UPDATE: At 1:27 a.m. on Sept. 28, Unraveled Press reports that co-founder Steve Held has been released.
ORIGINAL STORY — The co-founder of Chicago independent media outlet Unraveled Press was detained this evening while covering the ongoing protests outside of the Broadview ICE facility.
Video posted to social media platform Bluesky shows Steve Held being detained by federal agents around 7:20 p.m. Prior to his detainment, videos by Unraveled Press show Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino and a large presence of other federal agents outside the immigration detention facility in Broadview, a western suburb about 12 miles out from Chicago. The videos show the details of patches on some of the agents’ uniforms: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and ATF, which is the acronym for Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Throughout September, The TRiiBE has been collaborating with Unraveled Press and local alt-weekly the Chicago Reader to publish confirmed sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents in the Chicago area. Together, we also covered a demonstration outside the Broadview facility on Sept. 19. During that protest, federal agents threw chemical irritants and shot pepper balls at demonstrators, elected officials, political hopefuls and members of the media.
It is unclear why Held was detained by federal agents.
An Unraveled Press investigation published on Sept. 13 disproved the initial narrative given by federal immigration agents after they shot and killed unarmed father Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park, a suburb outside of Chicago.
Last week, a video posted to social media showed a federal agent snatching Held’s reporter credentials and shooting chemical weapons at him while he reported on a protest outside the Broadview facility.
While covering a protest on Friday outside the Broadview facility, Unraveled Press co-founder Raven Geary was shot in the face by a chemical weapon.
A collection of 10 Chicago newsrooms, including The TRiiBE and the Chicago Reader, issued the following statement:
“Federal agents detained Chicago journalist Steve Held, of Unraveled Press, on Saturday, September 27 outside of the Broadview Detention Facility while reporting on the ongoing protests. We urge for his immediate release,” the statement reads.
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, also issued the following statement:
“Journalists are constitutionally entitled to cover protests and their aftermath, including after dispersal orders. ICE’s well-documented very recent history of abuses of journalists and demonstrators alike shows exactly why it’s so important that law enforcement can’t operate outside the view of the press,” the statement reads. “Steve Held, the journalist arrested tonight and taken to a so far undisclosed location, was part of the reporting team that exposed the falsity of ICE’s official narrative on the fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas González. His work speaks for itself. Officials need to immediately release Held and let journalists do their jobs. We don’t have secret police in this country.”
Demonstrators have protested outside of the Broadview facility on Fridays for weeks. This past week, federal agents erected a gate that fences-off public access to the boarded-up detention building and its adjacent sallyport. Broadview officials said the fence was unlawful and demanded its removal.
At Friday’s protest, federal agents fired more non-lethal bullets and chemical irritants at demonstrators. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson had a clear message for Russell Hott, director of the ICE Chicago field office: “It has to stop.”
On Facebook, Thompson wrote, “What we are experiencing here in Broadview feels like a war on our small community. The challenges we face are heavy, and the burden on our residents, first responders, and families is real.”
Separately, around 7:20 p.m. tonight, Gov. JB Pritzker issued a statement in which he said the State of Illinois is closely monitoring the federal deployments in Broadview.
“Whether it be in Broadview here in Illinois or in Portland, Oregon, the Trump Administration is intentionally creating chaos to threaten sending military troops to American cities and suburbs,” Pritzker said. “The suggestion that chemical agents like tear gas or pepper spray could be used indiscriminately against peaceful demonstrators, or even first responders, is unacceptable and not normal.”
Regarding tonight’s protest, award-winning civil rights law firm Loevy & Loevy shared a statement on Bluesky about what their team witnessed in Broadview.
“Several of us went to Broadview tonight to scope out the situation for ourselves. What we witnessed was a completely peaceful — even uneventful — protest/gathering, until the exact moment ICE unleashed a totally unprovoked and unwarranted tear-gas attack,” the statement reads. “It would seriously be hard to describe how much the crowd was NOT doing anything to warrant being attacked — not impeding anyone, not being violent, really not doing much of anything. At one point ICE just suddenly decided it was time to open the gates and unleash HELL.”
