Priests Granted Ash Wednesday Visit to Chicago-Area ICE Facility

Catholic clergy can visit the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., next week to offer Ash Wednesday services to detainees, a Chicago federal judge ruled.

Catholics had been regularly praying the Rosary at Broadview for years before “Operation Midway Blitz,” the Trump administration’s Chicago deportation campaign, surged into the area last fall. They have been denied access ever since, according to a complaint filed in November alleging the government is violating their First Amendment rights.

Senior Judge Robert Gettleman of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction saying the ...