She lived through the Los Angeles riots and now lives in Chicago. She says Trump is inventing urban unrest

BROADVIEW, Ill. — The streets were quiet just a block from the ICE processing plant where the National Guard deployed Thursday to protect federal agents and property.

Residents walked their dogs. The children were going to and from school. An Amazon delivery driver parked his van on the South 24th Street side, turned on his hazard lights and dropped off a few packages — seemingly unhurried or concerned by the dozen people chanting and carrying signs outside the South 25th Street establishment.

Broadview, a suburb of about 8,000 residents 12 miles west of downtown Chicago, has become a focal point of President Trump’s immigration crackdown in Illinois. It’s where in recent weeks Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shot a peacefully protesting Presbyterian pastor in the head with a pepper ball, and where dozens of protesters and journalists were gassed and beaten with pepper balls.

Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, 55, shook her head when asked about the military presence, and said the whole situation seemed unnecessary and overblown.

“The city of Chicago is calm. It’s no different than most big cities. Of course there are problems. They all have problems. But they don’t call the National Guard,” she said. “The last time I remember a National Guardsman coming to a city was with Rodney King. But this was different. People were furious. There were riots in the streets. People were looting stores and businesses. Nothing like that happens here.”

Thompson grew up in Inglewood and graduated from Inglewood High School in 1988. She was in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots and vividly remembers the rage, violence and fear.

She is adamant that what happened then bears no comparison to what is happening in Chicago now.

This week, about 200 Texas National Guard troops and 300 Illinois National Guard troops were deployed to the Chicago area by Trump to protect federal agents and protesters’ property. About 20 California National Guard troops were also drawn into the political battle, deployed to provide “refresher training,” the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement. “These California National Guard Soldiers will not support the federal protective mission in Illinois.”

On Thursday afternoon, a federal judge in Chicago issued a 14-day temporary restraining order preventing the federalization and deployment of the National Guard in Illinois. U.S. District Judge April Perry said she had “seen no credible evidence that there is any danger of rebellion in Illinois” and called the Trump administration’s version of events “simply unreliable.” She said National Guard troops would “only add fuel to the fire.”

In downtown Chicago, people are shopping. I’m going to work. On Wednesday evening, after a protest formed downtown near the Trump International Hotel & Tower, the streets were almost deserted. A few young men were seen entering the Elephant & Castle pub near the Chicago Board of Trade building, while a happy-looking couple strolled along the Chicago Riverwalk, holding hands and laughing.

Thompson said she’s not interested in wading into the national political fray and is focused on the things that are important to her constituents — like making sure the streets are clean, that Broadview’s police and firefighters have the resources and support they need and that its residents feel safe.

But Thompson found herself in the spotlight last week when she denied Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem access to the bathrooms at the Broadview municipal building.

Thompson said it was nothing personal, but that Noem showed up, unannounced, with a camera crew and a videographer.

“She came with a whole group of military guys dressed in their military gear. And I said I’m not going to let you in here. We work here. We don’t know what your intentions are. If she had good intentions, you know what professionals do? They call and make appointments. They don’t show up out of the blue with dozens of people carrying guns,” Thompson said.

Thompson is also suing the federal government for erecting a fence around ICE facilities that she says could prevent her first responders from entering if anyone — a detainee, an ICE agent or a government official — needed help.

“When we talk about people having stroke, every second counts,” she said. “If we can’t achieve them, that person could be seriously disabled for life, or lose their life because a decision was made – without consulting us – that this is the way things should be.”

Outside the facility Thursday, protesters were outnumbered by local, county and state law enforcement, as well as local and national media, about 4-to-1.

Kate Madrigal, 37, a housewife, said she had come to the scene several times to protest. Her husband is a naturalized citizen and they have four children together.

She said they live in fear that someone will take her husband or scare her children, and she feels obligated to witness and be present because “if my children ask me what I did during this time to help them, I want to tell them I was there. I did something.”

Next to her were two other women who also showed up with sporadic visits – driving from Aurora when their work schedules allowed.

Jen Monaco and Maya Willis said they also felt drawn to the site to keep an eye on the troops and show support for those detained. Monaco said she often cleaned up debris left the day before and showed a reporter photos of rubber bullets, empty tear gas canisters and used pepper balls that she had cleaned up.

She said that until the media appeared in force on Thursday, ICE agents were harassing, frightening and shooting at protesters with these types of crowd control devices. Officers also pushed and assaulted protesters, they said.

Cook County Sheriff’s Police and Illinois State Police were on hand, occasionally shouting through megaphones as protesters or journalists broke through concrete barriers that had been erected to create a protest zone or box.

At one point, a white man wearing a sombrero, poncho and fake mustache walked around the small group of protesters, shouting racial slurs and taunting them. He said he was there to represent “Mexicans for ICE” before taking off his shirt and challenging another protester to a fight.

The police pulled him away but allowed him to continue shouting and chanting. A man in a Chicago Bears t-shirt cheered him on and said the man looked like he had put in a lot of work.

Two other women arrived around the same time, wearing wigs, and shouted expletives at ICE officials and National Guard troops on the other side of the new chain-link fence surrounding the facility.

Thompson established a curfew around the facility, allowing protests only between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

“We have business in the area and people need to get to work. We have kids that need to go to school,” she said. “Let them do what they need to do, and then you can all come and protest.”

But some protesters felt the curfew violated their right to free speech. Robert Held, a Chicago-based trusts and estates attorney, received a citation around 7:45 a.m. for arriving at the scene before the curfew was lifted.

“I’m not going to pay it,” he said, implying that he had heard the violation could cost him $750. “The order is without merit. It violates my 1st Amendment rights.”