A crowd of more than 50 clergy leaders and community members braved chilly winds to march outside Sherman Plaza on Sunday afternoon as part of a national campaign to prevent Chicago-based Highlands Real Estate Investment Trust from converting a vacant Colorado prison into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility.
“We are here with our voices,” said Rev. Jason Coulter, the senior minister of the First Congregational Church of Evanston. “We are here with our anger. We are here to send a message to Highlands REIT to say no to profiting off ICE.”
According to Rev. Michael Kirby of Northminster Presbyterian Church, Highlands REIT owns the commercial spaces in downtown Evanston’s Sherman Plaza, which currently houses Target, Northwestern Medicine and Life Time Fitness, along with other properties in the area.
A group of clergy and community members held a similar protest on March 20, where speakers, including Evanston clergy leaders and an Evanston resident who was held in ICE custody for almost two months, spoke about what Highlands REIT is and the conditions in an ICE detention center.
In February 2025, Highlands REIT offered to lease Big Horn Correctional Facility, a vacant prison in Hudson, Colorado, to ICE and private-prison company The GEO Group, according to a report obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.
According to the Chicago Reader, Big Horn has the capacity to house more than 1,200 people across four housing units.
Clergy leaders organized the gathering on Sunday in partnership with Arise Chicago, a nonprofit organization founded by faith leaders that advocates for immigrant workers’ rights. Laura Garza, the executive director of the group, said the faith community has always been “a moral voice” to bring up issues in the community.
Coulter and Rev. Erik Christensen from Trinity Lutheran Church led the crowd as they marched around the plaza, singing protest songs like “This is For Our Neighbors” by Lu Aya of The Peace Poets and Heidi Wilson’s “Hold On.”
According to Ethan Aronson, the faith community organizer at Arise Chicago, the majority of these songs came from the Singing Resistance, a nonviolence movement that originated in early 2026 in response to escalated immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. Aronson said the songs are being shared across cities, “building solidarity” and spreading love.
“(These movements) are about love for immigrants,” Aronson said. “They’re about love for workers. They’re about love of neighbors. And that’s why so much of this movement has been grounded in faith.”
Throughout the protest, community members passed out flyers to passersby, urging them to call and email the firm.
Seventh Ward resident Will Pierce said he found out about the gathering through a sermon Sunday morning at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
“I just felt I had to show up, because I got a lot of feelings about it,” Pierce said.
Pierce also attended a Saturday “No Kings” rally in Park Ridge, Illinois, one of many protests nationwide calling for accountability from the federal government.
He said that while there was no singing at the rally, those protesting Highlands REIT were “literally trying to use their voices.”
Kirby said his next aim is to communicate with the plaza’s tenants and encourage them to write letters to the real estate investment trust, while continuing to get the message out.
“What better way to make your point than with joyful, righteous protest?” Kirby said.
Another gathering will be held on May 1 in Chicago as part of the May Day general strike, Garza said.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the date of the earlier protest by clergy and community members. The Daily regrets this error.
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