Federal immigration enforcement has intensified across Chicago in recent weeks, but the Trump administration’s tactics have been far less publicized than during the height of its deportation campaign last fall, legal groups and immigration advocates say.

Last week, at least 20 people were arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Chicago, and another 17 people have been arrested so far this week, according to reports from rapid response groups who document the arrests.

Those numbers seem to be an increase from recent months, said Marcela Rodriguez, co-chair of the Illinois Latino Agenda and a member of the nonprofit group Enlace Chicago.

The Southwest Side, particularly the neighborhoods of Back of the Yards, Brighton Park and Gage Park, have been targeted the most over the last two weeks, legal groups said.

The heightened ICE activity in Chicago comes amid an escalated deportation campaign by the Trump administration across the country.

On Tuesday, an ICE officer shot and killed a man in Houston during an attempted traffic stop.

During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people. The figures indicate that while the administration no longer targets individual cities high-profile efforts, the arrests continue and are surging.

The vast majority of recent detainees in Chicago also have no criminal records, said Berto Aguayo, a lawyer and co-policy chair of the Latino Leadership Council.

…

Legal groups said those numbers also may underestimate the actual amount of arrests made because federal immigration agents have operated more discreetly compared to last fall, when caravans of agents dressed in military fatigues would roam streets, use helicopters, film arrests and boast about them on social media.

Still, many recent arrests have happened in public spaces, such as courthouses, schools and grocery stores.

Videos made by members of the group, Danbury United for Immigrants, show three apparently unarmed men in “media” vests: two with cameras and “media” marked on the front and back of their bodies; a third with what appeared to be audio recording equipment, with “media” written only on the back of his vest.

One of the cameramen wore a black cloth mask covering the lower half of his face.  A video shows him wheeling around to record observers at very close range, who were themselves making videos. In another video shot, he is shown quickly pulling up his mask as he rounds a corner and sees an observer’s camera.

ICE detained six people on that 81-degree day, who had been at or near the courthouse on White Street, several members of the group told me.

What about those vests marked “media?”

This appears to be highly unusual. I’ve found no references to it in news articles. ICE observers in organized groups in Connecticut and New York told me they have never seen it other than that one day in Danbury.

It’s also highly disturbing, if – as all appearances show – these men marked as media were not members of any independent press, broadcast or digital news organization.

What has come out so far is already horrific.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered private prison company GEO Group to admit Washington Department of Health inspectors to the Tacoma detention center it operates under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Senior U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle granted Washington’s request for a preliminary injunction barring GEO Group from refusing state inspectors access to the Northwest ICE Processing Center, where ICE detains individuals awaiting immigration proceedings.

The judge, a George W. Bush appointee, stayed his order for two weeks to give GEO Group an opportunity to appeal. The injunction does not apply to ICE-controlled administrative and medical areas of the facility.

Settle rejected GEO’s argument that ICE is a necessary and indispensable party to the case, which GEO filed three years ago in response to a state law requiring basic health and safety standards at private detention facilities and authorizing state health inspectors to inspect them.

“If ICE were the real party in interest, it would have been a plaintiff, and it has had every opportunity to appear and defend the counterclaim,” Settle wrote, referring to Washington’s counterclaim seeking an injunction requiring GEO to allow inspectors into the Tacoma facility.

“GEO does not assert, or cite any authority for the proposition that, a federal contractor enjoys immunity from state law to the same extent that the federal government does,” the judge wrote. “GEO cannot, because a federal contractor does not.”

…

The Tacoma processing center in one of the largest ICE detention facilities in the country. Most people held there are civil immigration detainees awaiting administrative proceedings. Some lack legal status in the United States, while others are lawful permanent residents, including some with work authorization.

ADVOCATES FOR IMMIGRANTS IN DETENTION NORTHWEST

Fifteen of the 45 immigration detention facilities holding 500 or more people hadn’t been inspected in over 12 months as of late June, while five had no inspection on record, a CBS News analysis of inspection reports found.

This follows a shift in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s policies from inspecting most of its facilities twice a year to once a year or once every two years. It’s a move immigration custody experts said weakens an oversight mechanism that was already flawed.

Federal agents did not have body-worn cameras when a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a Mexican homebuilder who was driving a work van they were trying to pull over in Houston, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.

Few photos or videos of the Tuesday shooting have emerged publicly in the days since the encounter between Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and ICE agents in one of the city’s heavily Hispanic neighbourhoods, unlike other deaths involving federal immigration officers. The family of Salgado Araujo, who had lived in the U.S. for more than 35 years, has questioned ICE’s account and called on the agency to release evidence.

In a statement, DHS said the agents at the scene in Houston had not yet been issued body cameras, which it blamed on Democrats and a record government shutdown that was fuelled by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

After a federal agent killed an undocumented Mexican man in his van during a traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday, the government rushed to follow a familiar template. Just as it has after other shootings, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement insisting that the man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, had “weaponized his vehicle” against the officer, who then justifiably opened fire. DHS offered no evidence of this.

But it appears three other people were in the van with the now-deceased man, and they presumably could recount their version of what happened: the victim’s brother and two employees of the dead man’s construction business. They were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the encounter, and we haven’t heard from them publicly about what happened.

Now, in another potentially dark turn in the saga, those three men are under pressure from immigration officials to agree to self-deport, Juan Proaño, a representative for the families and CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, claimed in an interview with The New Republic.

Chat, are we cooked?

!funhole@lemmy.sdf.org

The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis

The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis

This isn’t so far off from the Greek myth of echo if memory serves.

We refuse to investigate ourselves and find we will continue with paramilitary executions

Everyone loses out.

You don’t think the Gerrymandering and lack of representation is going to affect future voting?

Patriot Front is a fascist neo-nazi group, as seen marching in DC and riding the subway 4th of July 2026

They can also be seen doing this shitty training that was leaked by an infiltrator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyer3A4TiP0

How to catch a fascist is an interesting book that talks a lot about the leak and these pieces of shit.

After Trump’s gerrymander and Abbott’s scheming, Houston voters face most confusing election of 2026

Also if they follow the law, they will have to release all the woman that became pregnant just because they were raped by the concentration camp staff.