After months of consideration, the city of Park Ridge took its first vote to approve an official welcome message at the April 20 Committee of the Whole meeting.
The message, technically a “resolution establishing Park Ridge as a welcoming city,” is about three pages long, and it extols the virtues of all residents and guests and workers in Park Ridge and affirms everyone’s value. It also seeks to assuage residents, visitors, and anyone else in Park Ridge that the city supports and respects immigrants and diversity, including people who aren’t legal residents.
But it doesn’t outright condemn federal immigration agents and it doesn’t explicitly prohibit them from the city or from city property and local leaders aren’t sure it could do that anyway.
The document was conceived after a meeting in February wherein members of the public urged the council to take a stand against ICE and that agency’s immigration crackdown over the summer prior.
Other cities — including Chicago — have passed “ICE-free” zone ordinances prohibiting ICE agents from staging operations on city property. Park Ridge leaders declined to do this because they worried that if the issue were forced, it would pit local police against federal authorities over an issue of trespassing — usually a misdemeanor, ticketable offense.
Residents asked for something similar in Park Ridge.
“There’s more the city needs to consider,” said Renee Lewis. “There should be ICE-free zones.”
She also urged the city to offer residents clearer protocol on what to do should ICE return in a few months.
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“I think there’s a big concern for this summer,” she said. “I appreciate the welcoming city resolution, but that’s just not enough.”
At one point during the discussion, Park Ridge Chief Bob Kampwirth said if the city did pass a resolution that prohibited city parking lot use, the most his officers could likely do would be to ask the federal officials to move.
“We would go out and tell them they can’t (park there) and they would most likely comply, and they’d move out to the street,” he said.
Alderperson John Moran asked the chief what would happen if they didn’t move.
“It’s a ticket,” he said. “It’s not an arrestable offense. … If they don’t pay the ticket, we don’t have much recourse. Is that fairly accurate?”
“Fairly accurate,” Kampwirth said.
Moran said he didn’t see the point in setting up a scenario that could put the local police in an untenable situation.
“Most of the folks in the room here — not everyone — aren’t happy with how ICE is operating and how they’re working,” he said. “But the idea of taking this step to create a local ordinance that has no real enforceable teeth and would only put our police in an awkward situation if it were to happen, it seems grand, but it wouldn’t have the effect hoped for.”
A bit later, one man stormed out of the meeting, shouting at the council, “This council is not serious about protecting anyone in this community.”
Mayor Marty Maloney urged calm, and Moran said there’s nothing the city can do to stop ICE from coming into the city. The resolution eventually passed six-to-zero with Alderperson Fred Sanchez abstaining.
The resolution will go before the board once more, at the first meeting in May, for final passage.
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.