Broadview: Break Open Our Hearts
Broadview ICE Facility | 1930 Beach Street | September 12th, 2025
Each day I pray that our hearts will be broken open.
My heart keeps breaking open.
On Friday it broke open when ICE agents came out in riot gear and gas masks to intimidate civilians. We had been there since 3 in the morning, were threatened with arrest and chemical munition starting at 9:45am. After the 4th warning at 10:30am, the cowards were in riot gear and gas masks. The #1 tool of the police is fear.
Some of these cowards were carrying pepper ball guns, chemical munitions that they deployed against civilians at 1pm, 5:50pm, 6:30pm, and 6:40pm. They shot pepper balls at close range. They shot at a sitting person who uses a mobility aid.
Clergy would pray over the protestors sitting in the driveway docks.
Throughout the day, ICE would drag these civilians across concrete. ICE would stand on the roof with guns. ICE would cover their faces and hide their badges. ICE agents are cowards.
Loved ones at Songs 4 Liberation and I began singing Lo Yisa Goi (Nation Shall Not Raise Sword Against Nation) when ICE came out in riot gear. We sang the Prophet Issiah’s words against the computerized threat of arrest and chemical munitions.
Earlier that day we prayed the rosary in Spanish. People of faith have prayed here every Friday morning for two decades. Our loved ones locked inside tell the priests that they can hear our prayers.
We were at Broadview for 16 hours. That is 16 hours where these agents can’t kidnap our neighbors because they’re too busy with us. That is 16 exhausting hours well spent.
During all of this, only two neighborhoods away, ICE agents shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzales. May he rest in peace. May his murder’s heart break open. May they quit their job. May their murderous actions actually have consequences.
In all the commentary on “political violence” this week, too few name that political violence is at the heart of the American project. What is genocide, enslavement, and imprisonment if not political violence? What are militarized police forces if not political violence? What is funding war over healthcare and education if not political violence?
ICE is a tool of white supremacy. This truth was horrifically clarified earlier this week when the Supreme Court of the United States gave the green light to racial profiling, a longstanding but now SCOTUS-supported terror tactic.
Our loved ones are being kidnapped and killed in the name of ‘saving’ white America. For us white Americans, this violence is being done in our name. What are we doing to stop it? What are we doing to alleviate this suffering?
If we are to be the church then we must be at Broadview.
We come to Broadview because our government is kidnapping our neighbors. At this processing facility, our neighbors sleep on concrete, separated from loved ones. Broadview is the home base of our government’s violent escalations against Chicagoans, the center of ICE’s activity in our area.
The community push to close Broadview and end detentions is longstanding. Advocates argue that Broadview’s very existence violates Illinois state law.
As Karina Solano, Antonio Gutierrez, and Julia Davis explained in Ending Immigration Detention in Illinois: Challenges and Lessons From the Implementation of the Illinois Way Forward Act,
In 2021, following years of community organizing and advocacy, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Illinois Way Forward Act, prohibiting state and local governments from engaging in federal immigration enforcement and, critically, ending immigration detention in the state.
Broadview, despite being a processing center, acts as a critical short-term detention facility, where our neighbors are held for days. They sleep on concrete. After Broadview, many of our neighbors are forced to a facility in another state, far from their loved ones and legal supports.
Love your neighbor.
We must keep coming to Broadview. We must maintain prophetic witness. We must fight until every person is free. We must fight until ICE and our nation’s prisons are abolished.
We must put salt in the gears of the American death machine. We must dream of a truly safe future for all of us. Each and every person. Todos para todos. Everything for everyone.
May our hearts break open again and again. May our souls never break. May every coward’s heart break open with the love of their neighbor. May all of us act with courageous Love.
Blessed be.
