Chicagoans demand end to Chicago Police Department collaboration with ICE

Chicago, IL – Over 1000 Chicagoans gathered on Thursday, January 8, in Pilsen, the heart of Chicago’s Chicano community, to demand city officials hold Chicago Police (CPD) officers accountable for collaborating with ICE during the terroristic operation Midway Blitz.

The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA), a body created by the Empowering Communities for Public Safety and Accountability Ordinance (ECPS), held a listening session during which residents of the city gave eye-witness testimony of CPD securing scenes, forming barriers, directing traffic, and holding the line between protesters and ICE agents during staged kidnappings, acts which violate Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance.

“We’ve had one neighbor, Silverio Villegas González, who was murdered and another who was shot five times,” exclaimed Byron Sigcho Lopez, alderman of the 25th Ward where the hearing took place.

Lopez kicked off nearly two hours of people exposing the crimes of ICE and the complicity of CPD.

Kayla Nguyen with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression pointed out, “Collaboration occurs every time CPD looks the other way at an ICE agent speeding down our residential streets at 50 miles an hour going the wrong way on streets where children play and ride their bikes.”

“CPD has looked the other way when ICE and [Customs and Border Patrol] switch vehicle license plates or are not respecting traffic rules and regulations,” Antonio Gutierrez from Organized Communities Against Deportations testified.

People called for Greg Bovino to be arrested, for the CCPSA to use the power they do have to draft specific policy for CPD outlining what acts they can and cannot take when interacting with ICE/DHS officers, and for answers regarding as to who will hold officers in violation of such policies accountable.

The CCPSA is a governing body that has the authority to set CPD policy, and until this meeting had failed to act proactively on this matter. Despite the demands of the participants at this listening session, the CCPSA has yet to commit to drafting or amending any policy regarding CPD/ICE collaboration. This was why some attendees called for the passage of the Community Power Over Policing (COOP) referendum which would make the CCPSA, currently appointed by the mayor, directly elected by the people.

#ChicagoIL #IL #ImmigrantRights #InJusticeSystem #ICE