On July 30, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer entered Forest Park’s Village Hall just before 10:30 a.m. He asked for help from someone allegedly stalking him — shown in a video that Sam Luhmann took of the man. The video shows village staff letting the man into the Forest Park Police Department reportedly to use the bathroom, then someone coming out of the police department to reportedly move the ICE agent’s car from the parking lot at 517 Des Plaines Ave.
“We record these agents to hold them accountable, as they constantly operate illegally and hurt our community members. There must be consequences for their actions,” Ben Luhmann, Sam’s brother, told the Review.
The West Chicago siblings have documented ICE activity since September, when many federal agents were deployed to cities across the country. In this case, 16-year-old Sam Luhmann recognized that the license plate of the Chevy Tahoe the ICE agent was driving as the same one present at multiple ICE arrests in the Chicago suburbs that have been made without warrants.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request for comment about the situation.
“They will often claim that they are being followed or harassed, but all we do is film them and give them space to operate. Everything we do is totally within our First Amendment rights,” Ben Luhmann told the Review.
While the Luhmanns are within their rights, according to the Illinois Trust Act, municipal police are restricted from helping with federal immigration enforcement efforts. That includes “transporting any individuals, establishing a security or traffic perimeter, or providing other on-site support.” And municipal police “May not permit immigration agents’ use of agency facilities or equipment,” according to the act.
“From the perspective of our police personnel, the primary goal was to promptly resolve the situation and remove the ICE officer from the premises to de-escalate a scenario that could have otherwise become disruptive,” Mayor Rory Hoskins wrote in a July 31 statement.
After Hoskins released his statement, Ben and Sam’s mom, Audrey Roberts Luhmann, posted a response to the mayor on Facebook: “The Forest Park Police Department violated the Illinois Trust Act on July 30 by assisting a federal ICE agent and preventing civilians from legally recording his actions. I am asking for your support to assist the state of Illinois in holding them publicly accountable.”
“Nothing my son was doing was causing escalation. He was not threatening the agent nor anyone on the premises. In fact, Mr. Mayor, my son never spoke to the agent at all; he was simply exercising his First Amendment right to record a member of a government agency whose agents continue to operate unlawfully and violently, and whose leadership repeatedly issues false statements of ‘fact.’”
According to Ben Luhmann, on July 30, his brother was recording the ICE agent as he drove the car alone around Village Hall before parking in a handicapped spot and walking inside.
Hoskins said the ICE agent was granted entry into the police department by police personnel at 10:26 a.m. Five minutes later, “a civilian employee of the police department moved the officer’s vehicle to the rear of Village Hall. Our surveillance system shows the vehicle departed village property at 10:33 a.m.,” Hoskins said in the statement.
While Forest Park police helped the ICE agent get away from Luhmann, “Under no circumstances will Forest Park personnel share information with ICE or other federal agencies for purposes that include immigration enforcement or monitoring status or whereabouts of anyone who resides in Forest Park, works here or obtains services in our community,” Hoskins said in the statement. “Maintaining the public’s trust is essential to our legitimacy as elected public servants. My colleagues and I strongly believe that Village Hall should be a safe place for all.”
After ICE arrested two workers at Concordia Cemetery last October, Hoskins denounced the presence of ICE in the village.
Months later, Hoskins emphasized the safety of the village, while supporting the police department.
“I ask for your continued support of Forest Park’s first responders,” Hoskins wrote in the July 31 statement. “Right now, our society is polarized. Residents and observers offer a variety of opinions about how things should be done. While acknowledging the varied opinions and values held by Forest Park’s residents, we are committed to providing a safe environment where the members of our wonderfully diverse community can participate and thrive with dignity intact.”
“Your words and actions matter, Mr. Mayor,” Audrey Roberts Luhmann wrote on Facebook. “You may have ‘expressed strong concerns’ about activity and law enforcement tactics during last year’s Midway Blitz immigration operations, but your statement in response to your police department’s actions on July 30 demonstrates your unwillingness to use state law to hold your own civil servants accountable and to actually protect Illinois civilians from a federal agency that has wreaked havoc on our city, state, and nation. The preservation of truth by legal documentation of ICE’s actions is one of the only forms of accountability left to American citizens.”