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As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramps up aggressive tactics against the immigrant community nationwide, it has placed a special focus on Chicago, and clergy there, including Unitarian Universalist ministers, are offering a religious response at the ICE detention facility in nearby Broadview, Illinois.
“All the protesters have been peaceful, but the response has been extremely violent that protesters have met with, including myself,” said Rev. Eileen Wiviott, senior minister at the Unitarian Church in Evanston, Illinois, who began protesting weekly at the site in early September. Members of her congregation have been tear-gassed and hit with pepper balls, she said.
UUs share why their religion calls them to show up for protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics despite the potential for arrest or physical harm.
In September, a Presbyterian minister wearing his clerical collar, Rev. David Black, was shot in the head with a pepper ball by ICE agents as he stood at the Broadview detention center, which is about twelve miles from downtown Chicago. A video of the incident has been widely viewed. An ICE official wrote on X that the protesters were preventing an ICE vehicle from leaving the facility. Black told CNN there were no ICE vehicles attempting to leave and he was at the site praying for the ICE officers and the people incarcerated before agents shot him in the head.
Rev. Lucas Hergert, minister of the North Shore Unitarian Church in Bannockburn, Illinois, is part of an organizing team that for weeks has been bringing clergy to Broadview on Fridays. In addition to Christian clergy, Jewish rabbis and Islamic imams have been on site at the facility, “and it’s growing,” he said.
Mennonite Action Chicago is planning a vigil at Broadview for October 17, said Rev. Dr. Beth Johnson, who is on its organizing committee. Johnson is also part of a local interfaith group, Faith Over Fear, which is uniting against the federal presence in Chicago.
On October 24, UU ministers from around the Chicago area will be holding a UU flower ceremony outside the Broadview facility, said Johnson, minister of the Unitarian Church of Hinsdale, Illinois, who has been at the Broadview site nearly weekly since September.
ICE “will randomly start lobbing pepper balls and tear gas, and I was tear-gassed until I bought a mask,” Johnson said. But “people are showing up with gas masks and continuing to witness and chant and sing,” often led by Songs for Liberation, a protest song collective, she said.
“It wasn’t until we were down there that the full horror hit me. You see van after van with blackout windows; you can see the outline shapes of people [in the vans] being taken to the detention facility,” said Hergert, who has been tear-gassed but uninjured as he was wearing a gas mask.
On October 10, there was a coordinated event to bring holy communion and pastoral comfort to the detainees at Broadview, but they were denied entry, says Hergert, who with Wiviott was among the clergy there. Wiviott returned the next day to march with hundreds of people to Broadview from St. Eulalia Catholic Church in Maywood, a mile away.
During a Eucharist service, demonstrators saying “oremos” or “we pray” along with the presiders outside of the Broadview detention facility in Chicago, Illinois.
“They had everyone there commit to being nonviolent, and we somberly and solemnly marched the mile to the detention center through the streets, singing and praying the rosary as we walked,” said Wiviott. “When we got there the priests and nuns attempted to offer communion again to detainees and were again denied.” The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said in a statement that it “was not able to accommodate visitors on such short notice, for their safety as well as that of detainees and staff, and due to the ensuing riots,” according to CBS News.
Many people outside of Chicago are unaware of how pervasive and increasingly aggressive ICE tactics are throughout the city, said the Rev. Roger Bertschausen, developmental lead minister at Unity Temple UU Congregation in Oak Park, Illinois, who has attended one protest at Broadview and said he will be returning weekly. “Why am I going to Broadview? Because what is happening to this city I love is terrible. ICE is deliberately sowing terror,” he said.
On October 16, the New York Times published a story, “ICE Is Cracking Down on Chicago. Some Chicagoans Are Fighting Back,” describing Chicago as a focus for the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and noting that in a recent incident, thirteen Chicago police officers were among those hit by tear gas from ICE officers. Reuters, on October 15, published a series of photos from Chicago, including protesters at Broadview and an ICE agent chasing a man outside a Home Depot.
Why do UU values call UUs to oppose the ICE actions? “If we say we put love at the center, then that’s what really calls us to do this,” said Johnson. “Because we are called to love, we are called to justice.”