Human Impact Project

Jaime Ramirez was detained by ICE agents in Millennium Park on September 28 along with his wife and two children during a family outing. He was taken to the Broadview processing facility before being flown to a Texas immigration facility. While his wife and children were released on October 2 after a federal judge ordered their protection from deportation, Ramirez remains detained in Texas. The family, originally from Guatemala, has an asylum appointment scheduled for October 2027.

Freelance photojournalist Dave Decker, on assignment for Zuma Press, was shot multiple times with pepper balls by federal officers and had his camera lens damaged while covering protests outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois, on September 27, 2025. Officers appeared to target Decker specifically, pointing him out before firing; he said he was also shot with pepper balls the previous day while covering protests at the same site. Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson had sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security objecting to the use of chemical agents against residents and first responders, and the village said ICE agents warned of a more aggressive response in apparent retaliation before the September 27 protest.

Independent journalist Leigh Kunkel was shot in the face and back of the head with pepper balls by federal officers while covering protests outside the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois on September 26, 2025. She had joined a group of journalists documenting the demonstration when officers emerged from the facility gates and opened fire from behind; a fellow journalist was also struck by multiple pepper balls in the same volley. After being hit, Kunkel's nose began bleeding. She and her fiancé are planning legal action to hold the federal government accountable for the assault and alleged rights violations during Operation Midway Blitz.

The National Immigrant Justice Center and ACLU of Illinois filed a federal court notice on behalf of 27 people arrested without warrants or probable cause by Department of Homeland Security officers since May 2025, with at least 20 arrested in September. The filing challenges violations of a consent decree that prohibits racial profiling and warrantless arrests, documenting incidents where people were arrested while walking in neighborhoods, at parking lots, during traffic stops, and at their homes.

ICE enforcement actions in major U.S. cities on September 25-26, 2025 resulted in several incidents including an officer shoving a woman in a New York courthouse, tear gas used against protesters outside a Chicago detention center, and a woman injured during an arrest in the Boston area. A Guatemalan permanent resident named Hilda was forcibly detained in Chelsea, Massachusetts, sustaining injuries requiring hospitalization.

Young children were left unattended on the side of the road after ICE agents detained their parents and an older sibling during an enforcement action in Cicero, Illinois.

Congressional candidates Mayor Daniel Biss, Kat Abughazaleh, and Bushra Amiwala were teargassed by ICE agents during a protest at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Illinois. Abughazaleh reported being thrown to the ground, and multiple protesters were struck with pepper balls and teargassed. ICE agents allegedly attempted to run over a peaceful protester with a van and detained at least one protester at the facility.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview on Friday to demonstrate against the Trump administration's deportation operations in the Chicago area. Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was shoved to the ground by ICE agents in camouflage gear; she reported being thrown twice and lifted by her chest before being thrown onto asphalt. Federal agents deployed tear gas and pepper balls against crowds of demonstrators in two separate protests that began at 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. and lasted for hours, resulting in multiple arrests.

Joe Botello, a U.S. citizen born in Texas, was handcuffed and detained by federal agents during an immigration enforcement operation in Elgin on September 16, 2025. Agents forcibly entered his home, breaking down doors, and placed him in a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vehicle before releasing him after scanning his driver's license. The operation, part of a larger immigration enforcement blitz in the Chicago area, also resulted in the detention of his roommates.

A short time after the raid on an Elgin home, ICE agents stopped a driver on Route 31 a few blocks away and took him into custody. This stop was one of several ICE detentions made in the Chicagoland area on September 16, 2025, as part of DHS Operation "Midway Blitz," which targeted Illinois and Lake County, Indiana.

On the morning of September 16, 2025, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem led a military-style raid on an Elgin home, with camouflage-uniformed agents and a helicopter overhead breaking down both the front and back doors around 5:30-5:50 a.m. Seven people were taken into custody, but two of them were U.S. citizens who were released after producing driver's licenses; one said he had been on his way to work when detained and did not know why the others were held. DHS said the operation executed a felony arrest warrant, resulting in the arrest of the target and four others, and claimed the two citizens were only briefly held for safety reasons rather than arrested. Noem and DHS characterized the detainees as having offenses including DUI, felony stalking and assault, claims disputed by community members.

ICE agents detained at least two Venezuelan men in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood on Monday, including one pulled from his car at 24th and Albany despite claims of legal status. Witnesses say agents hit the car before the man exited, then left his wife and two small children crying in the intersection without providing a warrant or information about his location. The Little Village Community Council, which had distributed whistles during Sunday's Mexican Independence Day parade to alert neighbors of ICE presence, is now working to secure legal representation as detentions increase and fear spreads through the community.

Immigration agents moved a car off the road after breaking its windows and detaining someone on the southwest side. The car was returned to family. Agents abandoned several other vehicles during arrests around Chicago.

ICE agents detained Willian Gimenez in Little Village on September 12 while he entered a barbershop with his wife. ICE refused to disclose his location and denied his attorneys access to him. Gimenez is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Home Depot and off-duty Chicago police for targeting immigrant day laborers.

Rosalio Pelayo Salgado, detained by ICE on September 10, called his daughters from the Broadview processing facility to report being held in a room with at least 150 other men. He described officers yelling slurs, food and water being withheld based on behavior, and his anxiety medication being refused. His daughters protested at the facility on September 19, learning he was scheduled to be deported the following day.

Leodegario Martínez Barradas, a flower vendor, was arrested by federal immigration agents in Chicago's Archer Heights neighborhood on September 7, 2025, during the launch of Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz" immigration enforcement operation. He was deported to Mexico within days. The Trump administration claims the operation targets criminal immigrants. Barradas had no known violent criminal record.

At the Broadview detention center in Illinois, a masked agent put a protester in a chokehold and had to be pulled off by another agent. The woman was sprayed in the face with a chemical irritant, shot with projectiles, and violently pushed and shoved to the ground before the chokehold.

In Broadview, Illinois, federal officers used force against photojournalists documenting protest activity from public streets. Dave Decker, a photojournalist visibly wearing press credentials, described agents about 20 feet away on the other side of a fence aiming weapons toward him and a photographer, Leigh Kunkel, as they were partially shielded by a van. He heard popping noises and was struck in the arm and back. Kunkel was also injured. He also photographed an agent pointing a long gun at his camera. The next day, as he recorded officers pushing people to the ground and laughing, an agent fired a pepper ball toward his face from about 30 feet away and hit his camera. He was later shot in the legs at close range after an agent said, 'Get him.' Decker, who had covered hundreds of protests, said he had never seen law enforcement hostility like what he witnessed at Broadview.

Six people were detained by federal agents outside two homeless shelters in the Chicago area in separate incidents.

In Naperville, Illinois, five roofers working on a home were detained during a Sept. 17 immigration enforcement operation while the homeowners were away. Homeowner Bobby Fischer said neighbors reported agents removing ladders and chasing a worker down the street with guns drawn, forcing workers to jump from the roof, with one injured before being detained; he said he later learned all the workers were properly documented. ICE Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin disputed the ladder claim, saying agents arrested four people in the country illegally during a 'targeted immigration enforcement operation.' One roofer told a local station, 'It's very hard what is happening to us. It's a lot of harm that they're doing to us.'