Residents of the city’s Little Village neighborhood Wednesday called on the city to enforce its ban on federal immigration agents using city property to gear up for President Donald Trump’s deportation effort, following an instance of agents seen at a city-owned parking lot preparing for a raid last weekend.
Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order earlier this month prohibiting federal immigration agents from using city property to stage for raids. But residents in Little Village spotted agents staging in the city Water Department parking lot at 3148 S. Sacramento Avenue around 3 pm Sunday, said Baltazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council.
In a letter sent to Johnson’s office, Enriquez said he witnessed agents “putting on uniforms, face masks, and preparing for deployment into the Little Village community.”
“This incident is alarming and unacceptable,” Enriquez wrote. “It directly violates your executive order, which was meant to protect our immigrant residents from fear, harassment, and unlawful detention. What good is an executive order if it is not enforced? Our community deserves accountability and visible action.”
Mayoral press secretary Cassio Mendoza said Johnson’s Oct. 6 executive order cannot be enforced unless there are signs clearly posted in advance of a raid carried out by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
That was not the case at the Water Department parking lot cited by Little Village residents, Mendoza said.
“There are 4,000 lots in the city and many more parking lots. We can’t install signs at all of them tomorrow,” Mendoza told the Sun-Times. “We can’t do anything about an incident that has already happened. What we can do is put up signs going forward.”
Enriquez said the signs should have been posted already, noting that Johnson “signed the executive order weeks ago.”
At a cost of roughly $100 per sign, Mendoza said the city is “trying to be strategic” about where it chooses to post signs. Priority is being given to lots near schools, hospitals and homeless shelters. The city has also provided “24/7 security” at the O’Hare Airport lot where ride-share drivers stage before picking up airport passengers, he said.
“It’s not like they use every vacant lot in the city,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza also pointed to a few instances in which Chicago police officers have “responded to ICE staging at city-owned lots” in recent days and asked federal agents to leave — and those agents left. That happened last Friday at Grand and Central, and similar voluntary departures occurred recently at Harrison and Kedzie and on city-owned property on 111th Street, Mendoza said.
“Where we’ve been proactive in putting up signs, it’s forced ICE to change their tactics,” the press secretary said.
Community members also urged city officials to release surveillance footage from the Water Department building to determine how long agents have been using that parking lot in Little Village to stage raids.
On the day he signed the executive order, Johnson was asked what would happen if ICE ignored the mandate and staged immigration raids on city-owned properties, which can include Chicago public schools, libraries, parks and city buildings like the Water Department facility.
“If the federal government violates this executive order, we will take them to court,” Johnson said Oct. 6.
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