ICE Attacked Me for Attending a Peaceful Protest

The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor speaks out on modern-day state violence.

Photograph courtesy of the author

By Ashley Vaughan

My name is Ashley Vaughan, and I am a disabled person who uses mobility devices. Resistance has a long history in my family. My grandmother survived the Holocaust, and she believed in fighting against fascism, protecting the vulnerable, and ending genocide. Her story remains a guiding light in my and my family’s life, which is what led me to the protests at Broadview, Illinois.

At 1930 Beach Street in Broadview, there is a boarded up building that is used to inhumanely detain people. The building is made of dark brick, shut off from the outside world. On September 12, 2025, in Franklin Park—just miles away—Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was killed by ICE. That horrific act of violence devastated the local community and sparked protests.

This facility, heavily guarded by local, state, and ICE officials, does not permit individuals to go inside unless pre-ordained. Some clergy, legal representatives, and family members have been allowed to go inside on occasion. Those that do report what they’ve seen, which includes uninhabitable and inhumane conditions. The inside lacks proper basic necessities like sanitation, food and medical care. Advocates and attorneys face significant barriers in communicating with detainees.

Outside of the facility, there are constant protests that family members, religious leaders, and regular civilians like myself partake in. On the evening that Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was murdered, I was protesting at Broadview, and I was assaulted.

I made it known to ICE that I was disabled. Still, while protesting with my mobility cane, I was struck on the forehead by a member of ICE firing so-called “less lethal” rounds from the roof. I fell back, I could not see, and I couldn’t breathe or speak due to the chemical projectiles getting into my eyes, mouth, throat, and lungs. The sting swarmed my body. In a desperate attempt for relief, I reached out for my cane. I then reached for my sign—the sign that had a picture of my Grandma in a Nazi camp—to protect me from the additional shots of “less lethal” rounds by being fired at my body by ICE agents. I tried to get behind the nearby dumpster. This was all captured on camera by bystanders who were filming.

The other protestors helped me get out of the way as ICE continued to close in on us, gave me medical attention, and called an ambulance. We continued to shield ourselves from the attacks, and when the ambulance finally arrived, it could not reach me immediately due to the continued firing and pepper spray. Once I was able to get in the ambulance, the paramedics could not drive away until they were cleared of the pepper spray fumes coming off my body.

If you live in Illinois or in Chicago: there is a federal facility in your community, protected by your local police, and funded by your tax dollars, that operates without transparency to detain immigrants or those who are suspected of being immigrants. Advocates have quite bluntly summed up what’s taking place: People are “being kidnapped off the streets, packed in hold cells, denied food, medical care, and basic necessities, and forced to sign away their legal rights.” This is happening here, in America, right now, in all of our names.

I went to Broadview to show up for members of the disability community who could not be there. I went there to exercise my First Amendment freedoms as an American and fight for people like my grandmother, people subject to needless violence by the hands of the government and police. Because that’s what this all was: needless. I never expected to be shot at for peacefully protesting. What happened to me is devastating, but it is nothing in comparison to the cruelty inflicted on people inside ICE facilities—torn from their families, deprived of their liberty, and held in inhumane conditions.

We cannot allow ICE to continue these abuses. We must keep pushing for people to be released, and we must close down Broadview and work to end the abuses that are being committed against our friends and neighbors in communities across America. To keep ourselves safe, we must do everything in our power to protect the most vulnerable people among us.

It is our job as citizens and human beings to shine a bright light on the darkness of places like the Broadview detention facility. The wave of state-inflicted violence that has met our peaceful protests only demonstrates the dire need for more of this kind of courage and determination. These things cannot be permitted to take place away from public view, in the shadows, out of sight and out of mind. I went to Broadview because as long as the detention center is operating there, we must each do our part to bear witness against everything it stands for.

History has its eyes on us.

Ashley Vaughan is a Chicago area resident who was harmed by ICE agents while taking part in the peaceful protests at the Broadview detention center.