Sorrow and Sacrifice
Undocumented immigrants are being forced to surrender themselves to protect their families amidst deadly ICE raids.
It’s around 9:00 PM on October 2nd, 2025 at the ICE detainee facility in the tiny village of Broadview, IL.
It’s largely quiet. A handful of protesters are keeping watch outside the bulding’s hasty fortifications, periodically heckling agents walking in and out of the building.
A small group of people appear on the street, stopping to embrace. There are tears, and sobbing; one of the men is apparently subject to a removal order, and wants to surrender himself to protect his family from a potential raid by ICE.
Suddenly, more than a dozen heavily-armed agents appear at the facility’s fence line and on the roof, significantly outnumbering activists keeping watch.
The man and his family approach the fence, explaining that he wants to surrender.
It takes several minutes for agents to open the gate, with its heavy steel crossbars and four large padlocks giving the appearance of a medieval castle gate made to ward off invading armies, not a suburban facility that processes nonviolent immigrants in 2025.
The gate is finally opened, and after a final embrace, the man disappears. With the opacity of the immigration detention and deportation process, it’s unclear when he’ll be able to speak with his family again, where he will be taken, or even what country he may be deported to.
The gate closes, the agents retreat inside, and activists continue their vigil… And no one on either side knows how long this campaign of cleaving immigrant families apart will continue.
