One of the first visible signs of President Donald Trump’s expected immigration-enforcement push went up overnight in downtown Chicago in the form of 10-foot high fencing surrounding the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in the Loop.
The fencing, which surrounds the high-rise courthouse at 219 S. Dearborn St. and is buttressed by concrete barriers, offers added protection should protests break out across the street at Federal Plaza, officials said. The block has been the site of numerous rallies challenging Trump administration initiatives, particularly immigration.
Anyone seeking to enter the courthouse Friday morning was being directed to a single entrance through the fence on the northeast corner of Dearborn and Monroe streets. Once past it, however, there was no additional visible security inside the building.
During the Democratic National Convention last year, the courthouse was subjected to numerous layers of security, including not only fencing but a tight screening process inside requiring those with business in the building to leave their IDs with officers in the lobby.
Courthouse officials said in a statement Friday that the fencing was “temporary” and meant to help those who need to enter the building to “do so safely.” The courthouse remains open and accessible, the clerk’s office will be open for its regular hours and in-person proceedings will continue as scheduled by the assigned judge, the statement read.
“Providing access to justice is at the heart of the Court’s mission and critical for our democracy,” U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia Kendall said in the written statement. “Maintaining access to the courthouse for anyone who seeks redress remains a top priority of the court. It is a core principle to promote our rule of law.”
Workers began installing the fencing Thursday night as the Trump administration was preparing to deploy about 300 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other federal resources to the Chicago area, including the Naval Station Great Lakes in the north suburbs that will act as a headquarters for the operation.
Trump has also repeatedly threatened to send in National Guard troops to assist the efforts and to help quell violent crime, which the president has tried to paint as out of control but in fact has been steadily decreasing in Chicago in recent years. Trump ordered a similar deployment of soldiers in Washington, D.C., which sued Trump earlier this week over the legality of the move.
State officials here, meanwhile, have been kept largely in the dark about the scope and exact direction of the mission. On Thursday, Gov. JB Pritzker said there had been “nothing official in communication with the state,” but reiterated his understanding that federal agents would be “fully assembled” by Friday, with the anticipated immigration crackdown set to begin “early on Saturday morning.”
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“Part of their kind of nefarious plan is to begin with ICE, cause mayhem on the ground, and by doing that say that there’s a need for military troops on the ground to protect ICE,” Pritzker said, speaking to reporters outside an elementary school in Berwyn. “For the people who are going to protest, they’ve got to protest peacefully, not give them any reason to call in National Guard or military troops of other types.”
At least one large-scale protest was already scheduled for downtown this weekend. On Friday, a group called the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda announced plans to rally at Congress Plaza, a few blocks from the courthouse, and march through downtown to protest “Trump’s plan to unleash federal troops in Chicago.”
While the Dirksen courthouse is often a visible rallying point for protesters, anyone arrested is unlikely to be processed in the building unless they are accused of assaulting a federal official or damaging federal property.
During a Trump-ordered immigration-enforcement action in Los Angeles over the summer, two people were indicted on charges they assaulted federal officers stationed at a federal building there after one of them was confronted while using a permanent marker to write on the building.