An undocumented Elgin father who has been in the country for more than two decades was swept up in a fugitive investigation targeting his stepson, a scene captured in a harrowing video that went viral on social media.
Raul Lopez, 44, was brought to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in suburban Broadview after his wife and daughters were physically pulled out of their Elgin home by federal agents with the U.S. Marshals Service on Tuesday morning. The agents were there for Jose Ramos, 26, Lopez’s stepson who was wanted on an attempted murder charge.
But Ramos was not home when officials entered the house. Agents instead arrested Lopez, who had been hiding in an attic during the raid.
Sanjuana Ramos, his wife, recalled holding their 3-year-old in her arms while the agents handcuffed her husband. Their daughters were crying. She said the agents told her, “We have to take someone.”
“But why him?” she said she asked after begging the agents to check his records. “He’s got nothing, no criminal record at all aside from being undocumented.”
A week into Donald Trump’s second presidency and his nationwide efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, federal officers are operating with a new sense of mission: Under Trump, officers can now arrest people without legal status if they run across them while looking for migrants targeted for removal. Under President Joe Biden, such “collateral arrests” were banned.
During a White House briefing Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked how many of those arrested have a criminal record versus how many are simply in the country illegally.
“All of them because they illegally broke our nation’s laws and therefore they are criminals as far as this administration goes,” she responded. “I know the last administration didn’t see it that way so it’s a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal but that’s exactly what they are.”
While Lopez was not the fugitive sought at the home on Silver Street in Elgin, the ICE officers who accompanied the U.S. Marshals office took him into custody, according to Belkis Sandoval, public affairs officer for the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force. ICE officers are part of the marshals office and accompanied them on the detail, she said.
ICE officials have not returned calls for comment but the agency announced on X that as of Jan. 29, it had made 1,016 arrests nationwide, with 814 detained. It’s unclear how many of those arrests stem from the Chicago area. At a news conference Tuesday at City Hall, Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling said more than 100 people from the Chicago area had been taken into custody. He said he did not have details on whether they had indeed been convicted of criminal offenses.
A records search in Cook, Kane and DuPage counties did not turn up any felony arrests by men with the same name and age. His family said he was a roofer who has also helped his wife working odd jobs. He’s been in the country for 24 years.
The family, from Guanajuato, Mexico, moved into their light blue house in Elgin last year over the summer. It was a dream come true after living and working in the country for more than two decades, Lopez’s wife, Ramos, said.
One of the couple’s three daughters, Janeth Lopez, said the family is trying to cope.
“It’s a lot. We are just trying to figure out what’s going on,” she said.
The raid began around 7 a.m. Tuesday with a heavy knock on the door, the Lopez family recalled. The couple’s daughters were getting ready for work and school.
“They were saying they were looking for this person, but we said he doesn’t live here,” said their daughter Bethzy Lopez, 18.
She had heard the advice being given by immigration lawyers about not opening the door to ICE and asking to see a warrant signed by a judge. So she asked to see a warrant through the closed door.
The next thing she knew, agents were breaking in the door with a heavy pry bar. The damage to the door was visible Tuesday afternoon, with splintered wood around the entry of the home. Her sister, Janeth, recorded video of the agents breaking the door.
Standing on their porch were federal agents. One holding a black shield that said “sheriff” stood at the door, shining a flashlight into the entryway. They announced they had a criminal warrant.
Janeth Lopez captured the events on her phone. The family can repeatedly be heard asking to see a warrant.
“We’re looking for Jose Ramos,” an agent can be heard saying in one of the videos.
They were there as part of a fugitive investigation, not an ICE raid, federal officials later said. The suspect being sought was charged with attempted first-degree murder in a Nov. 12 shooting in Elgin. He is wanted on a warrant for attempted murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon by a gang member.
The family told agents Jose Ramos did not live there. They hadn’t seen him for months. The agents did a sweep of the house and they found Lopez instead.
“After a systematic search of the residence took place, a male subject was found deep, hidden in the attic,” U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Sandoval said. “An investigative check revealed that this turned into an ICE matter.”
Though the family had heard about the potential of increased immigration enforcement in Chicago, they weren’t concerned because “we (had) done nothing wrong,” Lopez’s wife told the Tribune.
“He told me to be strong, that we didn’t owe them anything and that we were just working hard to make sure our daughter could finish school,” Ramos said her husband had told her.
Collateral arrests can be for past crimes or for civil matters, like not being in the United States legally, said Kalman Resnick, an immigration attorney with Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym.
Still, the forceful way in which law enforcement entered the house on Silver Street and pulled out family members may have infringed on their constitutional rights, he said after watching the video.
“In this case, what did the woman (who was pulled out of the house) do that required force?” he asked. “The U.S. Constitution’s right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure assaults applies to all people … there is no reason for law enforcement to use any physical restraint on a person who is not harming them or trying to flee.”
The task force typically checks all people who are in the house for safety reasons and will continue to look for Ramos until he’s apprehended, Sandoval said. She said the operation was not originally an immigration matter and ICE took over when it became one.
The Illinois TRUST Act generally prohibits local law enforcement in Illinois from participating in immigration enforcement. When asked about the official who was marked as a “sheriff,” Sandoval could not say which sheriff’s office was involved in the operation. The address where the Tuesday arrest occurred was in Kane County.
Ron Hain, Kane County sheriff, said his office was not involved Tuesday. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office in Cook County — where the attempted murder allegedly committed by Ramos occurred — also said its officials were not involved. Sheriffs’ offices in surrounding counties also denied being part of Tuesday’s operation.
Advocates in Chicago are worried that the administration is finding ways to get access to the undocumented community outside of how ICE has typically worked.
That means that the high alert must continue, said Erendira Rendon, vice president of immigrant justice at the Resurrection Project.
“We need to stay vigilant and take care of each other,” she said. For the first time, many are hiding. She believes that collateral arrests will begin to increase in the coming weeks.
The Associated Press and Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin and Sam Charles contributed.
An undocumented Elgin father who has been in the country for more than two decades was swept up in a fugitive investigation targeting his stepson, a scene that was captured in a harrowing video that went viral on social media.
An undocumented Elgin father who has been in the country for more than two decades was swept up in a fugitive investigation targeting his stepson, a scene captured in a harrowing video that went viral on social media.
Raul Lopez, 44, was brought to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in suburban Broadview after his wife and daughters were physically pulled out of their Elgin home by federal agents with the U.S. Marshals Service on Tuesday morning. The agents were there for Jose Ramos, 26, Lopez’s stepson who was wanted on an attempted murder charge.
But Ramos was not home when officials entered the house. Agents instead arrested Lopez, who had been hiding in an attic during the raid.
Sanjuana Ramos, his wife, recalled holding their 3-year-old in her arms while the agents handcuffed her husband. Their daughters were crying. She said the agents told her, “We have to take someone.”
“But why him?” she said she asked after begging the agents to check his records. “He’s got nothing, no criminal record at all aside from being undocumented.”
A week into Donald Trump’s second presidency and his nationwide efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, federal officers are operating with a new sense of mission: Under Trump, officers can now arrest people without legal status if they run across them while looking for migrants targeted for removal. Under President Joe Biden, such “collateral arrests” were banned.
During a White House briefing Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked how many of those arrested have a criminal record versus how many are simply in the country illegally.
“All of them because they illegally broke our nation’s laws and therefore they are criminals as far as this administration goes,” she responded. “I know the last administration didn’t see it that way so it’s a big culture shift in our nation to view someone who breaks our immigration laws as a criminal but that’s exactly what they are.”
While Lopez was not the fugitive sought at the home on Silver Street in Elgin, the ICE officers who accompanied the U.S. Marshals office took him into custody, according to Belkis Sandoval, public affairs officer for the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force. ICE officers are part of the marshals office and accompanied them on the detail, she said.
ICE officials have not returned calls for comment but the agency announced on X that as of Jan. 29, it had made 1,016 arrests nationwide, with 814 detained. It’s unclear how many of those arrests stem from the Chicago area. At a news conference Tuesday at City Hall, Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling said more than 100 people from the Chicago area had been taken into custody. He said he did not have details on whether they had indeed been convicted of criminal offenses.
A records search in Cook, Kane and DuPage counties did not turn up any felony arrests by men with the same name and age. His family said he was a roofer who has also helped his wife working odd jobs. He’s been in the country for 24 years.
The family, from Guanajuato, Mexico, moved into their light blue house in Elgin last year over the summer. It was a dream come true after living and working in the country for more than two decades, Lopez’s wife, Ramos, said.
One of the couple’s three daughters, Janeth Lopez, said the family is trying to cope.
“It’s a lot. We are just trying to figure out what’s going on,” she said.
The raid began around 7 a.m. Tuesday with a heavy knock on the door, the Lopez family recalled. The couple’s daughters were getting ready for work and school.
“They were saying they were looking for this person, but we said he doesn’t live here,” said their daughter Bethzy Lopez, 18.
She had heard the advice being given by immigration lawyers about not opening the door to ICE and asking to see a warrant signed by a judge. So she asked to see a warrant through the closed door.
The next thing she knew, agents were breaking in the door with a heavy pry bar. The damage to the door was visible Tuesday afternoon, with splintered wood around the entry of the home. Her sister, Janeth, recorded video of the agents breaking the door.
Standing on their porch were federal agents. One holding a black shield that said “sheriff” stood at the door, shining a flashlight into the entryway. They announced they had a criminal warrant.
Janeth Lopez captured the events on her phone. The family can repeatedly be heard asking to see a warrant.
“We’re looking for Jose Ramos,” an agent can be heard saying in one of the videos.
They were there as part of a fugitive investigation, not an ICE raid, federal officials later said. The suspect being sought was charged with attempted first-degree murder in a Nov. 12 shooting in Elgin. He is wanted on a warrant for attempted murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon by a gang member.
The family told agents Jose Ramos did not live there. They hadn’t seen him for months. The agents did a sweep of the house and they found Lopez instead.
“After a systematic search of the residence took place, a male subject was found deep, hidden in the attic,” U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Sandoval said. “An investigative check revealed that this turned into an ICE matter.”
Though the family had heard about the potential of increased immigration enforcement in Chicago, they weren’t concerned because “we (had) done nothing wrong,” Lopez’s wife told the Tribune.
“He told me to be strong, that we didn’t owe them anything and that we were just working hard to make sure our daughter could finish school,” Ramos said her husband had told her.
Collateral arrests can be for past crimes or for civil matters, like not being in the United States legally, said Kalman Resnick, an immigration attorney with Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym.
Still, the forceful way in which law enforcement entered the house on Silver Street and pulled out family members may have infringed on their constitutional rights, he said after watching the video.
“In this case, what did the woman (who was pulled out of the house) do that required force?” he asked. “The U.S. Constitution’s right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure assaults applies to all people … there is no reason for law enforcement to use any physical restraint on a person who is not harming them or trying to flee.”
The task force typically checks all people who are in the house for safety reasons and will continue to look for Ramos until he’s apprehended, Sandoval said. She said the operation was not originally an immigration matter and ICE took over when it became one.
The Illinois TRUST Act generally prohibits local law enforcement in Illinois from participating in immigration enforcement. When asked about the official who was marked as a “sheriff,” Sandoval could not say which sheriff’s office was involved in the operation. The address where the Tuesday arrest occurred was in Kane County.
Ron Hain, Kane County sheriff, said his office was not involved Tuesday. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office in Cook County — where the attempted murder allegedly committed by Ramos occurred — also said its officials were not involved. Sheriffs’ offices in surrounding counties also denied being part of Tuesday’s operation.
Advocates in Chicago are worried that the administration is finding ways to get access to the undocumented community outside of how ICE has typically worked.
That means that the high alert must continue, said Erendira Rendon, vice president of immigrant justice at the Resurrection Project.
“We need to stay vigilant and take care of each other,” she said. For the first time, many are hiding. She believes that collateral arrests will begin to increase in the coming weeks.
The Associated Press and Chicago Tribune’s Alice Yin and Sam Charles contributed.
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