Federal immigration agents accompanied by Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino swarmed Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood Wednesday, community leaders said, arresting at least seven people, including U.S. citizens, and clashing with residents who filmed them.
The operation caused chaos in one of Chicago’s oldest and largest immigrant communities — known as “Mexico of the Midwest” — and neighboring Cicero, with the agents’ presence sparking fear at a local laundromat, a Sam’s Club and the popular El Milagro restaurant and tortillería on 26th Street.
Among those taken into custody were two street vendors and a man who left his home to do laundry. A social media video also appeared to show Border Patrol agents, with Bovino present, detaining a woman during a confrontation with onlookers.
Community leaders and elected officials condemned the raids later Wednesday afternoon, saying agents trespassed on private property to effect arrests.
“Our communities are not a war zone,” said Marcela Rodríguez, the co-executive director of community group Enlace Chicago. “This is our home.”
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Ald. Mike Rodríguez talks with a group of people along Ogden Avenue in Cicero, near the Sam’s Club parking lot, after federal agents, including Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, conducted immigration operations in the area on Oct. 22, 2025. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
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Ald. Mike Rodríguez talks with a group of people along Ogden Avenue in Cicero, near the Sam’s Club parking lot, after federal agents, including Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, conducted immigration operations in the area on Oct. 22, 2025. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Chicago Ald. Mike Rodríguez, 22nd Ward, who represents Little Village on the City Council, called for the release of two of his staffers — Jacqueline López and Elianne Bahena — who he said were detained by federal agents.
Bahena, a U.S citizen, is also the elected district council member for the 10th Police District. Her whereabouts have not been confirmed, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability said in a statement, which also demanded her release.
Since the start of the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz in September, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reported more than 1,500 arrests, though the agency has not broadly released names or detailed data. The beefed-up immigration enforcement efforts in the Chicago area have led to raids at workplaces and around areas traditionally spared from civil immigration enforcement, like schools and courthouses, as well as protests and confrontations in Chicago neighborhoods when residents push back on agents’ presence there.
Border Patrol officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the Little Village neighborhood, workers and residents described encounters with agents, locking up doors to businesses and frantic calls to family members.
“When I saw the trucks and the agents getting out of their car, I froze,” said Rodolfo Espinoza, a street vendor who set up shop near Little Village’s symbolic arch on 26th and Troy streets. “I kept praying that they wouldn’t come towards me.”
Espinoza and his wife have been selling fruits and vegetables in the area for about five years. His eyes teared up as he relayed the close encounter with immigration agents to neighbors who passed by.
A block down, Agustín Pérez, 70, another elderly vendor selling homemade donuts, said he was approached by agents.
“Me preguntaron si tenía papeles y les dije que los deje en la casa,” said Perez, still shaken. “They asked me if I had papers and I told them I left them at home.”
The agents nodded and walked away, he said.
Nearby, a cotton candy vendor was just getting ready to start his day when the agents approached him and took him near Trumbull Avenue and 28th Street, leaving the cotton candy cart behind, according to Dolores Castañeda, who witnessed the arrest.
Another vendor, Arturo Rodriguez Bellos, was taken from his shop on 26th and Spaulding, according to his wife.
Rodriguez would set up shop to sell eggs to make ends meet, said his wife, who the Tribune is not naming because she fears for her safety. The couple is from El Salvador and like many other immigrants, they migrated to Chicago looking for opportunities to earn more money.
Less than two miles away, 19-year-old Alberto Calcol was detained after leaving his home around 9 a.m. to do laundry at the laundromat around 31st Street and Pulaski Road, according to his family.
They began calling him after hearing that agents had stopped at that facility, but the calls went unanswered.
His cousin then went to the laundromat to look for him, but they only found his bike left behind. The 19-year-old arrived from Guatemala about three years ago.
A woman who was at the laundromat when federal agents arrived said agents rang the doorbell and knocked on the glass but the laundromat wouldn’t let them in.
“No one was committing a crime. No one was doing anything bad. We’re just doing laundry,” Tina Rosales said.
Agents then detained a crying woman by the bus stop, Rosales said.
“These agents are picking up people based on how they look. These are no targeted arrests, they show no warrants,” Castañeda said. “They are randomly stopping people, chasing people down the street because they’re Latinos. It’s racial profiling. Then they ask if they have documents. It’s a numbers game for them.”
Other people in the laundromat, however, were mostly safe, said the supervisor Rene Garcia.
Garcia said that when he noticed that the federal agents were outside he immediately locked the doors. The team, he said, had already talked about a protocol to follow when and if agents showed up.
“Even though we were in here, we worried they would force themselves inside in as they have in other places,” Garcia said.
In nearby Cicero at the Sam’s Club, Ana Karen told the Tribune her U.S. citizen cousin was detained by federal agents. He had been filming them, she said.
And as reports of agent activity in the area grew, community organizer Eddie Guillen rushed over and saw a group of people standing near a federal vehicle. Guillen said the agents rolled the window down and pepper sprayed him in the face before leaving.
Mid-morning on Wednesday, federal agents were spotted just outside El Milagro restaurant and tortilleria, the popular taco spot on 26th Street, but workers and street vendors said no one was detained.
The scenes in Little Village prompted restaurants and shops to take extra precautions.
At both El Milagro and at Panda Express down the street, workers stood inside the restaurants’ entryways, unlocking the doors for lunch customers one by one.
At the Little Village Discount Mall, front entrances not in use were padlocked midday Wednesday, but security was still letting shoppers in. Signs posted on the door quoted the Fourth Amendment and warned: “Agents lacking judicial warrants will be turned away.”
During at least one operation on Wednesday, Bovino was captured on camera in a video posted on a Facebook page for Ismael Cordová-Clough, who seeks to document immigration enforcement activity.
“Oh it’s me,” Bovino said. “Oh hey don’t tell anyone guys.”
At one point, agents turn to a woman and say: “What’d you say? Did you make a threat?”
“I didn’t say s—,” the woman said.
An agent approaches her, according to the video, and scuffles with her before appearing to detain her.
“She’s not even doing anything!” someone in the crowd yelled.
Chicago Tribune’s Stacey Wescott and Zareen Syed contributed.
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