Federal immigration agents swept through the Northwest Side and north suburbs Friday, making arrests and firing pepper balls and pepper spray at protesters, as the Trump administration’s deportation campaign across the Chicago area continued through Halloween.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem kept her promise not to let up on immigration enforcement on the holiday. U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-large Gregory Bovino led a caravan of at least a dozen agents across Chicago suburbs including Evanston, Skokie and Niles, and the Edison Park neighborhood.
Chicago Sun-Times journalists followed the caravan for at least an hour and witnessed four arrests — two in Albany Park and two others in Edison Park and Niles.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed five people without legal status were detained across Albany Park Friday, and that five people without legal status were arrested in Evanston and Skokie. The spokesperson did not say where or when the arrests took place, or if they included the four arrests witnessed by Sun-Times journalists.
Christopher Klim, a U.S. citizen from Poland, was seen handcuffed and later released around 2 p.m. as he remodeled a home in the 7400 block of North Oconto Avenue. His co-worker, who Klim said also is a U.S. citizen from Poland, was arrested and taken away in the caravan of SUVs.
“I’m not [a] criminal. I’m just working,” Klim, 59, said shortly after he was released and the federal agents had driven away.
“I’m so stressed… I’m worried,” Klim said of his co-worker. “He’s got his car. He lives not so far from here, but I don’t know even [his] last name and I don’t have a phone number to his wife.”
About five neighbors stood nearby, shouting at the agents who gave verbal warnings they would deploy tear gas. They never did.
Klim and the other man had been working on the house for a couple weeks, according to Brendan Ek, a neighbor across the street. “It seemed a little ridiculous, honestly. Big waste of taxpayer’s money, if you ask me,” Ek, 30, said.
About 15 minutes before that incident, Bovino’s caravan stopped in the H Mart grocery store parking lot in Niles and detained another man who was walking through the lot.
Friday’s arrests began around 9:30 a.m. in the Albany Park neighborhood, when agents tackled a man to the pavement in the 3200 block of West Lawrence Avenue after they accused him of assaulting one of them.
A crowd gathered and shouted, “Let them go,” at the agents. Agents ripped another man from his car and detained him after other community members tried to put themselves in front of him.
“It’s actually horrifying,” said a friend of one of the men detained, who did not want to be identified. Minutes earlier, the person had just seen the man standing there.
“It happens so fast. You prepare, but then you don’t know what to do,” the person said.
A reporter spotted one agent without a body camera. Another agent used a GoPro camera in addition to a body camera. Some agents had numbered identifiers on patches on their uniforms. Others had identifying numbers written on tape.
The Sun-Times reported Friday that several federal immigration agents have not worn identifying information, against a judge’s order.
Agents issued one warning about tear gas but did not deploy it. They fired pepper balls instead toward demonstrators before Chicago police arrived and cleared the roadway, allowing the vehicles with agents and detainees to leave.
Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd) was holding a staff meeting in her ward office around the corner when she heard whistles and ran out the door. She said she saw a man being detained, and anticipating the use of chemical agents, immediately ran to nearby Hibbard Elementary School to make sure children were inside.
She came back to the scene, and said she was at one point shoved by federal agents as she tried to reach the man who had been pulled out of his vehicle.
“They showed up here to terrorize people, and they got a response from the community. People did everything they could,” Rodriguez-Sanchez said. “I’m just so heartbroken,” she added through tears.
More pepper spray was deployed in Evanston in the early afternoon, according to the DHS spokesperson and Evanston police.
A driver crashed into a border patrol vehicle near Oakton Street and Asbury Avenue, drawing a large crowd to the area who shouted at the agents, some of whom allegedly spit on them, according to DHS. Three U.S. citizens in the crowd of protesters were arrested as agents deployed pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
An Evanston police spokesperson said officers responded to the scene and “worked to stabilize the scene and prevent further conflict between community members and federal agents.”
Contributing: Lauren FitzPatrick