Camilla Forte/Borderless Magazine/Catchlight Local/Report for AmericaWhat began as quiet Friday morning prayers decades ago has evolved into a larger and louder movement as activists join a long-standing prayer group in demanding the release of detainees.
As the sun rises over suburban Broadview, Ill., immigration attorney Royal Berg stands at the center of a small congregation a few blocks away from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center at 1930 Beach Street.
The group gathers, heads bowed in prayer, around an iPad used to broadcast a church service over Zoom. They murmur prayers in English and Spanish. As they close the service, Berg and others link hands and sing a rendition of “We Shall Overcome.”
“It’s a peaceful prayer, but it is tied to the immigrants and refugees and families that we see being deported,” Berg said. “We pray for them. We pray for compassion.”
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For nearly 20 years, the group has convened to pray at 7 a.m. every Friday outside of the Broadview ICE processing facility. It’s been a quiet, consistent protest against the deportation of their immigrant neighbors. But recently, that atmosphere has changed.
Over the last month, Beach Street has become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts in Illinois. Protesters and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents have clashed. In several instances, agents have deployed tear gas and pepper bullets at protesters and journalists. More recently, state police have used excessive force and arrested protesters, including faith leaders and clergy.
As tensions have escalated, the prayer group’s decade-long routine has changed — losing access to detainees inside the facility and now having to move their gatherings farther away.
Protesters say they are rallying to end deportations and detentions as the Trump administration’s policies and immigration enforcement escalate.
Slowing down deportation operations “for even an hour … might mean one or two fewer people that ICE is able to kidnap,” said David Black, pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago.
Broadview’s prayers have endured
Resistance to deportations at Broadview began long before this year’s crackdown.
In December 2006, Berg became overwhelmed by the feeling of helplessness as deportations increased every year under President George W. Bush’s administration.
“It was really getting to me that I was seeing these families being ripped apart,” he recalls. “I said, ‘I’m more than just an attorney. I’m also a Catholic,’ and I said, ‘We can pray.’”
That month, he invited people to pray on a Friday morning during scheduled deportations from the facility. They continued to meet every week, even through frigid Chicago winters.
Sister JoAnne Persch and Sister Pat Murphy, both passionate about immigrant and refugee rights, joined the congregation in January the following year. They advocated for entry into the facility to speak and pray with detainees.
Their advocacy for access to detainees led to the passage of a law in 2008 that mandated access to spiritual care for immigrants in detention, as well as the founding of the Illinois Community for Displaced Immigrants (ICDI), which provides housing, essential needs and services for asylum seekers.
Challenges tested the group for years to come, through new presidential administrations.
Three to four buses at a time would transport detainees out of the facility during President Barack Obama’s administration, recalls Joaquin Martinez. He has been involved with the prayer group for about 19 years and has now also joined the large group of protesters at Broadview.
“There was a long line of people who would go to say goodbye to their relatives,” says Martinez, a Mexican immigrant and the founder of a mission that led to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, Ill. “So we saw many tears shed there, and that is why we keep fighting.”
Since late August, the small congregation has had to adapt its approach almost every week as tensions outside the facility reached a boiling point.
In response to the conflict, Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson issued a curfew from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for protests, limiting activism to “free speech zones” marked by concrete barriers.
The prayer group, which used to gather right outside the facility’s doors in hopes of being heard by those inside, has lost ground week after week. They now pray two blocks away from the building in an attempt to comply with local regulations.
A turning point
On Aug. 29, three activists sat down in front of ICE vans to prevent them from transporting detainees to deportations at Gary Chicago International Airport.
Since that demonstration, crowds of protestors have grown exponentially, rallying almost daily with the goal of shutting down the facility.The conflict has also heightened activism from religious activists who view clergy being barred from the facility as both a spiritual and legal violation.
On Oct. 11, a coalition of Catholic priests, nuns, and lay leaders from the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership (CSPL) led a procession from St. Eulalia Church in Maywood, Ill., to Broadview Detention Center in an effort to offer communion to those detained inside, but were denied access by ICE officials.
“There is nothing American about this,” said Father Daniel Hartnett after being turned away from the facility. “It’s a right for anyone [who has] been detained to receive the sacraments. They’re being denied basic human rights.”
Despite immigration detention centers being banned in Illinois, informó el Chicago Sun-Times that the facility this year has become a de facto detention center, with some being held there for three or more days with no beds.
The Broadview facility is directly impacted by new immigration policies under the Trump administration, argues Berg.
Last month, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that anyone who enters the country without inspection doesn’t qualify for bond, meaning they must be held in detention centers while their immigration cases move through the courts.
“I’ve never seen anything as cruel, as heartless,” said Berg, who has been an immigration attorney for over 40 years.
The bond decision comes amid heightened immigration enforcement and aggressive tactics by ICE agents as part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” a plan to mass deport undocumented immigrants with criminal records in Illinois. According to DHS, more than 1,500 arrests have been made in the Chicago area over the past month. Borderless has not been able to verify this number.
Black, from the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, continues protesting the facility every Friday, sustaining tear gas and a pepper shot to the head.
“I’m one of many people who [are] just becoming educated about the Broadview facility and the fact that they have been detaining people there for, sometimes, several days at a time, while calling it a processing facility,” said Black.
He acknowledges joining as a “latecomer” to organizing efforts and “standing on the shoulders” of people who have been demonstrating outside of the facility for many years. The two groups operate as “separate groups that support each other” rather than as a unified movement, he says.
“There’s somebody there praying for them.”
Now, Berg and others who join him in prayer on Friday mornings congregate further out from their usual spot after local police set curfews and zones for protest at Broadview.
As protesters and police face off feet away from where the group prays, Persch, who now joins via Zoom, says, “I just think it’s appalling that in our country, we’ve resorted to this.”
Despite the challenges on Beach Street, Berg and others who join him in prayer show no signs of stopping.
“We hold up our rosaries, we hold up our image of them sitting for more than a day, so they see that they know there’s somebody there praying for them, somebody that will care for them,” said Berg.
Aydali Campa es miembro del equipo de Report for America y cubre temas de justicia medioambiental y comunidades inmigrantes para Borderless Magazine. Envíele un correo electrónico a [email protected].
Camilla Forte es becaria de CatchLight y miembro del cuerpo Report for America que cubre las comunidades inmigrantes para Borderless Magazine. Envíe un correo electrónico a Camilla a [email protected].
