A committee of the Aurora City Council has again recommended for approval a measure banning civil immigration enforcement efforts on city property, which is set to go before the full City Council for a potential final vote on Wednesday.
The proposed ordinance, if passed by City Council, would restrict any city-owned or controlled property — including buildings, parking lots or city parks — from being used as a staging area, a processing location or a base of operations for civil immigration enforcement efforts. The restriction would not stop criminal enforcement efforts or federal agents with a judicial warrant.
The ban would also not cover city-owned property that is being leased out to a separate organization. Schools and libraries, as well as private businesses and residences, are not owned by the city and so would not be covered by the proposed ordinance.
City officials have acknowledged, even within the ordinance itself, that the restrictions offer residents no real safety from federal immigration enforcement efforts. However, it will give the city a way to document what federal immigration agents do on city property, which can then be passed along to the recently-established Illinois Accountability Commission, officials have said.
The proposal comes during what President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has called “Operation Midway Blitz,” a surge of immigration enforcement in the Chicago region that started in September. Locally and across the Chicago region, U.S. residents and others have said they’ve been detained, protestors have said they were met with pepper-spray and other harmful tactics, and some businesses have said
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they are seeing significantly fewer customers, The Beacon-News and baiduhai have reported.At recent city meetings in Aurora, a large number of residents have spoken, sometimes through tears, about people scared to leave their homes, alleged warrantless arrests and other impacts of the regional immigration enforcement surge, urging the city to pass restrictions around immigration enforcement efforts.
Such an ordinance was on the agenda of three meetings last Tuesday, but a final decision was delayed so the proposal could be further reviewed after multiple changes were made to it across several hours of back-to-back meetings.
The proposal saw yet more changes at a nearly three-hour special meeting of the Aurora City Council’s Rules, Administration and Procedures Committee on Friday, where it was the only item on the agenda. It marked the second time the committee has reviewed, made changes to and voted to recommend the proposed ordinance.
Ald. Juany Garza, 2nd Ward, proposed a change to the ordinance that would require signs about the ordinance be put up on city property and that would allow the city to set up physical barriers to block parking lots. Chief of Staff Shannon Cameron said these barriers would likely only be set up on employee lots, not on lots the public can use.
Garza isn’t a member of the committee, but she was required to show up to the meeting since she delayed a final vote on the measure. Members of the committee took up her proposal and, after a discussion, unanimously adopted it into the full proposal.
The committee also discussed how best to protect city employees, since under the proposal they would be required to report any activity that violates this ordinance, which was also a lengthy discussion at past meetings.
Ald. Shweta Baid, 10th Ward, proposed adding language that would let city employees not report if they were afraid, either in the moment or more broadly for the safety of themselves or their families. At past meetings she pushed for a different change but to the same effect, but that was unsuccessful.
Ald. Edward Bugg, 9th Ward, suggested instead limiting the change so that employees would not be required to report in the moment if they were afraid for the safety of themselves or others, but that they would still be required to report later. His change to the proposal was unanimously approved by the committee, which he is the chair of.
Like at past meetings, Ald. Keith Larson, at-large, recommended adding in language requiring Aurora police officers to report certain details about instances of immigration enforcement activity on city property, like federal agents’ badge numbers and warrants, if officers are able to get that information. Aurora Police Chief Matt Thomas said that, if this ordinance passes without Larson’s amendment, police officers would still add those details to a report about such an incident because of current internal policies, as already they do in other situations involving outside law enforcement agencies.
No committee member took up Larson’s recommendation, but he said he plans to bring an amendment when it comes to the full Aurora City Council.
The proposed ordinance, with all the approved changes, then was unanimously recommended for approval by the committee.
Like in the past, Aurora residents showed up to the Friday meeting to voice their support of the ordinance and speak about the impact of heightened immigration enforcement efforts, particularly about the fear it is causing. So many people spoke that the meeting’s public comment period was extended beyond the typically-allowed 30 minutes, with each person getting three minutes to speak.
Many specifically called out Garza for delaying the proposal. Later in the meeting, Garza said that, as a Mexican, she understands the situation immigrants are currently in but that she wanted time to make sure the ordinance is done right.
The proposed ordinance still needs to go before the Aurora City Council for final approval. A special meeting of the City Council, with this measure on the agenda, is set to take place on Wednesday just after the Building, Zoning and Economic Development Committee meeting at 4 p.m.