Nearly two months ago, federal agents carried out surprise raids in Chicago in pursuit of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, emerging from unmarked vehicles in neighborhoods across the city to confront and detain distraught members of the public.
Arrests She was aggressive Even violent, with agents beating bound people, Spreading tear gas outside schoolsAnd directing pepper spray at the insolent onlookers who inevitably gather to denounce what is happening.
A culture of fear has taken hold, with some people becoming too afraid to leave their homes, especially in cities Predominantly Latino communities. In posts and interviews on social media, many expressed their shock about this Agents’ use of force.
Since I started early last September. “Operation Midway Blitz” It has led to more than… 3,300 arrestsAccording to the detainees’ lawyer. In addition to people who were in the country illegally, several American citizens were arrested in the crackdown.
The processes were amazingly random. Agents targeted both high- and low-income neighborhoods. They stopped at Schools, Workplaces And grocery stores. Even Millennium Park, the site of Cloud Gate – the statue known as “The Bean” – has seen arrests.
The crackdown galvanized Chicagoans, who banded together to protect their neighbors. They witnessed the best way they could: by pulling out their phones to document what was happening.
The Associated Press collected some of these videos. For this story, some details about the people involved in the arrests, including their names, ages and immigration status, were obtained from interviews, local news reports and court records.
The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to emails sent Friday seeking further information and comment about actions taken by the agents shown in the footage. But Trump administration officials have previously routinely defended the agents’ actions.
On October 14, in the East Side neighborhood on Chicago’s Far South Side, Jose Aguilar had just heard from his family that federal agents were in the area when he spotted four in uniform following two people to a nearby pharmacy.
“This guy just ran into a Walgreens,” Aguilar said while filming a cellphone video from his car. “Here comes the other one.”
He said: “Oh God, protect our people.”
Seconds later, a customer chased a black teenager exiting the store and pinned him to the ground as onlookers gathered and began yelling at the customers.
“What’s wrong with you? He’s a citizen!” one girl shouted.
“You don’t know what’s going on, so take the—!” The agent barked as he sat on top of the teen.
He was detained for hours before eventually being released, according to local news reports.
On Oct. 24 in Lakeview, blocks from the iconic Wrigley Field, where the Cubs play, federal agents deployed tear gas on a street lined with multi-million-dollar homes.
Skip Yates was in his home office when he heard screams and loud whistles being blown by Chicago residents to signal that immigration agents were nearby. He looked out from his balcony to see large vehicles and tear gas canisters shooting down the street.
Yates closed the door as he began coughing, his eyes burning.
“Skip,” a woman’s voice said sternly from inside the house. “Don’t go out.”
On the street, construction workers in red shirts were taking a break from replacing windows in a house when a white SUV pulled up. Before the customers even jumped out of the car, the contractors knew what was coming and took off in every direction.
Within seconds, the quiet street turned into chaos. One worker, eating lunch on the ramp, rushed back from the scene, watching from the front porch as agents chased away contractors amid screaming and popping noises.
A woman came out from inside the house to witness the scene.
“Sorry, you don’t have a warrant,” she told agents in her yard. They were not deterred.
The next morning in Old Irving Park, a neighborhood a few miles west, Uriel Villegas and his older brother were doing construction work on a house when federal agents pulled up in a car and asked if they had papers.
Villegas did, but his brother Luis did not. He didn’t want to get caught, so he ran away. Four agents chased him.
“Calm down! This is my brother!” Villegas shouted as he ran after them. When he followed them, he saw the agents pinning his brother to the ground in someone’s garden.
“Get out of me!” He said, his voice breaking as the agents pulled him away from his brother.
In the background, a resident asked agents to get off his private property while members of the public flocked to the scene and began recording agents.
“Don’t walk away, don’t walk away,” Villegas pleaded as he pushed people to watch as agents loaded his brother into a white SUV.
The scene intensified as the crowd grew, and agents became more aggressive with onlookers. Villegas captured two other arrests in a video showing agents restraining two people on the ground. One of them was a 70-year-old man who was out jogging, and his ribs were broken by agents who knelt on his chest, according to the man’s running club, which posted about the incident on social media.
Villegas’ brother is now in Michigan, awaiting his December 6 immigration hearing.
On October 31 in Evanston, the suburb just north of Chicago that is home to Northwestern University, witnesses captured video of how the collision with a Border Patrol vehicle escalated. Agents began making arrests, and people screamed when one agent punched a man in the head even though he was handcuffed on the ground.
“You’re hitting him! You’re hitting him!” A woman screamed over and over again.
As the agents pushed back the onlookers and directed pepper spray at the crowd, dozens of people began chanting and surrounding the agents’ car.
“Shame! Shame! Shame!” They chanted over and over again.
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Associated Press video journalist Laura Bargfield contributed to this report.