for their neighbors,” her social media post said. “DHS responded with tear gas and throwing protesters on the pavement. This is Trump’s attempt at control and intimidation, but our courage and community are louder.”
Kelly, one of her opponents in the Senate primary, arrived in Broadview later Friday after flying back from Washington, D.C.
“Literally I just landed from D.C. and came right over to Broadview because I couldn’t believe the video that I was seeing,” Kelly said in a campaign social media video posted Friday afternoon, showing her standing in front of the building after the protests had quieted down. “And now that I’m here in person, I can’t believe that people are working and being kept in this building with no windows, all boarded up. That doesn’t seem sanitary. That doesn’t seem healthy. That does not seem safe. And they need to produce some answers about what’s going on in that building.”
Kelly noted in the video that she and other members of Congress have been denied access to the building, which the Tribune previously reported has been used to house immigration detainees for days despite internal ICE guidelines that specify people shouldn’t be kept there longer than 12 hours.
Despite sharing the video through her campaign, Kelly said in an interview Monday that her motivation for going to the facility was about policy, not politics, and that Stratton’s earlier appearance wasn’t a factor.
“I’m going out there as a sitting congresswoman who has been very concerned about this issue, about immigration reform, and it has nothing to do with (the fact that) I’m running for office,” Kelly said. “I’ve been concerned. I’ve worked with immigration groups for a long, long, long time now.”
Her presence offered encouragement to the protesters who remained, some of whom thanked her for being there, Kelly said, and it showed “the administration and ICE and the powers that be that people are watching, and that we’re not going to stop watching, and that we’re going to be vigilant.”
Come the 2026 election year, the question will be whether the use of the Broadview ICE facility as a platform for campaigning will help distinguish any of the candidates from their competitors in the March primaries and whether it has any impact on their appeal to voters in the November general election.
Chicago Tribune’s Caroline Kubzansky and Rick Pearson contributed.
