CHICAGO (WLS) — Thursday was a chaotic day as reports flooded in of ICE arrests across the city, notably at two Home Depot locations. According to immigration advocates, agents have been focusing on large hardware stores where day laborers gather in search of work.
The exact number of individuals detained during the operation at a Home Depot on the Southwest Side remains unknown. A security officer recounted how agents indiscriminately detained people both inside and outside the parking area. This included a local vendor trying to make a living.
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At 7:52 a.m., a video captured on a Citizen app revealed numerous immigration enforcement officers targeting the parking lot of a Home Depot at the intersection of 47th and Western in Back of the Yards.
“ICE is targeting hardware stores, like Home Depots and Menards,” stated Brandon Lee from ICIRR. “This pattern has been emerging since last week.”
Among the people taken was a tamale vendor set up just outside near the BP gas station, Laura Murillo. Jaime Pérez says he’s her fiancé.
Originally from Tamaulipas Mexico, Murillo is undocumented. She has two teenage daughters, both of them U.S citizens.
“She owns a tamale business in South Chicago with approximately 20 employees,” Pérez explained. “She has an 18-year-old daughter attending Roosevelt University and a 16-year-old daughter with special needs at Washington High School.”
Pérez says he was on a video call with Murillo as she was getting arrested.
“She kept repeating, ‘You’re hurting me, you’re hurting me,'” Pérez recounted. “They forcibly took her phone away, and the officer asked, ‘Do you want the keys?’ I replied, ‘No, I want her. We’re engaged,’ but he simply turned off the phone.”
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It is not clear how many others were arrested at the Home Depot. Members of the Southwest Side Rapid Response Team were on site shortly after.
“I crossed the street and saw that there were six… cars filed with ICE agents. There were in military gear,” said Jian’an with the Southwest Side Response Group. “They had tactical helmets and large guns. That’s at least 20 agents. For what?”
Border Patrol Chief Michel Banks was in Chicago on Thursday. He posted video of himself on the ground with agents, saying “The mission here is as vital as anywhere else on the line. We will not allow criminal aliens to take root in our communities.”
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As for the tamale vendor, her fiancé says she called him from the Broadview processing center, where she is now being held, adding her eldest daughter is in the process of hiring an attorney.
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