Religious leaders arriving at Broadview detention facility to deliver Communion to detainees

Dozens of protesters have gathered at the Broadview detention facility Saturday morning ahead of a delegation of religious leaders attempting to deliver Holy Communion to detainees.

Catholic priests, nuns and lay leaders from the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership gathered at St. Eulalia Church in Maywood before proceeding to the Broadview Detention Center at 1930 Beach St. Around 11 a.m., they marched down Lexington, praying and singing.

More than 500 members of the parish and other member organizations of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership from Chicago were part of the delegation.

On Saturday, crews put up barricades in front of the fence that a judge ordered removed by Tuesday per state police orders, according to a crew person on site.

A federal judge this week ordered the fence outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview to be taken down immediately.

The fence, erected in September, was still up as of Saturday morning. Officials have until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to take down the fence.

A guitar-playing protester was detained Saturday morning after he went over the barricade as buses drove by carrying what appeared to be detainees.

Protester Joshua Crozier, 26, who had been singing and playing his guitar all morning, went over the barricade to show a message on his guitar as the buses went by and was tackled by agents.

The ICE facility is the site of ongoing and often tense demonstrations, with agents deploying chemical irritants and rubber pellets, since President Donald Trump’s administration aggressively ramped up a deportation campaign in the Chicago area last month under the name “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Since then, protesters have arrived at the facility in the early morning hours, sometimes as early as 5 a.m. and have clashed with federal authorities into the late night hours.