After ICE arrests, worried families trek to Broadview facility seeking answers

Hours after federal immigration agents arrested her fiance, Ana drove to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview.

“I walked to the door and told the agent ‘I need to talk to him,’” she told the Sun-Times through tears. “I need to let him know that he’s not alone.”

Ana, who lives in West Garfield Park and did not share her last name out of fear for her safety, is one of many who knocked on the facility’s door Thursday. Since President Donald Trump increased efforts to arrest immigrants living in the country without legal status in Illinois and Chicago, families and loved ones of those detained have been arriving at the Broadview facility desperate for information — only to be turned away with few answers.

The 26-year-old said that her fiance, Tomas Alberto Perez Hernandez, was driving to his construction job with his boss just after 9 a.m. Thursday morning, when they were pulled over near Fullerton and Menard Avenues.

Video shared on social media showed agents walking a handcuffed Perez Hernandez to a vehicle.

“They were stopped because of the color of their skin,” Ana said. “Because they saw two brown men in a work truck.”

ICE did not respond Thursday to a request for comment.

Information about Perez Hernandez could not be found in a search of local court records. Ana does not believe ICE had a warrant for his arrest.

A few hours after leaving her number with an ICE officer, Ana got a call from Perez Hernandez.

“He just told me to be calm, not to get depressed, to make sure I pick up the kids on time from school and make sure I drop them off on time,” said Ana, a mother of three. “He said they’re treating them really badly there.”

Of the number of people detained with him, Perez Hernandez told Ana it was “a lot of us.”

“They’re tearing apart families,” she said. “They’re tearing apart dreams.”

The Trump administration has so far named dozens of immigrants arrested in its aggressive deportation campaign. Though the scale of the operation remains unclear, enforcement appeared to intensify Tuesday for Mexican Independence Day.

“President Trump has been clear: If politicians will not put the safety of their citizens first, this administration will. I was on the ground in Chicago today to make clear we are not backing down,” U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a statement. Noem appeared in Elgin Tuesday to lead an action that resulted in six people being detained, including a U.S. citizen.

The federal agency’s online detainee locator is lagging by about 72 hours compared to the 12 hours it typically took for someone arrested by ICE to show up in the system, said Brandon Lee, spokesperson for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. The coalition has seen an increase in calls from people seeking help tracking down those detained by ICE.

“Families also go directly to Broadview in an attempt to bring medications or other personal items, which are not always passed on to the intended recipient,” Lee said in an email. “We also know that people are being transferred out of state or deported very quickly and might not even be at Broadview when their family members get an update.”

He said it’s an example of how immigrants right to due process is being violated by ICE.

On Thursday, two sisters from Elgin arrived in Broadview to bring their father, Rosalio Pelayo Salgado, a change of clothes and for a chance to say goodbye. But a guard turned them away.

“I’m going to keep coming back until they let me see him,” said Milagros Pelayo, 22. “I don’t care how long it takes.”

Her father was detained around 6 a.m., on Sept. 10 when officers came knocking on their front door. He faces unlawful reentry charges in federal court in southern Illinois, records show. He has been convicted of drunken driving and was paroled from Robinson Correction Center in July. He was previously deported in 2004, but reentered the United States in 2020.

A federal judge issued an order Monday setting conditions of his release, but the family believes he remains at the Broadview facility.

Pelayo and her 16-year-old sister, Yessenia Garcia, whose mother passed away in 2023, are now living with their aunt and uncle.

“I didn’t see him for 16 years and now they’re taking my dad away again,” Pelayo said.

Christopher Gomez came knocking after his older brother, Luis Gomez, was detained Thursday morning on his way to work. Jose Campos, who is Luis’ friend and fellow Comcast contractor, came along.

Luis Gomez and Campos were on their way to work when they were pulled over by agents around 8 a.m., near North Avenue and Pulaski Road.

Campos, who was driving, said officers asked for their IDs, but when Luis wasn’t able to provide one, the officers told him to get out of the car and took him away.

“In a matter of minutes he was gone,” said Campos. “I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do to stop it or help him.”

Christopher Gomez said the officers were looking for someone else.

“But they still took my brother,” he said.

Luis Gomez arrived in the country from Mexico in 2020. Christopher Gomez said he now wishes he’d submitted a petition to adjust his immigration status sooner.

“I feel like it’s my fault,” he said.