CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago leaders are demanding an investigation after agents detained several people outside a South Loop immigration center.
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35th Ward Alderman Anthony Quezada was outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Intensive Supervision Appearance Program Office in the South Loop on Wednesday.
“We decided to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and practice our First Amendment right,” Quezada said. “We were standing on the sidewalk, and we were preventing the ICE vans from entering into the facility.”
At one point local, video shows as protestors and leaders clashed with federal agents in the 2200-block of South Michigan Avenue.
An immigration attorney told ABC7 that the people arrested there received a text message to come in to review their cases. However, upon arrival, they were swiftly placed in ICE custody.
At least a dozen people were taken from the building into ICE-marked vans.
The faces of the men and women being put into a total of two vans have been blurred because ABC7 Chicago does not know whether they face any charges.
“This is not fair,” Quezada said. “These are individuals who were operating in good faith. So, this text message was a form of entrapment.”
Local leaders say they are worried about the kind of ripple effects immigration operations like this will have in the community.
They fear this will lead to further distrust in the immigration system and cause some migrants to miss court dates or appearances.
It’s not known exactly where the people were taken and what happens next.
More than 2,000 arrested by ICE nationwide on Wednesday
ICE made 2,368 nationwide arrests on Wednesday, according to an official briefed on the figures.
In mid-May, Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff at the White House, was at ICE headquarters alongside DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and urged senior leaders at ICE and Homeland Security Investigations to step up their deportation efforts, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
The meeting was attended by senior ICE leaders and the special agents in charge of Homeland Security Investigations.
Miller told senior ICE leaders that the Trump administration wants to triple the daily number of arrests agents were making up to 3,000 per day, according to sources.
ABC News contributed to this report.
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