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Chaos erupted outside an immigration processing center in Chicago on Thursday when anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agitators clashed with law enforcement, leading to nearly two dozen arrests and multiple officer injuries.
Authorities said 21 demonstrators, 12 men and 9 women, were arrested after blocking traffic and refusing orders to disperse, according to affiliate FOX 32 Chicago.
The Cook County Sheriff’s Office confirmed four officers were injured, including two Broadview police officers, a Cook County sheriff’s deputy and an Illinois state trooper. None of the injuries were life-threatening.
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Police officers detain an agitator during a demonstration against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside a federal building in Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday. Several people were taken into custody after clashes with law enforcement, authorities said. (Fox)
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Video from the scene shows federal agents and Illinois State Police in scuffles with protesters and then taking several people into custody.
The facility is located in Broadview, a western suburb of Chicago about 12 miles from downtown, and has been a longstanding protest site for years.
A large crowd of protesters had gathered outside the facility, some waving placards reading “God Demands Freedom” and “Protest Is Patriotic,” while others held colorful signs shaped like butterflies.
A group then tried to move beyond concrete barriers and walk down the street toward the ICE facility, a move police considered a major violation, according to sources. Last week, a group known as the “Suburban Moms” staged a peaceful sit-in on the same street.
Police officers detain a protester as demonstrators rally outside the ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Thursday. (Fox)
The scene appeared to calm later in the afternoon, with no additional arrests reported.
Those detained were taken to the Broadview ICE Processing Facility, officials said.
The incident comes after a federal judge ordered 13 detainees released and said hundreds more could qualify for home confinement, marking another setback for the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz.
The operation was launched on Sept. 8 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE targeting criminal illegal aliens in the Chicago area.
WATCH: Anti-immigration protesters clash with law enforcement in Chicago; multiple arrests made
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ruled this week that more than 600 detainees being held at the Broadview ICE center must be released “on bond and into ICE’s Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program” by Nov. 21, citing what he called a “pattern of unlawful arrests and confinement.”
The order stems from Margarito Castañon Nava v. DHS, a class-action lawsuit claiming federal agents unlawfully detained hundreds of migrants who were not subject to mandatory detention or final removal orders, a direct violation of a 2021 Biden-era decree inherited by the Trump administration.
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In the ruling, Cummings accused DHS of holding migrants in “unsafe and unsanitary” conditions, saying detainees had been kept in overcrowded buildings “next to overflowing toilets.” The judge further said the department’s recent reversal on detention authority represented a “180-degree change” from previous legal interpretations.
The decision could force the largest single-day release of ICE detainees in Illinois in years.
Fox News’ Jasmine Baehr, Bill Mears, Madelin Fuerste and The Associated Press contributed to this report.