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Tears, fears — but few details — in wake of immigration sweeps across Chicago area

A young woman talks with a Sun-Times reporter outside her Waukegan home on Monday.
Ashlee Rezin
/
Chicago Sun-Times
Yenitza Marquina, 28, talks with a Sun-Times reporter outside her Waukegan home on Monday.

When Yenitza Marquina awoke to news that her 50-year-old father had been detained by federal immigration agents, she thought it had to be a joke.

But reality soon set in. Her father, Andres Marquina, was detained Sunday during immigration sweeps overseen by President Donald Trump’s appointees, including “border czar” Tom Homan. They came to Chicago with agents carrying out Trump’s promised mass deportation plan. More arrests are expected this week, though at a smaller scale.

“I really just started crying,” Yenitza Marquina said Monday as she grew emotional outside of her north suburban Waukegan home. “I was so heartbroken. They took my dad.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released little information about the people who were detained or why they were sought. Nationwide, officials said 956 arrests were made Sunday. The Trump administration says it “removed” 7,300 people in its first week, “including hundreds of convicted criminals.” ICE averaged 311 daily arrests through Sept. 30.

Bloomberg News reported that 260 people were targeted in the Chicago area on Sunday, although just seven had criminal arrest warrants.

Andres Marquina, Yenitza Marquina’s father, has a 2005 felony conviction for drug possession, criminal records show. His daughter also said he had DUI and battery arrests around the same time, but that he’s changed his life since.

“He just did mistakes in the past, and I just believe that everybody deserves a second chance,” she said.

Andres Marquina was working at an area warehouse and living in Waukegan, his daughter said. He immigrated from Mexico years ago and has three adult children who are U.S. citizens.

Andres Marquina is pictured with his granddaughter during a birthday celebration about two years ago.
Provided
Andres Marquina is pictured with his granddaughter during a birthday celebration about two years ago. His daughter, Yenitza Marquina, said her father was among those who were detained by federal immigration officials this past weekend.

Yenitza Marquina said ICE agents arrived at her father’s home early Sunday, banging on the door and stating they were the police. She said he opened the door, thinking something was wrong.

“Everything was going perfect for them,” she said of her father and their family. “My heart is torn in pieces right now. I just want my dad to be able to come back home.”

‘We arrested a lot of bad guys’

Homan on Sunday tried to stress a focus on targeting criminals, telling a conservative media outlet that the arrestees included “seven sex offenders,” “two murderers” and members of the Venezuelan prison gang El Tren de Aragua.

“As President Trump committed to, we’re going to concentrate on public safety threats [and] national security threats, and that’s what we did today. We arrested a lot of bad guys,” Homan told Real America’s Voice, a network that has promoted conspiracy theories and counts Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon as an anchor.

However, in addition to Andres Marquina’s 20-year-old conviction, at least two men targeted in Sunday’s immigration arrests were only accused of entering the United States illegally.

A Honduran man had been ordered removed from the country six times between 2007 and 2016, according to an affidavit filed Sunday by an ICE deportation officer. Chicago police arrested him “for a traffic offense” in November, but the case was soon dropped. He now faces a charge of illegally entering the U.S. that was filed Sunday in federal court in Chicago.

Another affidavit filed here Monday notes that a Venezuelan man was charged with crossing the Rio Grande River in September 2023 and unlawfully entering the U.S. near Eagle Pass, Texas. Those charges were filed Jan. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas — a day after Trump took office.

A criminal warrant was also issued for another man, Danny Linares, according to Joseph Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago. Linares was charged with selling an undercover agent an untraceable ghost gun and two Glock switches earlier this month. Such devices are used to turn handguns into automatic weapons.

‘I fear leaving my home’

The weekend arrests and widespread anxiety about those that lie ahead have left many communities reeling.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), who said “at least one” person was detained in Belmont Cragin and two more in Hermosa on the Northwest Side, is still in the “early stages of connecting” with their “traumatized” families, who have been provided support.

“In one instance, a young father was detained, and we were able to provide baby supplies like diapers to the family because that was an immediate need that they had,” he said.

Citing recent statements by Trump and ICE, Ramirez-Rosa said it appears the feds are targeting some people for illegally re-entering the country.

“And we know that there are many parents who are deported, then risk their lives walking through the desert in order to get back to their family and be able to be a breadwinner and provide for their children.”

A Venezuelan woman who lives on the South Side with her husband and five children said she hasn’t been taking her kids to school.

She fears being separated from her children if she gets caught In what ICE agents call, “collateral arrests” — when an immigrant is not the primary target.

“It’s been approximately two weeks since my kids have been in school,” the woman, who asked not to be named to keep her family safe, said in Spanish. “I fear leaving my home, or riding the bus with them. What if I get caught on the way or right outside the school?”

Chicago Public Schools has not shared attendance records since school began last week, but teachers say some immigrant students are not showing up.

Homan in his Real America’s Voice interview claimed that agents weren’t carrying out “neighborhood sweeps” or engaging in “racial profiling,” though he acknowledged other undocumented people could be taken into custody if they’re present during a targeted search.

In the north suburban Waukegan, Mundelein and Round Lake, some community leaders say immigrant families are taking the threat more seriously after hearing about ICE agents patrolling their communities.

“It’s really unfortunate that it had to take this weekend for people to realize this is actually happening,” said Dulce Ortiz, executive director of Mano a Mano, an organization that empowers immigrant families. “There was hope from community members [who thought] ‘Oh, it may not happen. Oh, [Trump] is just saying that.’”

‘Used as a form of entertainment’

Ortiz said some residents have refused to open their door when ICE agents approached, armed with knowledge about their rights from sessions offered by groups like hers and others.

She called the broadcasting of at least one arrest by ICE on Sunday by talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw “hurtful.”

“Our immigrant community is being used as a form of entertainment,” she said. “These are families that are being torn apart and this administration is doing everything they can to provide a form of entertainment to their supporters.”

On Monday, advocates also shared that immigrants facing deportation were stripped of a critical resource. The Trump administration cut off funding for a legal help desk that the National Immigration Justice Center had operated out of Chicago’s immigration court, said Azadeh Erfani, the policy director for the center.

It was one of several programs across the country that provides legal information for immigrants, including programs for children and in detention centers, that Trump stopped funding in his first days back in office. The Chicago-based organization was forced to end the legal help desk last week, which it had operated for about a decade.

The desk provided immigrants with help figuring out the status of their cases, filling out immigration forms and informing them of their rights in court, Erfani said. The desk last year provided 3,604 services to more than 2,000 individuals and families going through Chicago’s immigration court.

“The help desk has been a lifeline for the people we serve,” she said.

Back in Waukegan, Yenitza Marquina said she doesn’t believe the agents had a signed judicial warrant when they arrived at her father’s home on Sunday. She doesn’t know many details about her father’s immigration case.

She and other family members were calling lawyers for legal advice and trying to get the word out about what happened to her father.

As she thought about what happened to her dad, Marquina was ready with a strong recommendation for others: Think twice before opening the doors to anyone.

“Don’t let nobody come inside your home if they don’t have a search warrant,” she said.

Contributing: Tessa Weinberg

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