[This roundup of news about ICE and the incursion of federal agents and troops in Chicago comes from our sister paper, the Chicago Reader—eds.]
Feds target unhoused Chicagoans
Since September, at least six unhoused Chicagoans have been abducted by federal agents. That number is likely higher, but the social invisibility and isolation already faced by people experiencing homelessness make their disappearances harder to track.
“While we have heard several reports that we are working to verify, we don’t have an exhaustive list or count of all incidents involving people experiencing homelessness,” wrote Melissa West, staff attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow with the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH), over email Monday. But CCH, alongside other homelessness service providers, is investigating four additional reported abductions of approximately 19 people:
• Over the weekend of September 27–28, 11 unhoused people were detained in Logan Square, according to a tip the organization received. “We are continuing to investigate,” wrote West.
• Two independent eyewitnesses told street outreach workers that at least four unhoused people were arrested by federal agents around Belmont and Kimball early in the week of September 29.
• CCH was also notified of a raid targeting unhoused people who were “congregating in a public space” near Milwaukee and Belmont on Thursday, October 2.
• “We have also heard of the possible detainment of four individuals at an encampment in Cicero,” wrote West.
• Two individuals were taken from outside a shelter in Budlong Woods on September 25 but were later released; the four snatched from outside a shelter in Bronzeville on October 1 remain in custody, their status unknown.
“We are encouraging anyone who has information, or believes that they witnessed these raids at the locations mentioned above—or any other similar incidents—to reach out,” West wrote.—Katie Prout, Chicago Reader
Free speech (when we say so)
For weeks, federal agents have needlessly and violently ramped up attacks on anti-deportation protesters, legal observers, and journalists alike outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Broadview, Illinois. But rather than address the hordes of masked soldiers running roughshod over civil liberties, state and local leaders are instead seeking to further constrain protesters.
Late Thursday, October 2, the Illinois State Police and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office announced that a “unified command” would take over crowd control from the mostly hands-off Broadview Police Department. During protests that have occurred weekly on Fridays and Saturdays, ISP and sheriff’s police last week corralled protesters into designated “protest areas” that were enclosed by concrete barricades and arrested people who refused to leave the public street.
Though Illinois law prohibits police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts—and defines cooperation as including “establishing a security or traffic perimeter surrounding such operations”—state troopers and local police joined dozens of militarized U.S. Border Patrol agents in brutalizing protesters and pushing them off the street. Cops from multiple suburban police departments then joined federal agents in forming a traffic perimeter outside the detention center to allow vehicles driven by ICE agents to come and go.
border patrol agents are holding a line against protesters side-by-side with broadview police, oak brook police, illinois state police, + the cook county sheriff’s office.
feds made a huge push to clear everyone from harvard street, which ice uses to enter and leave the broadview detention center.
— shawn (@mulchy.bsky.social) October 3, 2025 at 7:48 AM
[image or embed]
Then, on Monday, October 6, Broadview mayor Katrina Thompson signed an executive order that limits protests outside the ICE detention center to the designated area between 9 AM and 6 PM. Thompson’s order claims Broadview is “under siege” and points to “the recent escalation of violence by ICE” as reason to “temporarily place time restrictions on protests.”
I guess free speech only applies during business hours. —Shawn Mulcahy, Chicago Reader
ICE at county courthouses
Fourteen civil rights and social services organizations are asking Cook County chief judge Timothy Evans to bar federal agents from making civil arrests without a judicial warrant or order at county courthouses.
The coalition, led by the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, submitted a petition on October 1 asking Evans to issue a court rule barring civil arrests in all areas of county courthouses, including public entryways, driveways, sidewalks, parking areas, and nearby public transit stops.
In recent weeks, federal agents have arrested multiple people in or near county courthouses. During the first three weeks of September, federal authorities entered at least four separate courthouses, according to the public defender’s office.
“Legal and social service organizations in Chicago are deeply concerned about ICE activities in Cook County courthouses,” reads the petition.
“They worry about clients who have had to forego participation in court proceedings—sometimes their own—out of fear of being harassed, detained, and arrested by ICE at, near, or on the way to and from County courthouse buildings. And they worry about the impact ICE has had on access to justice in Cook County writ large.” —Shawn Mulcahy, Chicago Reader
Follow more news out of Chicago from our sister paper, the Chicago Reader.
