Robert Held, the man who was pushed to the ground by ICE agent Adam Saracco in December 2025 at a gas station in Brookfield, has filed a lawsuit against the village of Broadview to prevent it from enforcing a designated protest zone outside the federal detention facility in that community.
Held, an attorney and board member of the Chicago Council of Lawyers, filed the federal complaint Tuesday, Sept. 1 against the municipality of Broadview as well as Mayor Katrina Thompson and Police Chief Thomas Mills in their official capacities.
Thompson and Mills did not respond to an emailed request for comment on Sept. 1, though an automatic response indicated Thompson would be out of the office and unreachable through Monday, Sept. 7.
According to a draft copy of the complaint Held filed, which he shared with the Landmark on Aug. 28, Broadview keeps a designated “grassy area” for protesting on the east side of Beach Street, across the street from the detention facility, excluding protestors from the public sidewalk on the west side of Beach Street. In the complaint, Held said an unidentified Broadview police officer on Aug. 22 “ordered” him to move off the sidewalk and directed him to the designated protest area.
Held said he sent a letter in writing to Thompson on Aug. 25 asking that Broadview rescind the protest area and “permit peaceful expressive activity” on public sidewalks around the detention facility. He said she responded that he should speak to the village attorney and that the protest zone policy has not since been lifted.
Held said he plans to return to the west sidewalk on Saturday, Sept. 5 from about noon to 3 p.m. but that he “reasonably fears” he and any other “peaceful demonstrators” may face enforcement of the protest zone policy.
In a Sept. 1 press release shared on Held’s behalf, spokesperson Paula Thompson wrote that he found the “factual basis” to uphold the designated protest zone has changed, with the facility and surrounding protests becoming “far less active” since last fall and the protest zone’s enforcement being inconsistent.
“Broadview continues to place unnecessary restrictions on our First Amendment right to protest,” Held said in the written statement. “It is part of the very foundation of the Constitution and our democracy that the entire country is a ‘free speech zone.’”
This isn’t Held’s first lawsuit against Broadview, Thompson and Mills. In October 2025, before ICE agent Saracco pushed him to the ground, Held filed a suit over the designated hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in which protesting outside the facility was permitted, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In his Sept. 1 statement, Held said he had previously obtained a preliminary injunction to limit Broadview’s ability to restrict the hours of protest outside the detention facility, with a final ruling “expected in the coming days.”
