CHICAGO — Chicago-area corporations have made hundreds of thousands in profitable contracts supporting Operation Halfway Blitz’s immigration enforcement actions within the space.
Block Membership Chicago examined a federal database of contracts awarded to companies and located almost a dozen space corporations have seen a rise in awarded contracts in latest months because the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety ramped up immigration operations in and round Chicago. The businesses have been awarded contracts to relocate federal brokers and provide weapons, tactical know-how and fencing.
Chicago-based actual property firm Reliance Relocation Companies was awarded $7.3 million to relocate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers over a four-month interval. These contracts ended the identical day the Division of Homeland Safety introduced its operation in Chicago.
Lake Forest weapons producer United Tactical Techniques was paid almost $1.5 million over a two week interval in September to produce federal brokers with pepper balls and air-powered weapons. Greater than $1 million of that cash was contracted simply two days earlier than brokers escalated its use of the weapons, taking pictures protesters and journalists with pepper balls.
Neither of the businesses responded to questions on what precisely they have been contracted to do or provide. Additionally they didn’t reply to questions on if the businesses assist brokers’ techniques in Chicago.
Kat Abughazaleh, a Democrat operating for a Far North Aspect Congressional seat, was amongst protesters on the Broadview ICE detention middle shot with pepper balls. She stated native corporations collaborating with ICE needs to be boycotted, calling their profiting off the operations “disgusting.”
“Realizing that these pepper balls are coming from folks in our neighborhood … That the issues which have prompted us to choke and vomit and want our eyes flushed, which have prompted wounds on folks’s our bodies … That hurts otherwise,” she stated.
Federal companies together with ICE, the U.S. Marshals Companies, U.S. Customs and Border Safety and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives didn’t reply to questions on these contracts, both. As an alternative, a few of the companies directed Block Membership to file a public data request to get probably the most primary set of particulars surrounding these contracts.
These companies additionally famous that the federal authorities shutdown would delay getting any public data again.
U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, whose district contains ICE’s Broadview facility, has criticized federal brokers’ operations in Chicago as “aggressive” and “undemocratic.” Davis additionally slammed the feds for his or her lack of transparency to the general public and companies not responding to questions on these contracts.
“They’re not even being clear for these of us who supposedly have oversight authority and oversight duties to supervise the functioning of our authorities,” Davis stated. “I’ve been to amenities and denied entrance to federal installations to hold out the oversight authority and duties that, in response to the Structure, we’ve.”
4 Months And Two Weeks
Chicago-based Reliance Relocation Companies, positioned at 161 N. Clark St. within the Loop, made out large by serving to relocate ICE brokers to Chicago forward of Operation Halfway Blitz, in response to the federal database USASpending.gov.
The corporate, higher referred to as RELO Direct, has labored with a number of federal companies since a minimum of 2013 to promote federal workers’ properties and assist relocate workers.
However its largest single contracts got here throughout the previous 5 months from ICE. In Might, RELO Direct received its first contract price greater than $800,000 — and the contracts have solely gotten larger since then. In June, the actual property firm was awarded over $1.5 million to relocate brokers.
Then in July, RELO Direct was awarded its largest single federal contract ever that amounted to greater than $3 million. In August, it was awarded one other $1.9 million.
It’s unclear if these funds have been to relocate ICE workers to the Chicago space alone or included relocation to different cities throughout the nation. Federal companies and RELO Direct failed to answer questions concerning the contracts.
In simply 4 months, the corporate made $7.3 million to maneuver ICE workers. That’s almost as a lot as the corporate created from federal contracts in all 2024 — $8 million — and it’s greater than it’s made in a single yr from the federal government since 2013, in response to federal information.
The contracts expired on Sept. 8, the identical day the Division of Homeland Safety introduced Operation Halfway Blitz in Chicago.
RELO Direct, is a “full-service relocation administration firm.” It’s an arm of a Chicago-based firm known as Main Actual Property Firms of the World, in response to its web site.
Whereas RELO Direct executives didn’t reply to questions, data present a minimum of two members of its government workforce have been small donors to Democratic causes.
RELO Direct Senior Vice President Dianne Amos made two contributions in 2020 to ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising group, in response to the Federal Election Fee. A donation for $25 was earmarked for the Democratic Nationwide Committee and one other $25 was earmarked for former President Joe Biden’s marketing campaign committee.
Jessica Edgerton, the corporate’s chief authorized officer, made almost $200 in small contributions through the 2020 presidential election cycle, together with donations to Biden’s presidential marketing campaign committee and the political motion committee Cease Republicans.
United Tactical Techniques, a Lake Forest firm often known as PepperBall, additionally noticed a rise in federal contracts over the previous month. The corporate is a “non-lethal” weapons producer that provides legislation enforcement companies throughout the nation with tools for crowd management. It has equipped federal brokers with weapons since a minimum of 2006, in response to federal data.
On Sept. 17, U.S. Customs and Border Safety awarded United Tactical Techniques over $1 million for air-powered weapons and different tools used for taking pictures pepper balls for crowd management. It was the most important single contract the corporate was awarded by a federal company.
On Sept. 19, federal brokers started a extra aggressive method at stamping down protests on the Broadview ICE detention middle, taking pictures pepper balls at protestors and journalists. Federal brokers on web site are armed with Pepperball’s air-powered weapons and pepper ball ammunition that seem to look the identical as these bought on Pepperball’s web site, in response to Block Membership pictures.
An ICE spokesperson disputed claims of extreme power at Broadview and stated “officers are educated to make use of the minimal quantity of power essential to resolve harmful conditions to prioritize the security of the general public and our officers.”
Block Membership Chicago and different organizations representing journalists sued the federal authorities over the way it has indiscriminately used mace, pepper balls and different non-lethal weapons on journalists exterior the Broadview facility. 4 Block Membership journalists have been hit with pepper balls and tear-gassed by federal brokers throughout protests.
A federal choose dominated earlier this month that brokers should cease attacking journalists and different peaceable protesters. Final week, that very same choose, Sara L. Ellis, stated they have been “profoundly involved” over federal brokers’ extreme use of tear fuel in neighborhoods regardless of her order.
From Sept. 17-Sept. 30, Pepperball was awarded eight contracts from Border Patrol, Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, every of which have had a powerful presence in Chicago throughout Operation Halfway Blitz. In whole, the corporate was awarded almost $1.5 million from federal companies for air-powered weapons and pepper balls.
The corporate earned extra from the federal authorities in these two weeks than it did in all of 2024.
PepperBall is owned by non-public fairness agency ClearLight Companions, which additionally owns Handel’s Ice Cream, males’s attire firm Paul Fredrick and automotive leather-based firm Katzkin Leather-based.
ClearLight Companions founder and managing accomplice Michael Kaye has a protracted historical past of donating to Democratic political committees. Since 2019, Kaye has contributed greater than $28,000 to Democrat-leaning political motion committees. About $3,800 of that went to Biden’s 2020 presidential marketing campaign committee.
Neither PepperBall nor ClearLight Companions responded to questions.
Levi Rolles, who has protested exterior of Broadview for weeks, was shot greater than a dozen instances within the again by federal brokers with pepper balls on Sept. 19. His again shaped welts for days after the incident.
“[When you’re shot] it feels such as you’re getting a second diploma sunburn,” Rolles stated. “Then you definately breathe it in and it form [of feels] like tear fuel … it irritates your lungs [and] your throat will shut up a bit of bit.”
Rolles calls enterprise working with ICE proper now as “opportunistic.”
The “solely strategy to beat these guys is to face towards them,” he stated.
Six-figure Offers
United Tactical Techniques and PepperBall aren’t the one native corporations cashing in on immigration enforcement. Federal companies have additionally partnered with different non-public corporations through the ramp up of Operation Halfway Blitz.
- In September, Invisio Communication, the Swedish firm whose U.S. operation is predicated Downtown, was awarded a $398,099 contract from Border Patrol for communication equipments comparable to tactical headsets.
- In September, Harvard-based Proalliance Corp. was awarded $389,350 for panoramic dental x-ray machines at ICE detention websites.
- In September, Chicago-based agency Motorola Options was awarded $267,300 to offer StarCom21 radio community communications entry for ICE brokers finishing up operations in Chicago.
- In September, Arcus Group, which describes itself as a “a woman-owned, minority-owned” firm, was awarded $273,747 to lease fencing and protecting limitations for use exterior of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago and the Roszkowski U.S. Federal Courthouse in Rockford.
- In September, Humango Options was awarded $36,071 to put in video teleconferencing tools for enforcement and removing operation websites in Rock Island.
- In September, Southwest Aspect firm Burhani Enterprises, which is minority owned, was awarded $33,470 for a pizza oven and flat prime griddle by Border Patrol.
- In September, Border Patrol awarded Aurora-based Comforts of Residence Service $22,000 for restroom trailers.
A spokesperson for Burhani Enterprises stated it’s a “small enterprise that provides a variety of business and industrial tools to U.S. federal companies” and the contract with Border Patrol was for normal business food-service tools. The corporate doesn’t know the place the cooking tools is getting used.
“As a federally registered vendor, Burhani Enterprises offers provides in accordance with all relevant federal procurement laws and doesn’t take part in or affect company missions or enforcement actions,” the spokesperson stated.
The opposite corporations listed above didn’t reply to Block Membership’s questions.
U.S. Rep. Jesus Garcia, who grew up in Little Village, a haven for Mexican-American immigrants that was focused by federal brokers Wednesday, stated taxpayer {dollars} are getting used to wage warfare on Latinos and “assault our metropolis, to kidnap folks from the road, to separate households and terrorize our neighborhoods.” He stated U.S. residents aren’t protected, both.
Block Membership beforehand reported on a 15-year-old U.S. citizen being taken by federal immigration brokers after an East Aspect protest and was detained. He was handcuffed inside a automotive in a storage for 5 hours, in response to the teenager’s attorneys. A Division of Homeland Safety spokesperson stated the teenager hit an agent within the face with an egg.
In Little Village Wednesday, two U.S. residents who work for Ald. Michael Rodriguez (twenty second) have been detained by brokers.
“That is the product of militarization of our metropolis and a authorities company that feels empowered by the president with a racist and xenophobic agenda,” Garcia stated. “These corporations want to grasp the morality at difficulty right here — and that actual individuals are being damage and harmed by the merchandise that they’re cashing in on.”
This Story Was Produced By The Watch
Block Membership’s investigations have modified legal guidelines, led to prison federal investigations and held the highly effective accountable. E mail tricks to The Watch at investigations@blockclubchi.org and subscribe or donate to assist this work.
