After weeks of protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview, state and county authorities are implementing public safety measures around the building, officials said.

At the request of Broadview police, Illinois State Police and the Cook County sheriff’s office — with assistance from the state and county emergency management agencies — have established a “unified command” outside the holding facility, according to a news release from state police Thursday evening.

The unified command sets up designated areas “where people can safely exercise their rights,” according to state police. The areas stretch along either side of Beach Street down to Lexington Street with a safety lane in between to allow for emergency vehicle access, according to a state police map. There is also an additional designated “restricted area” along existing fencing outside the facility, the map shows.

Last week, federal officials erected fencing outside the building, citing a need for public safety. In turn, Broadview officials demanded that the Department of Homeland Security take down the fence. In a letter to DHS, acting Broadview Fire Chief Matthew Martin said the fence was built without a permit along the public street outside the facility at 1930 Beach St., blocking Fire Department access to the road.

Uniformed officers will be on site to direct people to the designated areas, according to state police. The goal of the unified command, state police said, is to “protect the health and safety of all individuals, including nearby Broadview residents and businesses, and enable the peaceful expression of First Amendment rights.”

State police could not be immediately reached for further comment.

Gov. JB Pritzker’s chief of staff, Anne Caprara, said during a Politico event Thursday that the decision to establish a protest zone was made in response to the escalation of conflict between federal personnel and protesters in Broadview last weekend and the increasingly aggressive tactics by agents at the ICE facility, including a pepper spray ball being fired at TV reporter in her vehicle.

State and local officials are acting independently due to an ongoing lack of communication from the federal government, a stark contrast to past events that have drawn much larger protests, including last year’s Democratic National Convention.

“We spent a year, a solid year, meeting with the FBI, meeting with the Secret Service, meeting with DHS, meeting with state police, meeting with Chicago police to make sure that that event went off safely, and then also people were able to protest and exercise their constitutional rights,” Caprara said.

Kat Abughazaleh, a candidate in the North Side and north suburban 9th Congressional District who has attended protests at the Broadview facility for several weeks, declined to say directly whether she’d protest outside of the zone on Friday but used an expletive to describe it.

“The implication of a free speech zone is that the rest of the zone does not include free speech,” she said in a brief phone call Thursday. The 26-year-old progressive commentator and content creator planned to hold a news conference at the facility Friday morning to rally elected officials and demand the barrier be taken down, she said.

Chicago Tribune reporter Olivia Olander contributed.

tkenny@chicagotribune.com