About 250 community members gathered Saturday afternoon for a vigil at the Dr. Jorge and Luz Maria Prieto Community Center, protesting increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol activity in Evanston.
The event took place just steps from the intersection of Asbury Avenue and Oakton Street, where the Evanston Police Department reported ICE detained two or three people Friday afternoon.
Rev. Michael Nabors of Evanston’s Second Baptist Church introduced several faith leaders and public officials, including Mayor Daniel Biss, Cook County Commissioner Josina Morita and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston). He said Friday’s altercation between community members and federal agents demanded an immediate response.
“After the melee occurred just across the street, the mayor and I were sitting on a porch and talking, and I said to him, ‘You know, we need to have a community gathering right away.’ We thought about next week, we thought about tomorrow,” Nabors said. “The mayor said, ‘No, we need to have something tomorrow. We need to respond right away.’”
Biss announced that EPD has opened an investigation into what he called “horrendous crimes” committed against community members by federal agents. EPD officers also recorded the badge numbers of federal agents at the intersection Friday afternoon, which Biss called the “first step toward accountability.”
Opening his remarks, Biss said that “24 hours ago, this neighborhood was under attack.” He urged residents to stay alert to federal enforcement activity in Evanston, invoking the story of his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who “started hearing about the horrors that were occurring across Europe” in 1940.
“And you know what she said? That can’t be. That’s not possible. They’re blowing it out of proportion,” Biss said. “By the time she knew the truth, it was too late to move. It was too late to protect herself, and she and her siblings and her parents were put on a cattle car. The day they got off that cattle car was the last day her parents lived.”
He added that although Evanston residents are “scared,” they “do not give up.”
Skokie resident Rebecca Sambol echoed the mayor’s sentiment.
“I’m 68 years old. In my wildest dreams, did I think this was going to happen in our country? Never,” she said. “But the beautiful thing is that it’s bringing people out to fight back, and I think people will continue to fight. I’m terrified that we’re not going to win, but we can’t give up.”
State Sen. Karina Villa (D-West Chicago) noted that during its recent veto session, the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation encouraging universities, hospitals and childcare centers to develop response plans for potential ICE activity.
In her speech, City Clerk Stephanie Mendoza — Evanston’s first Latina elected official — compared recent events to her upbringing in Tennessee, where she said deportations were commonplace.
“It’s so shameful. We are so tired,” Mendoza said. “What’s happening in Evanston today? I lived like this in Tennessee. This was a daily occurrence, where I went to school and my classmates came to tell us that their parents were gone. This is normal to me, and if we allow this to continue, it will be normal to our children.”
Still, Mendoza said that by “terrorizing children” who look like her, federal agents are inadvertently mobilizing a new generation of community leaders.
Ninth Ward resident and Democratic Party of Evanston President Kathy Hayes, who lives “down the street” from the site of Friday’s altercation, said the vigil reminded her of previous social justice movements in Chicago.
“It reminds me of my cousins in the ’60s, when my aunts were so worried about them going to Grant Park and getting beat up,” Hayes said. “It reminds me that we still have a lot of work to do. And it really reminds me that from the inception of this citizenry — if you want freedom, if you want peace, you have to fight for it. It’s a journey, not a destination.”
The vigil also featured speeches from several faith leaders, including rabbis and pastors. Many invoked the notion of a “beloved community,” popularized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, to criticize federal immigration enforcement activity.
Rev. Luke Harris-Ferree, pastor at Evanston’s Grace Lutheran Church, recounted a conversation with their child to emphasize the importance of community resistance.
“Yesterday, I was picking up my four-year-old from preschool, and I didn’t know how to explain to her why the helicopters were hovering overhead. But what I did know how to explain to her is why all of her neighbors were out in the street,” Harris-Ferree said. “I could tell her about how her neighbors were showing up for each other. And she knew that she was cared for in this community and that her friends would be, too.”
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