Anti-immigration enforcement protesters rally on Sept. 26 outside a U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois.
Anti-immigration enforcement protesters rally on Sept. 26 outside a U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois.
A U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent stands on top of an agency facility in Broadview, Illinois. Agency officials installed a metal fence around the facility following daily protests attended by Chicago-area locals.
Federal agents assemble at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois. The site outside the city has become the focus of local demonstrators protesting against immigration enforcement. Agents return to the facility after escorting a vehicle from the building.
Anti-immigration enforcement protesters rally on Sept. 26 outside a U.S.Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois.

BROADVIEW, IL — Around 200 Chicago-area protesters rallying against immigration enforcement endured a barrage of chemical agents and projectiles fired by federal agents on Sept. 26 outside the site at the heart of President Donald Trump’s crackdown.

The tense protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility located in the Chicago suburb of Broadview comes over two weeks into Operation Midway Blitz, the White House’s effort to ramp up deportations in the longtime sanctuary city. Trump has repeatedly said the crackdown is aimed at "the worst of the worst" criminals who are immigrants.

But the president’s crackdown, which has seen one immigrant fatally shot by a federal agent, has sparked nearly around-the-clock protest at the facility located about 12 miles west of the Willis Tower.

"It feels like chemical warfare," Rickey Hendon Jr. told USA TODAY through a gas mask after a barrage of pepper balls fired by immigration agents. The Chicago-area tech worker said he was protesting against inhumane conditions reported at the deportation processing center. "This needs to be shut down."

Assistant Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin called the protesters "rioters" and tied them to a Sept. 24 attack on an immigration facility in Dallas.

"Rioters are what they are," said McLaughlin, adding that a firearm was found on one protester outside Chicago. "This is just two days after we saw that vicious, disgusting attack on our facility in Dallas… and the fact that there’s now a firearm or there was a firearm there in Chicago is very alarming."

Protest organizers denied that anyone connected to the group brought a firearm.

Among officials and leaders protesting on Sept. 26 were Alderman Andre Vasquez, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh.

Here’s the latest on Trump’s blitz on Chicago-area immigrants.

Suburban facility serves as major hub

The small boarded-up and fenced-off building in Broadview serves as a processing center for detainees before they are transported out of Illinois. Data shared with USA TODAY by immigration enforcement researchers show that the site has become a major hub for detainees in recent months.

Department of Homeland Security officials said over 700 immigrants have been arrested since the launch of the blitz. Among them are "gang members, murderers, child rapists, and drug traffickers," said Emily Covington, assistant director for immigration enforcement’s public affairs office.

"These arrests reflect our commitment to targeting the worst of the worst who pose significant threats to the community," Covington said.

According to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group that tracks immigration enforcement data, over 6,000 detainees have come through the facility during fiscal year 2025.

Immigration enforcement processing centers play growing role

Susan Long, co-founder of the Syracuse University research group, said immigration enforcement processing centers play a significant though not widely known role in immigration enforcement. They give immigration agents a place to register new detainees and hold them overnight if necessary.

The immigration facility in Dallas targeted in a shooting that left an immigrant dead and two detainees critically wounded was also an agency processing center.

Immigration agents have begun using the Chicago-area facility significantly more, data obtained by Long’s group via the Freedom of Information Act shows.

During fiscal year 2024 and preceding years, almost no one was staying at the facility overnight, Long said. By June of 2025, the number of people staying overnight had reached 30 per night. It’s unclear how many people have been staying at the facility overnight since the start of the blitz.

Attorneys slam facility conditions

Immigration enforcement processing centers are only supposed to hold people for 72 hours or less, according to Long. But Chicago-area immigration attorneys say clients at the site have reported being held there for as many as five days.

Detainees also report overcrowding at the facility, according to Erendira Rendon, a local immigration law advocate. Rendon said clients have reported as many as 200 people staying overnight at the facility. According to data obtained by Long’s group, the facility has capacity for 123 people.

"We have been seeing a lot of abuses inside," Rendon said at a news conference on Sept. 25. "Everybody goes to sleep sitting down, there’s very little food and it’s difficult to get medication."

Immigration agency officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on facility conditions.

Are immigration agents catching 'the worst of the worst'?

Among people recently arrested in Chicago by immigration agents, according to agency officials, are a man whose criminal history includes sexual abuse of a child, a man convicted of domestic violence and a man arrested for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.

Carlos Barrera Vega, "a criminal illegal alien from Mexico" according to agency spokesperson Covington, has a criminal history including sexual assault of a victim under the age of 13, residential burglary and battery.

Jose Alex Guarneros-Granados, also from Mexico, was convicted of multiple counts of domestic battery and strangulation and sentenced to nine years in prison, Covington said.

However, Chicagoans say federal agents are indiscriminately targeting people who look like they could be immigrants.

Jaime Perez, a Chicago South Sider, said that his fiancé Laura Murillo was taken by immigration agents in the early hours of Sept. 25 as she was selling tamales on the street. Perez said Murillo had been in the country for 20 years.

Perez said she called him as she was being detained: "You’re hurting me, you’re hurting me," he heard her telling agents. Perez said he tried talking to an agent who took the phone.

"I want her, we’re engaged," Perez said he told the agent, "and he just shut the phone."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ICE fires anti-crowd projectiles at Chicagoans aiming to shut down Trump’s Midway Blitz

Reporting by Michael Loria, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect