Federal agents fired baton rounds, tear gas and other less-lethal ammunition Friday morning at about 200 people gathered outside an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview to protest the Trump administration’s continued crackdown on illegal immigration.
The standoff marked the third consecutive Friday in which agents and protesters have faced off outside the west suburban facility, where the agency holds recently detained immigrants in the U.S. without legal permission. The building has become a flash point for opponents of “Operation Midway Blitz,” which Department of Homeland Security officials say has resulted in more than 550 arrests in the Chicago area, and a place for political opponents of the Trump administration to see and be seen protesting.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fires rounds at protesters on 25th Avenue near the holding facility in Broadview, Sept. 26, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)
The federal government erected a large metal fence around the low-slung brick building earlier this week after protests on Sept. 19 resulted in agents hurling copious amounts of tear gas, pepper balls and flash-bangs at a protesters who were trying to block vehicles’ progress in and out of the drive. Despite the Broadview Fire Department’s demand to take the fence down, it was still up Friday morning. Protesters responded by blocking the intersection of Harvard Street and 25th Avenue beginning around 6 a.m., and slowly pushed down Harvard toward the fenced-off building over the course of about three hours.
About 7:45 a.m., a black SUV apparently associated with ICE rounded the corner and turned down Harvard. Protesters surrounded the vehicle, banging on the windows, throwing plushy toys and yelling “shame!” as the driver pushed slowly through the crowd and agents let off a volley of pepper balls into the street. Illinois State Police and several other suburban police departments, including Oak Park and Hodgkins, sent officers to the demonstration, which led to a blocks-long closure of 25th Avenue.
By 8:40 a.m., about 200 people had pushed up to the gated parking lot on the west side of the building to scream at agents, who periodically threw more rounds of a foul-smelling gas, pepper balls and at least one flash-bang, a device that uses a bright burst of light and a deafeningly loud sound to temporarily disorient and incapacitate targets. Agents on the building’s roof also shot baton rounds, which ricocheted off the windows of a nearby building. Baton rounds and smashed pepper balls littered the ground as protesters continued to hurl insults and taunts at agents.
Two people were arrested during the demonstration, said Brad Thomson, a volunteer attorney with the National Lawyers Guild Chicago.
In a Friday news release, DHS officials said 17 people have been arrested in Broadview since Sept. 19 on charges including obstruction, assault and disorderly conduct.
The agency ramped up rhetoric against protesters, calling those arrested “Antifa-aligned left-wing violent extremists.” The release also referenced events in other states, including the shooting at a Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas earlier this week.
President Donald Trump designated Antifa, which is short for anti-fascist, as a “domestic terrorist organization” in a September executive order, though legal experts were quick to point out that no such legal designation exists.
As the crowd began to break up around 10 a.m., Katarina Grayson and Justin Plevaniak stripped off their goggles and respirators to sit in a patch of grass up the street and eat granola bars. The friends, both from Chicago’s Northwest Side, had carpooled to the demonstration after seeing reports of escalating protests in the news over the last few weeks.
Grayson, 31, wore a Snow White costume with silver Doc Martens rationalizing that federal agents might think twice about firing on someone dressed as a Disney princess.
“My great-grandparents came here after the Mexican Revolution to try to have a better life for their children,” she said, as her voice caught. “I don’t know what my family would look like if they had been deported.”
Like many other protesters, the friends brought goggles and other protective equipment. They said they tried their best to ignore the intimidation they felt about participating.
“We were both saying we’re not going to try anything crazy, and we didn’t,” Grayson said. “But I thought it was important to step up there. There’s always going to be some risk. That’s the whole point. There’s people in (that building).”
Following the chaos Friday morning, Democrats from the Illinois congressional requested a meeting with ICE field office director in Chicago, Russell Hott, to discuss Midway Blitz and oversight of the Broadview facility. The group previously had been scheduled to meet with federal authorities this week, but the meeting was postponed until a not-yet-announced date in October, according to U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, who represents parts of Cook and DuPage counties.
Around 5 p.m., a handful of protesters tried to block a pair of ICE vehicles coming up Harvard, jeering and banging on the windows. Other agents soon pulled up and fired several rounds of pepper balls as the protesters scattered. Agents then chased a man in a red shirt across 25th Avenue, into traffic and in between a pair of residential homes. The man jumped a wooden fence and disappeared. Neighbors said he’d climbed a second fence and headed east.
An ICE agent appeared to have hurt himself while pursuing the protester. His colleague, who helped the agent limp back across the street, pointed a small yellow taser at bystanders as they hobbled back.
Lynette Carr, who just got home from work when the chase happened, owned the fence that the man jumped.
Carr, 59, has lived in the home — the last before the line separating Maywood from Broadview — for four years, she said. She had no idea that ICE was across the street until the wave of protests began.
“If it’s peaceful, I don’t mind,” she said. “It’s seeing all these people with guns and shooting pellets and smelling tear gas when I get out of the shower to go to work.”
Tensions resumed about 7:45 p.m. as protesters blocked traffic at the intersection of Harvard Street and 25th Avenue. By 8 p.m., about a dozen federal agents escorted a vehicle out from the fenced-off facility.
As the vehicle turned left onto 25th Avenue, agents faced protesters at the intersection. Agents released a round of pepper balls, while one person appeared to have been detained afterward.
As agents moved back towards the facility, protesters followed. Once behind gating, agents threw three flash-bangs to clear the crowd.
Tess Kenny contributed to this report.
Originally Published: September 26, 2025 at 11:39 AM CDT