(The Center Square) – The Chicago City Council Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights has approved a mandate for the city to investigate the police response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions in the city last month.
The ordinance would require Chicago Police, the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, and the Mayor’s Office to provide the council with all communications related to any police presence when ICE officials detained immigrants at a Homeland Security office June 4.
Alder Jessie Fuentes pressed Deputy Mayor Garien Gatewood to share when an internal investigation might be concluded.
“Making sure it gets done and making sure it gets done right is a part of that overall process. One, making sure we don’t step in front of any external reviews that are happening so we can know what information can be shared publicly and shared amongst this body and other folks,” Gatewood answered.
Fuentes joined other aldermen to push the measure out of committee, even though the external probe could be handled by the city’s Office of the Inspector General.
“I personally in my personal humble opinion do not believe the OIG should investigate this. Our public deserves full transparency of the details that happened on June 4th,” Fuentes said.
Earlier in Tuesday’s hearing, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said her office would investigate the matter if other agencies did not step forward to do so, but she said OIG rules would prevent details from being disclosed publicly.
A representative from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability said actions under the Welcoming City Ordinance fell outside of her agency’s jurisdiction. Several aldermen expressed concerns about the police department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs handling the investigation, even though Witzburg said she was not on board with the idea that BIA was not competent to investigate the matter.
Alderman Andre Vasquez urged his colleagues to pass the measure even though it was not determined which agency would handle the probe.
“What I would recommend given who’s here, is to pass the order to make sure we get that information and then, as you know, because I share your frustration immensely, which is why we moved with an order, to then identify who we want to do what, start drafting that together and move it,” Vasquez said.
In a post on X before Tuesday’s hearing, Alderman Raymond Lopez raised questions about aldermen who supported the investigation ordinance.
“Alds staged a protest in order to draw police to a demonstration near an @ICEgov so they could blast police for… responding to their unpermitted protest,” Lopez posted.
An ICE spokesperson said the people arrested outside the Homeland Security Office on Chicago’s Near South Side June 4 had final orders of removal by an immigration judge and had not complied with those orders.
Speaking at a new detention facility in Florida Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem encouraged undocumented migrants to self-deport.
“If you go on the [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] home app and go home now, you will get the chance to come back to the United States legally. You will get the chance to come back and do it the right way. If you don’t, you may end up here, and you may up here and being processed, deported out of this country and never get the chance to come back,” Noem said.
With the ordinance now passed out of committee, the full Chicago City Council may consider the issue at its next meeting on July 16.
