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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.
The federal courthouse in Chicago was packed this week with cases related to immigration enforcement activity and the Trump administration’s targeting of the city. Here’s a rundown of what happened.
Troops arrive in Chicago despite lawsuit asking federal judge to block the move
The state of Illinois and the city of Chicago sued President Donald Trump, members of his administration and the Department of Homeland Security on Monday in an attempt to block National Guard troops from occupying Chicago.
Officials filed the suit after Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced Sunday that he had learned 400 Texas guard members were being ordered to “Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States.”
At 2:00 p.m. on Monday, lawyers for Chicago and Illinois convened for a hearing on the case in front of District Judge April Perry, a Joe Biden appointee. The state and city’s attorneys urged her to halt Texas National Guard members set to depart for Illinois that afternoon.
Illinois attorney Christopher Wells wanted Perry to block the Texas guardsmen from coming to Illinois altogether, arguing their deployment to Illinois threatened the state’s sovereignty. Wells also argued Trump sought to send troops to Chicago out of spite.
“This is all part of a concerted effort to target disfavored jurisdictions that the president doesn’t like,” Wells told the court.
Perry wasn’t convinced. She said she was concerned that attorneys representing the federal government couldn’t tell her exactly where in Illinois the guard members would be deployed or who they would report to, but allowed the Texas troops to continue on their way to Illinois anyway.
Perry wanted to give the defendants time to review the lawsuit, which Illinois and Chicago had filed only a few hours before the hearing.
The Chicago Sun Times reported that on Tuesday morning, Texas National Guard members had arrived at a military training center in the Chicago suburbs.
Oral arguments over the National Guard’s mobilization to Chicago are scheduled for Thursday.
Two accused of blocking in and ramming the feds in Brighton Park ordered to be released ahead of trial
Also at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, pre-trial detention hearings were held for Marimar Martinez and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, two individuals facing assault charges for allegedly blocking in and ramming vehicles operated by Border Patrol agents in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood on Saturday. A federal agent shot Martinez during the incident, and her wounds were visible in court on Monday.
Martinez’s shooting also led to a standoff between Chicago locals and militarized federal agents on Saturday afternoon. The confrontation ended when federal agents deployed tear gas onto the street and sped off in a long convoy amid the resulting chaos. The gas affected protestors, press, community members on adjacent streets, and even Chicago Police officers who had placed themselves between the feds and the crowd.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather McShain ordered both Martinez and Santos Ruiz released on Monday, per relevant court filings. Chicago Tribune journalist Jason Meisner also reported that Martinez’s attorney Chris Parente questioned the government’s narrative, and argued to McShain that the armed federal agents were the real danger. The attorney reportedly claimed they had been driving through local communities in an SUV marked with an Uber logo.
“What I do know is, it was Ms. Martinez who has seven holes in her body from five shots from this agent, who fired within seconds of getting out of this vehicle,” Meisner reported Parente telling the court.
According to WBEZ, body-camera video of a Border Patrol agent involved in the shooting says “Do something, bitch,” before pulling over and shooting Martinez.
Journalists seek protection through federal lawsuit
In yet another federal courtroom on Monday afternoon, a collection of journalists and press organizations sought a court order to protect them against federal agents operating in the Chicago area. They were joined by several non-press plaintiffs, including Reverend David Black of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago.
The order, part of a class action lawsuit filed Monday against Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, multiple federal agencies and “unnamed federal officer defendants” seeks to rein in agents’ violent behavior. Federal agents have spent a month shooting pepper balls, tear gas, rubber bullets and flashbangs into protestor crowds, Chicago communities and press alike. Agents have also arrested at least one Chicago journalist, Unraveled Press co-founder Steve Held, and have been caught on camera shooting reporters and clergy like Black in the head and groin with pepper balls.
“We would like [federal agents] to hesitate before shooting priests and journalists,” an attorney for the journalists and protestors told District Judge Sara Ellis, a Barack Obama appointee, at one point in the hearing.
Department of Justice attorney Sean Skedzielewski opposed much of the language in the proposed order, including a portion that would command often-masked federal immigration agents to wear identification.
At one point the government attorney claimed “violent terrorist organizations” were trying to doxx federal agents, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
“Well, I think we have a different idea of what’s going on in Chicago,” Eliis said.
Ellis admitted it could be “scary” for federal agents to be followed or tracked by angry community members. But she also said it’s important for public employees like ICE agents to be held accountable.
“It’s unfortunately part of the cost of doing business as a public servant,” the judge said.
Arguments over the proposed court order went on for over three hours, and weren’t finished by the time the hearing ended around 6:00 p.m.
Judge Ellis and the lawyers reconvened a little after 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Though there was yet more debate over the proposed restraining order’s language, Ellis affirmed to the parties that she would be issuing the order in some form.
Amid the continued discussions over the order’s language, Ellis again emphasized that federal agents needed to be identifiable unless they were working undercover. Acknowledging ICE and Border Patrol agents’ alleged fears over being targeted, she said a “compromise position” would be for agents to wear IDs that “identifies them numerically and by agency.”
“What I don’t want to hear is that the officers thought there was some risk and put tape over the numbers so they can’t be identified,” the judge said.
Argument over fence outside of Broadview ICE facility
District Judge LaShonda Hunt, a Joe Biden appointee, presided Tuesday over a hearing on a large fence federal agents put up last month in front of the Broadview ICE facility. The Village of Broadview, a suburb west of Chicago, sued the Department of Homeland Security over the fence last Friday, calling it a public safety hazard. The village also noted in its court filings that the government refused to remove the fence voluntarily.
Hunt said in a Tuesday court entry that she would rule on the issue “shortly.”
State authorities have also put up concrete barriers near the Broadview ICE facility in order to create so-called “free speech zones.” As a result, the area around the facility is now heavily fortified against protests. Last Friday, Illinois State Police and local police joined federal agents in arresting protestors, and on Monday, Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson gave an order limiting protests at the facility to the hours between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Thompson cited “a recent escalation of violence by ICE” in her order, including federal agents “needlessly” deploying tear gas, pepper spray and other less-lethal weapons on protestors, press and village residents, including local police and firefighters.
Given this escalation, Thompson wrote “that it is in the best interests of the village and its residents to temporarily place time restrictions on protests at the [Broadview ICE facility] in order to protect the Village’s well-being.”
Extension of the Castañon Nava settlement agreement
On Tuesday evening, federal Judge Jeff Cummings, a Joe Biden appointee, agreed to extend the 2022 Castañon Nava settlement agreement, which had set restrictions on when and how ICE agents can conduct vehicle stops and warrantless arrests.
The agreement was set to expire this past May, though plaintiffs in the relevant lawsuit claimed its language allowed for an extension of its terms pending the resolution of alleged violations by
ICE. Cummings found ICE had ceased compliance with the settlement agreement since this past June 11, and agreed with the settlement plaintiffs that the federal agency had “failed to substantially comply” with the agreement’s terms.
The judge thus extended the settlement through February 2, 2026.
Judge Cummings also found 22 individuals had been arrested in violation of the settlement. He ordered ICE to produce the names, immigrant identification numbers, and necessary arrest documents for any individual arrested without a warrant since June 2025 in the Northern District of Illinois, and to do so moving forward on a monthly basis.
Xanat Sobrevilla, an immigration activist with Organized Communities Against Deportations, said Wednesday that while “there has not been a day that we are not witnessing the ravaging violence being perpetrated by this administration,” this order is still a tool that can now be used for communities to defend their constitutional rights.
Case dismissals against three at Broadview protest
Federal prosecutors also moved this week to dismiss criminal cases against three people arrested during a protest outside the Broadview ICE facility on Sept. 27. U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes agreed at separate hearings Wednesday to toss the cases of Ray Collins and Jocelyne Robledo, a couple who together faced felony charges for allegedly assaulting federal officers at the protest while legally carrying pistols, and Luci Mazur, who faced a misdemeanor charge for allegedly resisting/impeding a federal agent.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Snell told Fuentes at Mazur’s hearing that the government chose not to proceed with the case against her based on newly received footage of her interactions with federal agents at the protest.
After her hearing, Mazur told the press she would continue to peacefully protest ICE activity. She encouraged others to do likewise, “because we are on the right side of history.”
U.S. attorneys are still pursuing felony assault charges against two other people arrested at the Sept. 27 protest: Dana Briggs, a 70-year-old veteran who, according to a Homeland Security Investigations affidavit, fell down in front of Border Patrol agents, and Paul Ivery, a 26-year-old Oak Park resident who reportedly has an intellectual disability and agreed to waive his Miranda rights while in federal custody.
Tara Goodarzi contributed to this story.
