Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson starts her day in the western suburb at 4 a.m. with silent meditation and prayer, but she ends the more stressful days belting out an Ice Cube diss track on her way home from the Village Hall. There's been a lot of Ice Cube lately.
“It just charges me up when the attacks come and I know I don't deserve that,” she says in her office near Tupac and Snoop Dogg prayer candles, both given to her by a constituent as a nod to her West Coast roots and love for hip-hop.
The morning meditation, the car karaoke, a strict 9:30 p.m. bedtime are all part of a regimen she’s keeping to help navigate a new national spotlight as President Donald Trump’s administration aggressively responds to protests outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center tucked into Broadview’s industrial corridor.
On Friday, Thompson almost came face-to-face with U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who appeared unannounced at Village Hall asking for a meeting. In turn, Thompson went to the ICE center looking for Noem, but was told she was unavailable. Top U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino also visited the Broadview site on Friday.
Standing just 5 feet 3 inches tall, Thompson comes off as sturdy as the water tower outside her office bearing the town’s unofficial slogan, “Broadview Strong.”
“We are the strongest in the state. And I mean it,” she said in a lengthy interview Thursday with WBEZ. “We don't fold. Broadview’s not scared. … Leave Broadview alone.”
As immigration enforcement has ramped up in the Chicago area, federal agents have shot pepper balls, deployed tear gas and used physical force to quell repeated demonstrations outside the Broadview facility. The town’s own police chief, Thomas Mills, says he was verbally accosted by an ICE officer. The department has opened three criminal investigations into federal agents’ actions.
The confrontations are the highest profile set of episodes to shake the 8,000-resident village and its mayor.
But in a morning spent with WBEZ at a coffee shop and in her office, Thompson remained unflappable, adamant that she is prepared to protect Broadview from aggressive federal tactics, even if it means going toe-to-toe with President Trump.
“I feel comfortable wherever I am, because I'm Katrina first. That means I know who I am,” says Thompson, first elected mayor of the majority-Black, working class village in 2017. “I can't be afraid, because I have so many people relying on me.
“The residents, our business[es], all of the visitors — we're responsible for them,” says the native Californian. “We're responsible for the protesters, their well-being, their safety. We are responsible for the journalists that come to our town.”
For guidance, Thompson, 55, has leaned on other local leaders, including Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, County Commissioner Tara Stamps, former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, neighboring mayors and State Rep. La Shawn Ford, whom she’s known for 15 years.
“She's the caregiver of Broadview,” Ford says. “Her focus has always been on the residents of Broadview. And I think that what's happening to her is going to test her ability to lead, and she's doing a great job.”
Ford describes Thompson as “not political” and focused solely on hyperlocal, constituent needs. That shows in an early spar she had with Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who protested at Broadview in his capacity as a congressional candidate.
"Broadview would be better served by the presence of Evanston police officers helping to bolster our small force to protect demonstrators rather than a candidate … boosting his campaign," she said in a statement. Biss refuted the accusation.
A lifetime of preparation
Thompson was built for this moment in key ways. She was raised in Inglewood, Calif., by a single mom who taught her to be fiercely self-assured, and grandparents who grew up in the 1930s American South.
Themes of resiliency and resistance were woven into the fabric of the childhood she shared with her now-late sister.
“We learned Black history at home,” Thompson says.
Thompson’s office is lined with testaments to her heritage, along with cherished mementos from constituents: a portrait of a Black woman running her hands through her Afro, a chain necklace with the outline of Africa in the red, yellow and green colors that symbolize Black identity. On display are the kinds of Black history children’s books Trump has sought to excise from American education, like “The 1619 Project: Born on the Water” and “Black is a Rainbow Color.”
Thompson sees a direct tie between the experiences of immigrants being detained or deported, and those of Black Americans who lived through Jim Crow, redlining and other facets of modern-day systemic racism.
“We've been here before, and what has changed? Now it's just immigrants, but prior to this, it was Black people,” she says.
Broadview is 63% Black, 21% Latino, 11% white, firmly working class and deeply blue. In the voting precincts that cover Broadview, 88% of the 2024 presidential vote went to former Vice President Kamala Harris, with 10% for Trump, according to an analysis by WBEZ. A high school diploma is the highest degree for about 40% of the town, and another 20% take some college classes while 10% earn a bachelor's degree. The median income is $60,000, according to a 2025 snapshot of U.S. Census data from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.
The town is a third industrial, a third commercial and a third residential, a mix is reflected in the town’s official slogan: “A balanced community.”
Along the industrial 25th Avenue, the squeaks and roars of semi-trucks dominate. The commercial strip is peppered with a few vacant storefronts, along with signs of new retail life and community anchors. “View,” a fancy new restaurant, serves up “elevated comfort food.” A block down on Roosevelt Road a school uniform and trophy supplier, once a full-scale sporting goods store, has been open since 1952.
A community of neighbors, and opinions
Residential streets are lined with trees and two-story brick homes. People know their neighbors — and their mayor. One evening last week a WBEZ reporter knocked on doors to hear from residents. One man answered his intercom, but said he couldn’t talk. The man then called the mayor to tell her a reporter was sniffing around.
“That's Broadview,” Thompson says with a laugh. “We don't let anybody come and not say nothing” about it.
In the same neighborhood, a woman named Georgia had her front door open to let the breeze in.
“It'll be 30 years next year” in Broadview, says Georgia, declining to share her last name. “And it was clean when I moved here, and it's clean now, and it's quiet here."
She likes how Thompson is speaking out. She saw her first news conference about the immigration protests earlier that week. The mayor urged the Trump administration to “stop unprovoked chemical arms attacks on peaceful protesters and on journalists.”
Thompson has spoken out strongly about the effect of tear gas and other aggressive tactics on residents, cops, firefighters and paramedics. Citing safety concerns, she called on ICE to dismantle an 8-foot fence outside the facility, which the village says was illegally constructed following clashes between federal agents and protesters. Late Friday, the village filed a lawsuit against the DHS and ICE to get the fence dismantled, saying it is blocking fire department access to businesses on the same street as the ICE facility. ICE “has refused,” according to the suit, noting that officers have allegedly been assaulted by protesters.
Resident Arnettra Westbrooks wants her mayor to do more. She would like Thompson to institute a curfew on protesters “because there’s a lot of senior citizens living around there.”
“On Fridays they are there until 10 or 11 o’clock and all that’s doing is pissing ICE off. Go home,” she says.
The criticism is mild compared to some of the insults cropping up from across the country from Trump supporters and other critics on Thompson’s Facebook page.
Finding solace and inspiration
The last few weeks have brought “real heavy days,” the mayor says, and she worries that escalated violence at the facility will lead to severe injuries or worse.
But as Thompson continues to find her footing on a bigger stage, the faithful Baptist says she has seen signs of encouragement from guardian angels — her sister, who died in 2011, and her grandparents.
The other day an orange and black butterfly flew across 25th Avenue, “something I've never seen across a major street,” Thompson says, adding that she “likes butterflies, because it's a real birth to freedom.”
She thanked her sister, Rolisha, for what she saw as “confirmation that I'm gonna be OK.” She also heard her grandma’s voice in her head.
“My grandmother was like ‘Just stand. Don't take sh-t … from nobody.’”
Contributing: Bob Chiarito
