I want to compare what ICE agents are doing in our country, and what policing looks like in our own community. Twice in my 30 years of living in Brookfield, I have witnessed arrests in my neighborhood. In both cases, a Brookfield police officer used a calm authority, rather than fear or force, to carry out the arrest.
One involved a Brookfield officer stopping a van driven by a man with an outstanding judicial warrant. The officer discovered that a young boy, the driver’s son, was sitting in the back seat. That officer spent an hour in his car making phone calls back and forth with extended family, then waited while a family member arrived to pick him up. That child did not have to spend one minute, frightened and alone, in a police station. This is not only good policing, this is the heart of who we are as a community.
We see ICE targeting whole neighborhoods with toxic chemicals, we see parents violently dragged from cars when they are waiting to pick their children up from school, we see peaceful protesters shot and killed — with no effort at accountability on the part of those in charge of ICE policing.
This cannot be our new normal. It is clear that violence and intimidation by ICE agents are not only their method, it is their purpose. It is happening to both American citizens and immigrants. For those who see undocumented immigrants as wholly without rights, I need to tell you about my dad. He was brought to America as a child. For a significant part of his life, he would have been classified as undocumented. He worked from the time he was a teenager, cared for his naturalized extended family during the Great Depression, and right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, enlisted in the U.S. Army. I am sure the military took a dim view of him enlisting without documentation, so as was his right, he got an immigration court hearing, received a waiver, served in Africa and Europe during the war, and later filed for his naturalization papers. The laws that enabled him to do this have not changed but are now being ignored.
I know passing a “Welcoming City” ordinance that restricts ICE from using village property to organize and stage raids does not give our police department the authority to enforce it. I am hoping that it does give them some additional options in using their tact and discretion to defuse situations that might occur, as well as giving the village of Brookfield an opportunity to make a strong statement of resistance to what is happening in Cook County and in our country.
Those same values that oblige us to be nonviolent, respectful toward others, and follow the law of the land also demand of us a public opposition to those in power who break the law, seek to avoid any accountability, and use violence, intimidation, and falsehoods to advance their power.
Locally, we can only hope to limit the damage being done. It will be up to the voters of this country to stop the progression of violent and often lawless behavior on the part of the Border Patrol and immigrant enforcement. I urge us all to do that.
John Platt
Brookfield