About 500 folks packed Thalia Corridor in Pilsen on Thursday evening amid a torrential downpour to voice their frustration with the Group Fee on Public Security and Accountability (CCPSA) for not holding a listening to to probe allegations of cooperation by Chicago police with federal immigration brokers sooner.
Since June 2025, Chicago cops have responded to the scenes of federal immigration actions a number of occasions, elevating questions on whether or not they violated Chicago’s Welcoming Metropolis Ordinance or the state’s TRUST Act. Each legal guidelines prohibit officers from aiding with immigration enforcement.
On the assembly, which at occasions grew raucous as viewers members chanted and shouted down CCPSA members, members of the general public described police setting protecting perimeters round federal brokers’ operations — which is expressly banned by the TRUST Act — stopping speedy responders from following brokers, arresting protesters, and in a single occasion even hugging an agent.
The assembly was scheduled after Police District Council (PDC) members gathered greater than 2,000 signatures in a petition drive. The 2021 metropolis ordinance that established the CCPSA together with town’s twenty-two PDCs requires the fee to carry a particular assembly if a petition outlining the subject material to be mentioned gathers no less than that many signatures. At a press convention earlier than the assembly, tenth (Ogden) PDC member Elianne Bahena stated the assembly was being held as a result of folks “organized and demanded to be heard.”
Leonardo Quintero, a member of the twelfth PDC on the Close to West Aspect, stated the petition grew to become vital after the CCPSA took too lengthy to answer a November 13 letter signed by a majority of district councilors requesting a proper listening to into CPD cooperation with federal brokers.
“We wished all twenty-two [police district] commanders to be there, so we may get solutions relating to what they’re telling their subordinates, what they’re telling their groups, what they’re telling every district,” Quintero informed the Weekly. “We wished the power to query them, much like how Congress holds hearings, the place we’re in a position to query them,” in addition to to offer neighborhood members a possibility to voice their considerations.
Quintero stated CCPSA commissioners informed him that they wouldn’t have the ability to maintain a listening to till the spring as a result of their arms have been full with sure legally required duties equivalent to setting yearly objectives for the police superintendent and Civilian Workplace of Police Accountability (COPA). District council members thought that wasn’t quickly sufficient, given Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Commander Greg Bovino’s risk to return to Chicago in drive in March, and launched the petition drive to compel the CCPSA to carry a gathering sooner.
Commissioners and PDC members individually confirmed they have been in talks in regards to the listening to even because the petition drive was unfolding. Quintero stated that Bovino’s social media put up thanking Chicago police for his or her “help” after police pulled over a speedy responder who was following brokers on December 17 heightened the urgency round holding a listening to. District council members delivered the petitions the next day.
CCPSA President Remel Terry informed the Weekly that the fee was “actively working with [district councilors] and being conscious of their wants” earlier than they acquired the petitions. She stated that organizing a listening to with all twenty-two district commanders, getting related information, and researching the potential coverage adjustments at their disposal would take time. “What we wished to make sure is that we weren’t solely having a listening to, however having an understanding,” she stated. “As a result of to say that you really want twenty-two police commanders [to attend], what does that truly imply?”
At Thursday’s assembly, Ald. Andre Vasquez (fortieth Ward) was amongst a number of elected officers who delivered remarks. He identified that the assembly was held 218 days after Chicago cops responded to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility within the South Loop on June 4 after brokers arrested residents who’d arrived to test in. The division denied its officers had any data federal brokers have been arresting immigrants previous to their arrival. However calls obtained by the Weekly in July confirmed a police captain within the division’s fusion heart knew federal brokers have been asking for assist. A division spokesperson said on the time that its officers established a site visitors perimeter across the scene however claimed it was not a violation of the TRUST Act.
“Now, the explanation why I discussed 218 days is that’s how lengthy it’s [been] occurring, and there has not been a listening to by the CCPSA associated to ICE,” Vasquez stated. The group roared in settlement. Vasquez added that the Metropolis Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which he chairs, held a listening to quickly after the South Loop incident, and admonished the CCPSA for not holding one.
In different well-documented cases, CPD officers have apparently responded to the scenes of federal exercise in ways in which could have violated the Welcoming Metropolis Ordinance or TRUST Act.
On October 4, after CBP brokers shot Marimar Martínez 5 occasions, significantly wounding the thirty-year-old speedy responder who’d been tailing them, a crowd gathered to protest. Law enforcement officials arrived and established a protecting perimeter across the brokers, who fired pepper balls at civilians and threw no less than a dozen canisters of tear-gas, engulfing police and residents alike. A number of audio system on the assembly cited that incident for example of CPD aiding brokers in a possible violation of the legislation.
Jax Lopez, who works as a constituent companies coordinator for Ald. Michael Rodriguez’s twenty second Ward Workplace (the place Bahena is chief of workers), described an incident during which he and Bahena have been detained by ICE brokers on October 22.
“From the again of the automotive that we have been handcuffed and thrown into, we noticed CPD seem instantly, the place they have been pushing again speedy response staff and authorities officers,” and finally helped ICE escape the scene, he stated. “It sends a really clear message, not simply to our neighborhood however to ICE, that CPD is prepared to violate Chicago’s Welcoming Metropolis Ordinance, they usually’re prepared to interrupt the legislation when it advantages them, simply by saying it’s for ‘public security.’”
A number of audio system additionally described an incident on November 8 during which residents confronted federal brokers in Little Village. “I witnessed Chicago police utilizing extreme drive in opposition to neighborhood members standing subsequent to me, actually subsequent to me, on twenty third and Sawyer in Little Village,” stated Mayra Macias, a Again of the Yards resident. “In a single occasion, I counted as much as ten officers pushing one man to the bottom.” She stated the police have been violent even after ICE brokers left the scene.
On December 17, after a speedy responder adopted a caravan of CBP brokers, together with Bovino, up DuSable Lake Shore Drive, CPD officers pulled him over and prevented him from following them. The Tribune obtained a 911 name made by Border Patrol that exhibits a dispatcher telling the agent “assistance is on the best way.”
A number of the incidents residents described on the assembly have been additionally talked about in complaints submitted to the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which arrange a web-based kind in November for residents to report potential violations of the Welcoming Metropolis Ordinance. Final yr, 9 complaints have been filed, based on paperwork obtained by the Weekly by way of a public-records request. One mentions federal brokers utilizing the twenty fourth (Rogers Park) Police District car parking zone, an allegation Vasquez echoed in the course of the assembly. Three describe cops forming a “caravan” with Border Patrol autos on DuSable Lake Shore Drive and escorting all of them the best way to Evanston on December 17.
The CCPSA has a lot of oversight choices at its disposal to carry the police division accountable. The fee can draft new insurance policies or amend present ones, because it did when it abolished CPD’s error-ridden gang database in 2023. It may haul CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling earlier than the fee for questioning, as district council members have requested. And may the superintendent fail to adequately rein in officers, the CCPSA can, by a two-thirds vote of no confidence, start a course of that would end in his dismissal.
“Let this be step one,” Bahena stated in the course of the press convention. “District Council members are asking for a public listening to that features Superintendent Snelling, all twenty-two district commanders, and delivers clear solutions.”
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