Esteban Burgoa chants as he and a group of immigrants and supporters walk through Harvey Saturday on the second of their three-day march from Little Village to Crete. They are marching to protest a detention center planned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Crete. (Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune / March 31, 2012)
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By Antonio Olivo, Chicago Tribune reporter
April 1, 2012
About 40 people started out on a three-day march Friday from Chicago's Little Village neighborhood to Crete, a 40-mile trek that's part of rising opposition to federal plans to build an immigration detention center in the far south suburb.
Last week, the state Senate voted 34-17 to approve legislation that would prohibit privately owned detention centers from being built in Illinois, a measure directly aimed at the proposed Crete facility. The bill, sponsored by Sen.Antonio Munoz, D-Chicago, next goes to a vote in the House.
The proposed 788-bed facility is part of an overhaul of how people who are in the country illegally will be detained.Immigration advocates pushed for more humane conditions after abuses were documented in government jails contracted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Built and operated by Corrections Corporation of America, the center in Crete would include a law library, computers, TVs, two gymnasiums and a cafeteria with "ethnically based" food, according to documents obtained by the Tribune.
Some Crete residents have complained about a lack of transparency in planning for the center, while immigration activists say the detention center is symbolic of a broken system that deports thousands of people while reform efforts go nowhere.
This weekend's marchers stopped to demonstrate briefly in front of Cook County Jail.
"We're going to do whatever it takes to stop construction of this jail," the Rev. Jose Landaverde told the small group.
The group planned to spend Friday night in an Evergreen Park church and get to Crete on Sunday.