The Aurora City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved a measure banning civil immigration enforcement efforts on city property, an idea which has seen significant community support.
The ordinance now restricts 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 federal immigration enforcement efforts. The restriction would not stop criminal enforcement efforts or federal agents with a judicial warrant.
The ban also does 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 aren’t covered by the ordinance.
A growing number of other jurisdictions in the area have adopted similar measures, including East Aurora School District 131, Batavia, Elgin, Carpentersville, Will County, Lake County, Chicago and Cook County.
Aurora 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.
While the measure isn’t a “silver bullet,” Aurora Mayor John Laesch said at the Wednesday meeting, it shows that the Aurora City Council and city government “are standing with the community.”
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.Many have come to speak at recent Aurora city meetings in favor of the ordinance and about the impact ramped-up federal immigration efforts are having on the city’s residents. At the special Aurora City Council meeting on Wednesday, residents spoke of families living in fear and scared to leave their homes, regardless of their immigration status.
Although federal officials have said that those who are here legally and aren’t breaking laws have nothing to fear, a recent ProPublica investigation found at least 170 U.S. citizens have been arrested by immigration agents during Trump’s second term, including nearly 20 children.
Some who urged the Aurora City Council to pass the ban also pushed for more to be done to protect the community. Ruben Morales Jr., a community patroller who has said he was hurt and detained by federal agents while responding to a report of suspicious vehicles at a local elementary school, asked aldermen to form their own patrol groups similar to what residents have already been organizing.
“Your citizens, your people, we’re the ones looking out for each other,” Morales said. “You guys could be doing the exact same thing.”
Ald. Keith Larson, at-large, said he would be supporting the ordinance on the condition that it is a first step, since as many pointed out, it would not solve the problem right away. Aurora should be a leader and work with other nearby communities in these efforts, he said.
The Aurora City Council has heard from over 60 people on this topic, according to Ald. Daniel Barreiro, 1st Ward. He told the audience he appreciates them for being the voices for those who couldn’t be there and for sharing stories about what’s happening in the community.
“Our community has been affected,” he said. “We see it.”
The ordinance passed Wednesday isn’t perfect, Barreiro said, but there have been a lot of changes made to it throughout the approval process. Aldermen just want to make sure they get it right, he said.
Ald. Juany Garza, 2nd Ward, who previously delayed a vote on the measure after a number of changes were made to it, said she now feels comfortable with it because of various discussions aldermen have had. She thanked audience members for being patient.
All aldermen in attendance at the Wednesday meeting voted in favor of the ordinance banning civil immigration enforcement efforts on city property. Not at the meeting was Ald. Shweta Baid, 10th Ward.
The now-approved ordinance extends principles laid out in the state TRUST Act, which prohibits the city from using its resources to support federal civil immigration enforcement efforts, city officials have said at past meetings.
Under the ordinance, city employees who observe the ordinance being violated would need to report it to their supervisor as soon as practical. The supervisor would then need to report it to the Mayor’s Office, which would document the incident. Officials have stressed that the city would not be asking employees to put themselves in harm’s way or to interfere with enforcement efforts.
The measure went through many changes across the several meetings it was discussed at. Adopted changes have included adding language clarifying that the ordinance doesn’t guarantee anyone’s safety, requiring the Aurora Police Department to create its own procedures around reporting on violations of the ordinance and allowing the city to set up physical barriers to block its parking lots, among others.
There were also several attempted changes that were voted down by the Aurora City Council or one of its committees. One change would have let city employees not report if they were afraid, either in the moment or more broadly for the safety of themselves or their families, and another would have added guidelines for what specific information police need to gather when federal agents are on city property, including badge numbers.