chicago — CHICAGO (AP) — Hoan Huynh has been going door to door informing businesses Intensify immigration enforcement on Chicago’s North Side when the Democratic state lawmaker received an active notification that federal agents were nearby.
He followed customers’ cars and then beeped to warn others when he was stopped. He recounted that masked federal officers pointed a gun at him and an employee, tried to break his car window and took pictures of their faces, before issuing a warning.
“We were non-violent,” Huynh said of Tuesday’s incident, part of which was captured on video. “We identified ourselves as an elected official and my hand was visible.”
While the Trump administration intensifies Immigration campaign Throughout the nation’s third-largest city and its suburbs, elected officials in the Democratic stronghold were increasingly caught up in tense standoffs with federal agents. Chicago City Council members and their staff, state legislators and congressional candidates have reported being threatened, handcuffed and detained in recent days.
The tense political climate comes as President Donald Trump pledged to do so Expanding military deployment and Prison Governor J.B. Pritzker And Mayor Brandon Johnson on immigration policies that Republicans claim protect criminals. But Illinois Democrats view these measures as intimidation tactics and calculated acceleration. These clashes, amid ongoing arrests of immigrants and protesters, have emerged as a major campaign issue in the Illinois primary in March, where an unusually large number of congressional seats are open.
“This is an escalation designed to create fear and intimidation in my community and in all of Chicago,” said Alderman Mike Rodriguez, whose ward includes neighborhoods dense with immigrants and Latinos.
During an enforcement operation Wednesday in the city’s Mexican enclave of Little Village and the neighboring suburb of Cicero, at least eight people were arrested, including four U.S. citizens, he added.
Two of these citizens work in his office, including Chief of Staff Eliane Bahena, and were detained for hours. Bahena also serves on the elected Police Accountability Board. Rodriguez said they did nothing wrong, but did not provide precise details.
“Trump sent his followers into my neighborhood to intimidate, and while helping people get out, my staff was arrested,” he said Thursday amid a continued federal presence in Little Village. Among other things, agents deployed chemicals and arrested a 16-year-old, activists and elected officials said.
While the operation focused on Latino neighborhoods and suburbs, federal agents were spotted throughout the city of 2.7 million and its many suburbs. A word to pedestrians and traffic stops outside schools, Stores, Courts The parking lot at O’Hare International Airport, used by ride-sharing drivers, sparked waves of protests frustration amid the city’s active immigrant rights network and residents following vehicles, sounding sirens and taking videos.
The Department of Homeland Security defended its operations, including the detention of US citizens, saying they were being held temporarily for their safety. The agency, which did not respond to questions about Rodriguez’s employees, accused Huynh of “stalking” clients.
Agents should assess whether he poses a threat, said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of Homeland Security.
“This behavior is unbecoming of a public servant and is just another example of politicians putting our officers at risk,” she said in a statement.
Also this week, City Councilwoman Jessie Fuentes filed a federal tort claim seeking $100,000 in damages after agents grabbed and handcuffed her earlier this month at a hospital. She said she was investigating a person who had been injured while being pursued by immigration agents and requested a signed warrant on that person’s behalf. She was handcuffed and left outside the hospital. She was not charged.
“This is a truly frightening time when unknown federal agents push, grab, restrain and detain an elected official in the exercise of her duties,” said Jan Susler, Fuentes’ attorney.
Huynh, who was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 2022, is also running for Congress to replace the retiring US Representative Jan Schukowski, Of the four open House seats in a safe Democratic district. Other candidates in the crowded primaries have also declared their opposition abroad Federal immigration processing Center, including Kat Abu-Ghazaleh Which federal agents threw to the ground while she was protesting.
For Huynh, who came to the United States in the 1990s from Vietnam and was granted political asylum, the feeling is eerily familiar.
“My family came as refugees from the Vietnam War where the secret police were arresting people all the time. We believed in the American ideal of due process,” he said. “It’s very troubling in this country right now and it’s very troubling now that we’re living under this authoritarian regime.”