When the first few protesters, like Mitchel Morden, got to the meet-up point at a gas station in West Chicago, he says they saw ICE agents handcuffing two men. He says they confronted the officers, demanding names and badge numbers.
“We've just seen two people getting taken, and honestly, that's why I'm here, right? It is to stand up and speak out against this," Morden told WNIJ. “So, we did that. We got close, they got scared, and they pepper sprayed us.”
Morden was still rinsing his eyes with a water bottle. His face was red. A video of the incident was captured by the advocacy group "All of US! Northern Illinois."
From there, over 100 protesters marched to West Chicago’s city hall, where Mayor Daniel Bovey said one of the men ICE arrested is a U.S. citizen, the other is a legal resident, and that they'd both been released.
"It seems that they were picked up because they had brown skin and because they were in a landscaping truck," said the West Chicago mayor.
Cristóbal Cavazos helped organize the march with the immigrant rights non-profit Casa DuPage Workers Center.
“I do not think it's a coincidence that ICE freed those dudes, because there were people there, and people can be there a lot more. That's what we're trying to do with our marches, with our people's patrol, with our rapid response," he said.
He says he feels that ICE is trying to scare the city’s Latino community, and that mobilizations like this -- with people like the mayor, clergy, and police -- can make people feel less alone.
