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Chicago politics may have set a new benchmark for pettiness Friday when staff at the doorway of a suburban government building denied Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and her staff entry to use their bathroom.
The refusal was caught on video and posted with Noem’s comments on X.
“My team and I were just blocked from accessing the Village of Broadview Municipal Building in Illinois,” the secretary wrote. “We were stopping for a quick bathroom break. This is a public building. The Village of Broadview receives at least $1 million in federal funding every year.”
She added, “This is how (Illinois Gov.) JB Pritzker and his cronies treat our law enforcement. Absolutely shameful.”
A video of the encounter shows Noem approaching the building, located about 12 miles west of downtown Chicago.
“Can we use your restroom?” an apparent HHS staffer asks through the door.
Someone inside can be heard responding, “No, you cannot!”
Noem calmly replies, “OK, all right, thank you,” and walks away.
“As much as these local leaders and governors talk about cooperating and having the backs of our law enforcement officers this is what we have to put up with every single day,” she said as walked back to her vehicle. “And all we are doing is getting criminals and terrorists…and gang members off the street.”
The video account throws doubt on a claim by village officials that Noem was trying to conduct an official visit.
“Since DHS Secretary Kristi Noem appeared this morning, unannounced, at Broadview’s Village Hall asking for a meeting while Mayor Katrina Thompson was out of the building, the mayor returned her visit” by going to a nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center, village spokesperson David Ormsby said in a statement, reported by Fox News.
“Mayor Thompson went to the ICE center, accompanied by the Broadview Police Chief Thomas, and officers, to ask for the illegal fence to be dismantled,” he continued, according to Fox News. “The mayor was told by agents at the gate the secretary was unavailable to meet.”
However, DHS officials insisted the stop was not about official business at all.
“She didn’t ask for a meeting,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told Fox. “She asked to use the restroom. This is insane.”
Confrontations have continued all week at the ICE processing facility in Broadview. Federal agents have arrested more than a dozen people during demonstrations while also dispersing protestors with tear gas and rubber bullets when they block federal operations.
Prior to the secretary’s visit to that facility, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker released a statement, writing in part, “Secretary Noem should no longer be able to step foot inside the State of Illinois without any form of public accountability.”
The governor accused her of “sneaking” into Illinois for a photo op at dawn and demanded she hold a news conference to answer questions about violating people’s rights in the ICE crackdown.
”It’s time she faces the public and takes questions from the press to be held accountable for the Trump Administration’s gross misconduct,” he said.
HHS’s McLaughlin issued an official response to Pritzker.
“Grow up and start protecting the people of your own state,” she said in a statement. “Federal law enforcement has to be here because JB Pritzker refuses to do his job and has allowed violent illegal alien criminals to terrorize Illinois communities for years.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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