She Was Arrested for Peacefully Protesting, And Kept Going Back Anyway

The story of one Chicagoan who didn't let ICE’s intimidation tactics silence her.

Federal agents manhandle protestors at the Broadview Detention Center in Chicago / Credit: Paul Goyette, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Broadview ICE Detention Center is supposed to be a processing and temporary detention facility. It has been in operation since 2006. But when masked ICE agents started swarming Chicago, Broadview became a place where members of the community gathered to express their opposition to what was happening. They refused to stand by and let ICE terrorize the people in their neighborhoods. They started holding regular protests just outside of Broadview.

One of those protestors is A’Keisha Lee.

Here’s what A’Keisha says she’s learned from that experience: ICE shows a complete disregard for people’s safety and for people’s lives. She saw agents tear gas people from just inches away. As protesters peered through the gate into the facility, agents would shoot tear gas canisters at them. Flash bang grenades were also used against protestors, with no regard for their safety.

Outside of Broadview, she and her fellow protestors saw naked aggression from these agents. They were pushing peaceful protestors to the ground. On at least one occasion, they looked like they were gearing up to hit protestors with their cars. Then they started detaining protestors and taking them inside the building. Witnessing this, A’Keisha almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and it made her even more alarmed about what might be going on behind those walls.

Chicagoans took to the streets because they wanted to document the violence and illegal actions of ICE and Customs and Border Protection. In many cases there were legal observers present to track the abuses and ensure accountability down the road. Watching this all unfold, A’Keisha says she thought to herself: If federal agents were willing to break the law outside, in broad daylight, in front of all the cameras—what might they be doing behind closed doors?

Then they came for her. A’Keisha got arrested for peacefully protesting ICE at Broadview, and CNN captured video of her being cuffed and detained for doing nothing other than exercising her First Amendment rights. Unlike so many others who are detained, she was able to get out, and continue to tell the world her story.

Here’s what happened: A’Keisha was standing with a group of peaceful protesters outside of Broadview when local law enforcement officers approached her in a “militarized fashion,” she told CNN. As they pushed their way into the group, people started yelling, falling, and chaos erupted. Next, A’Keisha says a baton hit her in the face, and she fell to the ground. Some officers picked her up, detained her, and put zip ties around her wrists. She couldn’t understand why she was being arrested. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Then, police officers took her to the local station, booked her, took her fingerprints, and held her in a cell for about five hours. Then they let her go.

This all was an education to A’Keisha. It was scary, enraging, and deeply un-democratic. And yet, the people still kept coming out. After her arrest, A’Keisha kept going out there to voice her opposition to what ICE is doing, because she knows this is not an isolated incident. People might think that this administration’s illegal immigration enforcement efforts are not touching their community, or that somehow they’ll be shielded from it if they just keep their heads down for long enough. But, A’Keisha says, this could easily happen to anyone. Nobody is off-limits. And regardless, responsible citizens have an obligation to speak out in defense of their friends and neighbors who are in danger.

After Chicago became a national flashpoint, these kinds of scenes have tragically re-played themselves in Minneapolis and other cities over recent months. Federal immigration agents killed two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and peaceful protestors have been shoved to the ground, pepper-sprayed, and more. For what? For documenting ICE’s actions. For speaking up for their neighbors. For exercising their First Amendment rights. To those in Chicago, like A’Keisha, all of this looks sadly familiar. They feel the pain of their friends in other cities, but they are also encouraged by the community-wide pushback that has been mobilized in response.

A’Keisha says that bravery is a muscle like any other, and you have to work it. Early on, when she joined with other protestors who were demonstrating against ICE’s actions, they didn’t feel brave. They felt duty-bound, and scared. They were shaking as they stood outside the Broadview facility, but they also felt like they were figuring out how to stand up for what’s right. At first, the only way to do this kind of work is to do it scared. There’s no other way.

A’Keisha says she only started to feel truly brave as she got more involved in the community, over time. She only became brave because others who felt the same way as she did chose to support her, just as she was supporting them. She only became brave as she started getting out there more and more. And she hopes that more people are inspired to do the same, and stand up for what they believe.

As A’Keisha was being arrested, the crowd around her was chanting at the officers present, “Who do you serve?” The answer is us.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.