The police in Brookfield, Ill., a community outside of Chicago, charged an agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week with misdemeanor battery after he was accused of throwing an immigrant rights activist to the ground during a scuffle.
The activist, Robert Held, said he had been filming the agent, Adam Saracco, who was off-duty at the time and filling up his SUV at a gas station after leaving a nearby immigrant detention center. There have been a number of anti-ICE protests at the center in recent weeks.
In an interview, Mr. Held, a 68-year-old trust and estate lawyer, said that he had been using his phone to record the agent from a sidewalk on Dec. 27, when Mr. Saracco approached him seeking to take the phone.
“He had his hands on me and threw me to the ground,” Mr. Held said. “He did grab my phone, but I held onto it with both hands, I had to use all my might. I said, ‘Calm down, you have to de-escalate.’ I heard horns honking and he got off me, he did not get my phone.”
The local police were called to the scene and began their investigation that day. Potential felonies are reviewed by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Mr. Held said he had not been injured.
Even as city officials across the country have criticized President Trump’s high-profile ICE deployments, local prosecutions of federal immigration agents remain relatively rare. In a statement, the Brookfield Police Department said that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office had reviewed the case and declined to file felony charges, advising that it would more appropriately be charged as a misdemeanor.
The department said the agent had cooperated with local investigators. “He was subsequently charged, cited, and released” on one count of misdemeanor battery, the department said. Mr. Saracco’s court date is in March.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said its decision against filing felony charges was based on an assessment of “the available facts and relevant law” and “a thorough review of the investigation presented by law enforcement.” It said that it recommended proceeding with the misdemeanor battery charge.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately comment on the matter on Friday. Some details of the case were previously reported in the Riverside-Brookfield Landmark.
Mr. Held said he was “pleased beyond belief” at the outcome, “very pleased that there is accountability.”
Mr. Held said he is among the Illinois residents who began protesting immigration roundups in the wake of the Trump administration’s chaotic Operation Midway Blitz sweep in the Chicago area last fall. Many of the protests have occurred at the Broadview Processing Center, a detention facility near Brookfield where hundreds of immigrant detainees have been held.
Mr. Held said he had been detained there for several hours during one protest in September.
He said he has been filming the activities of ICE agents in part because state officials, including Gov. JB Pritzker, have complained about a lack of transparency and accountability surrounding the roundups and protests, and have encouraged people to record ICE agents’ activities with their phones.
“The most that I think we can do is to record what they’re doing,” Mr. Held said.
Danny Hakim is a reporter on the Investigations team at The Times, focused primarily on politics.
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