A note from Managing Editor Greg Collard:

Protests outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Ill., have intensified since the agency launched Operation Midway Blitz three weeks ago.

“This ICE operation will target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets,” says an ICE press release in announcing the operation.

Prizker said Monday that ICE’s immigration enforcement is a “pretext to deploy military troops” in the region, and warned that 100 military personnel are on their way.

“People of Illinois, we need your help. Get your cell phones out – record what you see. Put it on social media. Peacefully ask for badge numbers and identification. Speak up for your neighbors. We need to let the world know this is happening – and that we won’t stand for it,” Pritzer said in an X post.

Many of the protesters at Broadview are willing to do that, and much more. Demonstrations have included intense pounding on government vehicles while trying to block them and ICE officers. Ford Fischer of News2Share first documented these interactions in a video we posted last week. Ford returned to Broadview last weekend and found the protests to be larger, longer, and involve repeated firing of riot munitions from weapons that resemble paintball guns.