So this is an ice processing center in Chicago suburbs which we’ve been told is like one of the central nodes of operation I guess for increased ICE activity in the city.
This is becoming a regular protest action where people are trying to block the vans holding people who have been apprehended by ICE from being transferred and eventually deported. I mean they’re dressed like they’re going into combat in a war zone. Why are you wearing a mask?
Cat Abug Gazale has been on the front lines here for weeks.
She’s also running for Congress.
I feel like Democratic leadership specifically has just kind of missed the moment. Feels like they’re working from a playbook that’s not in 2025 and our neighbors are being kept kidnapped and they are being held for days or weeks at a time. These are human rights violations and what ICE is doing is they’re operating as a secret police.
What the are you all proud of yourselves? You’re soing pathetic.
Who the did you take?
Just tell me a bit about why you’re here.
Um, so they detained our father about a week ago now. He had a court hearing on Monday. He was detained right after he was released. We’ll be here as many days as we have to be in order to get in the information over my dad.
And how long has he been in the US for?
30 years.
And what does he do for a living?
Um, he worked like janitor work, just any side job really. Landscaping, anything he could possibly do to help me and my sibling out. Broad View is just one fault line in the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown that has already ins snared hundreds of thousands of people. And now he’s threatening to deploy more military troops into democratic cities. After the murder of Charlie Kirk, Trump is targeting the so-called radical left, a move many fear is really an assault on free speech. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today. It must stop right now. [Applause]
So, he’s obviously escalating in a way that is kind of foreseeable.
It’s a lot of tear gas for like a small crowd.
Yeah. See this?
Uh, they hit us with the car.
They shot me a bunch in the leg with the pepper balls. What country do we live in?
Is that the first time you’ve ever had tear gas?
Yes.
It was a burning sensation. It was scary, but we’re still here. We’re still fighting
This is America. your secret police. you.
Coward. A few miles away on the outskirts of the county, Charlie Kirk founded his right-wing youth group, Turning Point USA, back in 2012. Tightly aligned with the MAGA movement, he rose to prominence, staging debates on campuses, pushing a hard, bright Christian fundamentalist message. You came into our country illegally. We have laws and customs. You came here, you knew you were breaking the law, and you should be sent back to your country of origin.
This is actually the building where Kirk founded Turning Point. quite a large shrine in the aftermath of his death. How are you feeling about what happened?
It doesn’t surprise me in a world that we live in. The kind of horrific video. I made myself watch it at least 100 times because times.
Yeah, because um we must never look away.
Watching a video like that 100 times like a lot. It’s so violent.
Uh it’s just my nature. Uh I I like to uh learn from things and watching the video. I’m also analyzing the video. Where where did the shot come from? How did it go down?
We’re Christians, so it was even a harder hit cuz, you know, losing a brother in Christ is pretty hard.
I don’t know. We got to we have to come together.
I don’t think we’re going to come together. I think it’s always going to be like this. Unfortunately,
the algorithm, the elites have designed this algorithm, you know, to basically just make us fight really well.
I think he’s a modern day martyr and sometimes it takes the darkest dark to bring the greatest good that we’re ever going to see. And I truly think he was the vessel for that.
Does that kind of span politics as well? I think there are sort of concerns that it may also lead to a crackdown on freedom of speech and that sort of thing.
If you think this will lead to a crackdown on freedom of speech, you don’t understand.
I’m practicing free speech right now.
At an anti- ice protest in a leafy suburb, that sorrow over the country’s continuing polarization was also being felt. I I have a close member of my household who’s on the other side and um you know a lot of tears have been shed.
You mean the other political side?
And and and what I know and what he knows are two totally different things. We’re in these bubbles. My son thinks that we’re trying to kill people. I’m not trying to kill anyone. the sun.
I would like to invite all of y’all to join us at 19:30 Beach Street at the Broadview Ice Facility.
Cat took me to her campaign office.
At the protest the day before, she’d been thrown to the ground by agents. Images that had gone viral by an ICE agent. Good work.
And republished by the Department of Homeland Security who effectively accused her of siding with criminal cartels. I just wonder how it felt when you saw that then. I mean, that’s like an official arm of the US government, you know, effectively kind of calling your actions out to the world. I mean, it’s scary, especially with this administration. You don’t really have um a precedent in American politics until very recently of the government calling out individual actions, especially individual peaceful actions from official government accounts. This is the president’s secret police and it is not being divisive to say a secret police should not operate in the United States of America. It is not divisive to insist that human rights must be respected. It is not divisive to say that our laws that say we cannot violate people’s basic human dignity that they should be respected. That is not pushing the country apart. Still, there are people who will watch what happened yesterday at this protest, probably people who live in this constituency, in this district, uh, who supported what happened, who supported the response, um, uh, that ICE did on the ground there. I wonder how you think you can best represent people like that in Washington who may profoundly disagree with you. Still,
I don’t think representation means catering to every single person. What representation means to me is I will stand for what is right. I will stand for protecting people. But no matter what your political ideas are, if you contact my constituent services office and say that your social security check is missing or that your uncle was arrested and you don’t know where he is, we will help you. It also means protecting as many people as possible. And if someone disagrees with that, they don’t have to vote for me. Uh but that’s what I’m going to do. Representation isn’t appeasement. Is that what you’re saying?
Representation isn’t appeasement.
So, we’ve heard that since ICE have kind of expanded its presence in the city under Trump’s second presidency, it’s been a number of community groups that are kind of pushing back on their own term, setting up effectively kind of neighborhood watch groups. So, we’re going to meet one guy who’s letting us in to see how they work. Yeah, it’s here.
Elias Sepeda runs a Jiu-Jitsu community center which also functions as the headquarters for his patrol group. >> Hi, I’m Oliver. Nice to meet you.
Made up of locals from the neighborhood. They monitor Chicago streets for ICE officers.
We got your info now, brother. We’ll call them.
His presence at protest has led to him being detained at Broadview. We came off.
I joined him as he handed out know your rights leaflets in the neighborhood.
How are you guys feeling about what’s happening in the in the city?
It’s disgusting what they’re doing. They’re violating everybody’s rights.
You you don’t come and and pull over people in front of their children and drag them out of the car. You know, that’s wrong.
So many stories we hear about the
Did you imagine this is what was going to happen if Trump won?
Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We didn’t. I didn’t vote for it. And I’m proud to say that. I don’t vote for that. I don’t want a felon running the country. Bottom line.
One of their regular patrols is during school pickup and drop off.
Do you know anybody that’s been affected by the immigration?
I work in the concrete industry and a lot of the guys that do the concrete are actually being affected. They’re really scared. According to them, it was it was to get criminals and offenders, but I mean, they’re going after hardworking people. You think people at Home Depot are criminals or they’re doing crime or the roofers they got in Neighborville? You think they’re they’re criminals at night or what? You know, they’re people trying to make a better living for their family.
When you hear people like Steven Miller say that this is chance to come after the far left. I mean, do you worry that like activities even like the ones that you’re engaged in could actually be kind of caught up in some of that? Yeah, certainly. We assume it will be. They will literally try to lob uh charges of supporting terrorism. Um because it’s not just financing. Um supporting a quote unquote terrorist organization could include just just rhetoric. They are trying to criminalize uh speech and they’re trying to criminalize working with and giving resources to or even rhetorical support to um to undocumented immigrants. All right, let’s hit it. We’re about an hour outside of Chicago now in a Republican leaning county, Mckenry County. Um, it’s the morning of Charlie Kirk’s Memorial and we’re going to a local bar that’s screening it. And already you can see flags at half mast.
Really different landscape here. This feels more like a Trump rally than, what we thought it was going to be, which was a small bar memorial event.
They got a crane with a flag. Can you see that?
We know that as uh one has fallen, millions and millions are rising up. We are truly a giant who has been woken from asleep. Bless us. Bless the church. Bless this nation because of Christian people who are making a stand will not be pushed in the corner and to gain gain courage for the battle ahead.
Charlie knew that we are in a spiritual war for the hard
Absolutely bucketed down. I think you will go to the earth.
This watch party seems like it’s wrapping up well before the memorial is.
He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry. I am sorry, Erica.
That was supposed to be a speech that was memorializing somebody who was killed in an act of violence, but instead it turned into another political diet tribe quite literally saying, “You should hate your political opponent.” It’s just an extraordinarily incendurary thing to say at this time. That’s the age we’re in. I thought America was the land of opportunities and it was all sunshine and rainbows. What’s What’s going on? Does it make any sense now? This isn’t the perfect America that everyone thinks it is.
