Immigration authorities stepped up their action in Northwest Indiana Thursday with a more visible presence in Lake County.
Hammond City officials told ICE agents attempting to stage an operation in that city’s police department parking lot were asked to leave while in East Chicago, multiple videos circulated on social media of presumed immigration authorities taking people into custody in a bakery and a parking lot.
The city of Hammond asked ICE agents to leave the parking lot, Mayor Tom McDermott announced Thursday morning.
Officers spotted the agents setting up around 6:54 a.m., Hammond Police spokesman Cpt. Steve Kellogg said. Once McDermott was notified, city officials “immediately informed” them they weren’t authorized to stage operations on city property, McDermott said in a social media statement.
In recent weeks, protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago have escalated, primarily at an immigrant detention center in Broadview, a village in Cook County about 12 miles west of Chicago. The Texas National Guard was also federalized by the Trump administration and deployed Thursday following a series of intense confrontations between protesters and federal immigration enforcement officers taking part in “Operation Midway Blitz,” the mass deportation mission being carried out in Chicago and the suburbs.
Carolyn Jackson and Earl Harris Jr., the State Representatives for Hammond and East Chicago, said in a joint statement that they’re “monitoring the situation in their respective communities.”
Officials have confirmed that the blitz includes Lake County, Indiana. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not return a request for comment.
