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09/18/2025 — WHAT WE’VE HEARD TODAY:
The TRiiBE is working in collaboration with indie investigative newsroom Unraveled Press and alt-weekly Chicago Reader to bring you confirmed sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents in the Chicago area.
Witnesses are reporting federal agent activity in various areas across Chicago, including Humboldt Park, Belmont Cragin, McKinley Park, West Englewood and the Back of the Yards.
Local elected officials sent out a press release just before 5:00 p.m., condemning “the intentional increased federal presence across Hermosa, Belmont Cragin, and Humboldt Park this week.”
“This unprecedented spike in federal presence has looked like unidentified masked agents patrolling our neighborhoods to threaten our rapid responders and disappear community members,” read the statement from Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) and State Rep. Lilian Jiménez (D-4th). “Our neighbors are being targeted while dropping off their children at school, running errands, driving to their jobs at factories, and working their day labor jobs. As a result, parents are fearful of bringing their children to school. Our small businesses are experiencing a sharp decline in sales. And even our typically bustling streets are unusually quiet. Residents do not deserve to live in fear of being kidnapped.”
They also shared details for an Emergency Response Townhall that Northwest Side Progressive Elected Officials and community organizations are hosting on Sept. 21 at 11:00 a.m.
They also encouraged those impacted by the surge in federal agents to contact the Family Support Hotline at 855-435-7693.
This morning, the Southwest Side Rapid Response Team confirmed multiple arrests this morning between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. According to the community alert posted on the group’s Instagram page, at least one person was detained near a Home Depot on 47th Street and Western Boulevard in Back of the Yards. The Southwest Side Rapid Response also said at least one person was detained on 35th and Western in McKinley Park and at least two people were confirmed detained on 71st Street and Damen Avenue near West Englewood.
According to Unraveled Press, after ICE “snatched a man outside Home Depot” on 47th and Western, the agents nearly hit a 17-year-old boy who was riding on his scooter on his way to school this morning. The minor said in a video interview done by Unraveled that he asked for their badge numbers and was told to “back up.”
There were also early morning sightings of federal officers in the Humboldt Park community near Grand and Kostner Avenues around 6:20 a.m., according to Chicago Reader news editor Shawn Mulcahy, who posted pictures on BlueSky. It is unclear if anyone was arrested during this sighting.
Tomorrow, protestors are gathering in suburban Broadview at the ICE Processing Center at 1930 Beach Street from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. They’ll also conduct an evening demonstration outside the Broadview ICE facility, for the after-work crowd, from 7:00 p.m. until.
1:00 p.m.
The Southwest Suburban Immigrant Project Rapid Response Team confirmed an arrest in the southwest suburb of Boilingbrook, which is about 30 miles from downtown Chicago. According to the post that is written in Spanish, a father —after dropping his children off at school — was stopped by agents who curbed the car, smashed his car window and arrested him.
A video posted to Facebook shows two men being arrested outside of the Central Park Fresh Market near Grand Avenue and Division Street on Chicago’s West Side in Humboldt Park around 1:00 p.m.
12:00 p.m.
During an encounter with federal agents outside a Culver’s in suburban Bolingbrook, several masked and unmasked agents surround the vehicle of the person recording the encounter on video. The agents check the identification of those inside the vehicle. “Step out of the car for us buddy, señior,” one of the agents says, pointing to another person inside the vehicle. According to the Facebook video caption, the person taken by the agents was a landscaper.
In an exchange of words, a person in the vehicle tells the agent that another person inside the vehicle is “on the phone” and “trying to find the paperwork that he’s legal here now. Give him a second” The agent then says, “wait, don’t talk to me that way. I’m running this right here.” He then tells the person recording the video to get his “good side,” and that he knows the person is recording the video to “be cool” for social media.
The same agent, who is standing outside the driver side of the vehicle also says, “We just wanna make America safe again,” at the 1:51 mark of the video.
In a separate incident, Elgin Community College reported on its website that “federal immigration authorities took a student into custody in a parking lot outside of a building” this morning on its main campus.
Additionally, the Chicago Far South Side Rapid Response team confirmed federal agents were present in the Chicago neighborhood of South Shore. Immigration agents were confirmed on 79th Street and Colfax Avenue in the “late morning,” according to the rapid response team. According to the team’s post on Instagram, at least “half a dozen federal agents were spotted gathering behind a business” near the intersection. Chicago Far South Side Rapid Response said it has not been able to verify any arrests in the area and that agents left by 12:00 p.m.
Separately, ICE agents were spotted at an apartment complex in West Chicago around noon today. Witness video shows a tinted SUV leaving the scene as people record video and honk their car horns in apparent protest. There has been no confirmation if anyone was arrested at the scene.
11:00 a.m.
Elgin Area Rapid Response confirmed that federal agents arrested someone outside a public library in Elgin around 10:45 a.m. According to Mulcahy, who posted a screenshot of a video on BlueSky, the full video shows “five masked agents who shackle the person.”
Mulcahy added that ICE typically uses the white vans seen in the screenshot to transport arrestees.
9:45 a.m.
Federal agents were spotted in Chicago’s Belmont Cragin neighborhood on Menard and Fullerton Avenues, according to pictures posted to a Belmont Cragin neighborhood group on Facebook.
8:24 a.m.
In its summary of ICE activity and sightings for Sept. 18, the Elgin Area Rapid Response Team confirmed one person detained at a Walmart in the western suburb of Streamwood, which is roughly 35 miles from downtown Chicago. The Elgin Area Rapid Response Team also confirmed “suspicious vehicles” on the 100 block of Hickory Avenue in Streamwood.
7:30 a.m.
A witness driving past the Home Depot on 47th Street and Western Boulevard in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood captured video of masked agents taking away one person in front of the hardware store as onlookers protested.
Chicago Reader news editor Shawn Mulcahy posted on Bluesky another view of the arrest at the Home Depot shows the man screaming as he is detained by federal agents. The witness who recorded the video says she was almost hit by an ICE car while filming” the incident. As the video goes on, a voice behind the camera says, “They’re gonna kill this man. Look at what they’re doing. He’s not doing nothing.”
6:30 a.m.
A video posted by one Facebook user shows a person sitting in a car around 6:30 a.m. on Kostner and Grand avenues near Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side as federal agents point cameraphones at the onlookers’ faces and car. In the caption of the video, the user wrote:
“This morning at about 6:30 AM, my friend and I spotted ICE by the burlington [department store] on Kostner and Grand. We stopped to document what they were doing when one of the fords [sic] locked me in my parking spot and proceeded to try to intimidate me. Both ‘agents’ recorded us and the male ‘agent’ threatened to arrest us if we did not stay put. Mind you we had only taken pictures and videos from Inside the car. We never approached them. They never Identified themselveslves [sic] either.”
A report by 404Media released in June unveiled that ICE is using a facial recognition app called Mobile Fortify, which can identify a person based on their fingerprints just by pointing a phone at them.
In a separate incident, one person was detained on 35th Street and Western Boulevard near McKinley Park on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Photos captured by a witness, which were uploaded to Facebook, show the encounter.
