Chicago Police Scrutinized Over Collaboration With ICE

CHICAGO — The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) held a listening session last Thursday to examine allegations of Chicago police cooperation with federal immigration agents, after more than 2,000 residents submitted signatures calling for an investigation into the city police’s interactions with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the past year.

Local leaders and community members gathered and argued that the collaboration violates Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance. This session happened the day after Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

Congressional candidate Mayra Macías, who was born and raised in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, said she has spent the last decade working in national politics and advocacy to restore trust in public institutions. She said that any trust that once existed between Chicago communities and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has largely eroded. 

Macías witnessed police officers use what she described as excessive force against community members standing right next to her at the intersection of 23rd Street and Sawyer Avenue in Little Village on November 8.

“I recorded a video that was picked up by The Washington Post and Telemundo. The video shows officers targeting individuals on the sidewalk, dragging them into the street, and then piling on top of them. These individuals had been there for hours with me, standing alongside, bearing witness to the atrocities of ICE. In one instance, I counted up to 10 officers pushing one man to the ground,” Macías said. 

The incident raised concerns about the events leading up to it, particularly the apparent cooperation between CPD and ICE. Questions remain about why the video was recorded after ICE had already left, why police remained on the scene, and why witnesses were subjected to excessive force.

“When I arrived about an hour earlier, ICE was not present. Yet there were at least 70 officers on the scene, creating chaos and shouting conflicting commands,” Macías said. 

Noreen McNulty said she witnessed similar activity in Little Village on October 23.

“I watched the Chicago Police Department not only collaborate with ICE, but I also saw about 10 officers jump on one woman. I saw them chasing young people, and they used pepper-sprayed Bovino and his crew,” McNulty said. 

Scarlett Johnson recounted being tear-gassed by ICE on October 14. She described police officers standing with their backs to ICE while facing the crowd, noting that they were protecting ICE rather than addressing the public. 

“You can define collaboration however you want, but we all know that protecting ICE as they detain our community members is collaboration. Providing safety to them is collaboration. Guarding them as they make their exits and tear-gas both CPD and the crowd is collaboration,” Johnson said. 

Kayla Nguyen with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression stated how Chicago — being a sanctuary city — is only as powerful as the people and the movement that defends it.

“Trump doesn’t need the National Guard if we have the Chicago Police Department allowing ICE into their facilities, clapping federal agents on the back, our local law enforcement giving them hugs and snacks. Trump doesn’t need the National Guard if we have a commission that fails to hold police accountable for their continued, relentless collaboration with ICE and violence against our Black and brown communities,” Nguyen said. 

She argued that collaboration happens whenever officers ignore ICE agents speeding the wrong way through residential streets where children play, and that accountability is overdue.

Lawrence Benito, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, emphasized that nobody should live in fear and that interactions with city employees should never lead to deportation. 

“The word ‘assistance’ was explicitly used by [U.S. Border Patrol Commander] Greg Bovino in a tweet thanking both Chicago Police and Evanston Police on December 17, as he returned to the city with dozens of agents to detain more of our neighbors. It is incumbent upon all city elected officials, and the Chicago Police Department, to maintain residents’ trust, prioritize their safety, and uphold local laws that ICE and the Chicago Police Department are attempting to circumvent and undermine,” Benito said. 

Andrés Guzmán criticized state and federal authorities, claiming that Governor J.B. Pritzker deployed state police against protesters and while ICE, state police, and the Chicago Police Department operated in close coordination on the ground.

“In other words, our communities are being brutalized by the federal, state, and city levels,” Guzmán said. 

Jax López, a lifelong Chicago resident and son of Mexican immigrants, said that on October 22, he and a colleague were forcibly pulled from a car and detained by ICE and Border Patrol.

“If we continue this mistrust between our community and our police, not only does this mean less crimes being reported, but it can also lead to an increase of crime to our authority figures. Not only as a citizen of Chicago, but as a public servant, I implore the CCPSA to look into the actions of CPD and actually listen to the community,”  López said. 

Hector Cervantes is a freelance writer based in Chicago who enjoys covering stories related to Latin culture, entertainment, and community.

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