Should Broadview, Illinois Be Placed Under Martial Law?

Violence against ICE officers and operations in Chicago has escalated in the past few weeks. Thomas Mills, the Chief of Police for Broadview, a suburb of Chicago where the ICE facility is located, has stated that the fenced barrier protecting the ICE facility there should be torn down. Of course, doing so would leave the facility unsecure and vulnerable to a siege from violent anti-ICE protesters and endanger ICE officers, other federal officials, and the detainees who have been apprehended. Whether the police chief has the authority to order the protective fence’s demolition shouldn’t be debatable. He doesn’t. He would be authorizing the destruction of federal property. If he gives such an order, federal law enforcement should arrest and incarcerate him. But if Mills wants to FA then he will FO. Good luck with that.

The most recent violent confrontation occurred this morning. From Fox News (emphasis mine):

Federal agents were rammed and boxed in by 10 cars in Broadview, Ill., where anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crowds have been gathering for days, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

"Pritzker’s Chicago Police Department is leaving the shooting scene and refuses to assist us in securing the area. There is a growing crowd, and we are deploying special operations to control the scene," McLauglin wrote in a post on X.

DHS said agents were unable to move their vehicles and had to exit. One of the drivers accused of ramming into the law enforcement vehicle was armed with a semi-automatic weapon, according to McLaughlin. She said officers "were forced to deploy their weapons and fire defensive shots at an armed U.S. citizen."

ICE officers and other officials in Chicago have been doxxed and followed home after work. It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to guess that at some point an ICE officer or officers are going to get shot or murdered.

Illinois governor Pritzker and officials in Chicago, much like the governor of Oregon and the officials in Portland, want to assure Americans that the violence evident by protesters, by Antifa, and others are nothing to be alarmed at, and that their cities are very safe. Pritzker and Oregon's Governor Kotek took strolls around their respective cities (without cameras showing their security details behind them) to prove to Americans that there was absolutely no need for any federal troop presence. Both governors insist that the real villains are the ICE officers who are attempting to find and detain illegal alien criminals – many of whom are murderers, rapists, sex and drug traffickers, and child molesters.

Oregon and Illinois may attempt to appeal to leftist or gutless judges to block the deployment of federal troops to their cities, but that’s not likely to hold up on appeal. The federal government has the duty and authority to protect its officers and its facilities and to uphold federal immigration law, and sanctuary cities and states are running headfirst into the supremacy clause of the Constitution.

Finally, there are probably hundreds of Chicago and Portland law enforcement officers who privately detest the politicians running their cities and may leave the force. They may even sign up to be ICE officers. Wouldn’t that be something?