New Law Prohibits ICE Activity At Village-Owned Properties

WILMETTE, IL — At Tuesday's meeting, Wilmette's Village Board unanimously voted to adopt an ordinance that explicitly outlines the village's policies relating to civil immigration enforcement.

The ordinance, drafted in response to President Donald Trump's Operation Midway Blitz, prohibits federal immigration agents from using any village property for enforcement actions. This includes any village-owned parking lots, parks or open spaces.

The Wilmette police have the authority to enforce the ordinance, and Police Chief Michael Robinson confirmed that officers will respond to reported incidents of Immigrations and Customs enforcement activity.

"Our local authority to regulate much of what we are seeing in our community and elsewhere across the country is limited, and our ordinance tonight, while providing as many protections as we can, reflects those limits, but our power, effectiveness and values as a community, working together to support our immigrant neighbors, friends and workers, far exceeds the reaches of our local government. Tonight's Board approval of this ordinance is not the end of our work, but the beginning," Village President Senta Plunkett said.

Last week, many residents reported a raid at Kenilworth Gardens, an apartment complex, to police. According to residents, the agents were unidentified and did not have arrest warrants. One resident who spoke at Wednesday's meeting said she witnessed agents pouring a bottle of water over a man's head and down his throat while he was restrained.

At the time, multiple people called the Wilmette Police Department to report the activity, officials confirmed. Despite the multiple reports, police did not respond to the incident, which lasted for more than two hours, according to the resident who spoke at the meeting.

Chief Robinson addressed the lack of response from police for the Nov. 7 incident at Kenilworth Gardens. According to Robinson, the department had received multiple reports about incidents in different areas throughout the village that same day, including an incident at Eden's Plaza.

During the day, there was a communication breakdown with police dispatch, where reports of other incidents were forwarded to the supervisor's voicemail instead of going out over the police radio, Robinson said.

"We've had some really great conversations with external community members to walk through that, to use it as a learning experience. I can assure you, as police chief, we will respond to ICE calls with a supervisor or a senior officer to do the things that we promised tonight," Robinson said.

Federal agents have been spreading throughout the region in recent days as part of Trump's immigration enforcement activities in the Chicagoland. In response to ICE's growing pretense in the area, community members have organized local resources to warn federal agents when federal agents are spotted.

Wilmette residents were urged to call the Family Support Network hotline for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights at 855-435-7693 if they see federal immigration enforcement activity in the village.