Welch Stands Up for Broadview with New Bill Stopping Trump’s Detention Centers in Neighborhoods
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch is continuing his fight against the abusive and disruptive presence of Donald Trump’s deportation agents in Broadview, advancing a new bill to prohibit immigration detention centers in neighborhoods where everyone should feel safe.
“This is not an abstract policy debate for me—this is personal, and it is deeply local. The Broadview detention facility sits in the heart of the district I represent. And during Operation Midway Blitz, the people who live in and around that community did not just witness aggressive federal activity—they lived through trauma,” Welch said. “This bill says something very simple and very reasonable: detention facilities do not belong in the middle of our neighborhoods. They should not be next to schools. They should not be near day care centers. They should not sit beside parks, public housing, places of worship, or private homes. Because when a detention center is dropped into the middle of a residential community, it doesn’t just affect the people inside that building—it affects every child walking to school, every senior looking out their window, and every family trying to live in peace.”
Coinciding with the launch of Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz in September 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have used a federal facility in Broadview as a detention and processing center—even as Broadview’s state and local leaders demand an end to the ICE presence.
The ICE presence has been especially disruptive for neighbors, as the facility is bordered by quiet residential neighborhoods and sits within a short distance of a church, a school, daycare centers, and small businesses. Neighbors and students at nearby schools have been affected by the teargas fired by ICE agents at demonstrators.
Welch is standing up for Broadview residents and fighting to protect people across Illinois from similar federal incursions with House Bill 5024, which would create new restrictions on immigration detention facilities in neighborhoods, restricting such operations within 1,500 feet of a home or apartment complex, as well as any school, day care center, public park, or house of worship.
Welch passed the bill out of the House Executive Committee on Wednesday with the support of Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, who appeared virtually before the committee to discuss how the ICE facility has impacted the community. Thompson and Welch worked together in October to demand ICE remove the fence erected blocking a public street.
“In Broadview, we have residents who live as close as 600 feet away from the ICE facility,” Thompson told committee members. “That is not a statistic; those are people. Families, children, individuals whose daily lives are directly impacted by what happens around that facility.”
