When Yenitza Marquina awoke to information that her 50-year-old father had been detained by federal immigration brokers, she thought it needed to be a joke.
However actuality quickly set in. Her father, Andres Marquina, was detained Sunday throughout immigration sweeps overseen by President Donald Trump’s appointees, together with “border czar” Tom Homan. They got here to Chicago with brokers finishing up Trump’s promised mass deportation plan. Extra arrests are anticipated this week, although at a smaller scale.
“I actually simply began crying,” Yenitza Marquina stated Monday as she grew emotional exterior of her north suburban Waukegan residence. “I used to be so heartbroken. They took my dad.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched little details about the individuals who have been detained or why they have been sought. Nationwide, officers stated 956 arrests have been made Sunday. The Trump administration says it “eliminated” 7,300 folks in its first week, “together with a whole lot of convicted criminals.” ICE averaged 311 day by day arrests by way of Sept. 30.
Bloomberg Information reported that 260 folks have been focused within the Chicago space on Sunday, though simply seven had legal arrest warrants.
Andres Marquina, Yenitza Marquina’s father, has a 2005 felony conviction for drug possession, legal data present. His daughter additionally stated he had DUI and battery arrests across the identical time, however that he’s modified his life since.
“He simply did errors previously, and I simply imagine that everyone deserves a second probability,” she stated.
Andres Marquina was working at an space warehouse and dwelling in Waukegan, his daughter stated. He immigrated from Mexico years in the past and has three grownup kids who’re U.S. residents.
Yenitza Marquina stated ICE brokers arrived at her father’s residence early Sunday, banging on the door and stating they have been the police. She stated he opened the door, pondering one thing was fallacious.
“All the pieces was going good for them,” she stated of her father and their household. “My coronary heart is torn in items proper now. I simply need my dad to have the ability to come again residence.”
‘We arrested plenty of dangerous guys’
Homan on Sunday tried to emphasize a deal with concentrating on criminals, telling a conservative media outlet that the arrestees included “seven intercourse offenders,” “two murderers” and members of the Venezuelan jail gang El Tren de Aragua.
“As President Trump dedicated to, we’re going to focus on public security threats [and] nationwide safety threats, and that’s what we did right this moment. We arrested plenty of dangerous guys,” Homan advised Actual America’s Voice, a community that has promoted conspiracy theories and counts Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon as an anchor.
Nonetheless, along with Andres Marquina’s 20-year-old conviction, not less than two males focused in Sunday’s immigration arrests have been solely accused of coming into the USA illegally.
A Honduran man had been ordered faraway from the nation six occasions between 2007 and 2016, in line with an affidavit filed Sunday by an ICE deportation officer. Chicago police arrested him “for a visitors offense” in November, however the case was quickly dropped. He now faces a cost of illegally coming into the U.S. that was filed Sunday in federal courtroom in Chicago.
One other affidavit filed right here Monday notes {that a} Venezuelan man was charged with crossing the Rio Grande River in September 2023 and unlawfully coming into the U.S. close to Eagle Go, Texas. These costs have been filed Jan. 21 within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Western District of Texas — a day after Trump took workplace.
A legal warrant was additionally issued for one more man, Danny Linares, in line with Joseph Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in Chicago. Linares was charged with promoting an secret agent an untraceable ghost gun and two Glock switches earlier this month. Such units are used to show handguns into computerized weapons.
‘I worry leaving my residence’
The weekend arrests and widespread nervousness about those who lie forward have left many communities reeling.
Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (thirty fifth), who stated “not less than one” individual was detained in Belmont Cragin and two extra in Hermosa on the Northwest Aspect, remains to be within the “early phases of connecting” with their “traumatized” households, who’ve been supplied assist.
“In a single occasion, a younger father was detained, and we have been in a position to present child provides like diapers to the household as a result of that was a right away want that they’d,” he stated.
Citing latest statements by Trump and ICE, Ramirez-Rosa stated it seems the feds are concentrating on some folks for illegally re-entering the nation.
“And we all know that there are numerous dad and mom who’re deported, then danger their lives strolling by way of the desert to be able to get again to their household and be capable of be a breadwinner and supply for his or her kids.”
A Venezuelan girl who lives on the South Aspect together with her husband and 5 kids stated she hasn’t been taking her children to high school.
She fears being separated from her kids if she will get caught In what ICE brokers name, “collateral arrests” — when an immigrant is just not the first goal.
“It’s been roughly two weeks since my children have been in class,” the girl, who requested to not be named to maintain her household secure, stated in Spanish. “I worry leaving my residence, or using the bus with them. What if I get caught on the way in which or proper exterior the varsity?”
Chicago Public Faculties has not shared attendance data since faculty started final week, however lecturers say some immigrant college students usually are not displaying up.
Homan in his Actual America’s Voice interview claimed that brokers weren’t finishing up “neighborhood sweeps” or participating in “racial profiling,” although he acknowledged different undocumented folks might be taken into custody in the event that they’re current throughout a focused search.
Within the north suburban Waukegan, Mundelein and Spherical Lake, some group leaders say immigrant households are taking the menace extra severely after listening to about ICE brokers patrolling their communities.
“It’s actually unlucky that it needed to take this weekend for folks to understand that is truly occurring,” stated Dulce Ortiz, govt director of Mano a Mano, a company that empowers immigrant households. “There was hope from group members [who thought] ‘Oh, it might not occur. Oh, [Trump] is simply saying that.’”
‘Used as a type of leisure’
Ortiz stated some residents have refused to open their door when ICE brokers approached, armed with information about their rights from classes supplied by teams like hers and others.
She referred to as the broadcasting of not less than one arrest by ICE on Sunday by discuss present host Dr. Phil McGraw “hurtful.”
“Our immigrant group is getting used as a type of leisure,” she stated. “These are households which are being torn aside and this administration is doing all the things they will to offer a type of leisure to their supporters.”
On Monday, advocates additionally shared that immigrants dealing with deportation have been stripped of a essential useful resource. The Trump administration lower off funding for a authorized assist desk that the Nationwide Immigration Justice Middle had operated out of Chicago’s immigration courtroom, stated Azadeh Erfani, the coverage director for the middle.
It was one in every of a number of packages throughout the nation that gives authorized info for immigrants, together with packages for youngsters and in detention facilities, that Trump stopped funding in his first days again in workplace. The Chicago-based group was compelled to finish the authorized assist desk final week, which it had operated for a few decade.
The desk supplied immigrants with assist determining the standing of their instances, filling out immigration kinds and informing them of their rights in courtroom, Erfani stated. The desk final 12 months supplied 3,604 providers to greater than 2,000 people and households going by way of Chicago’s immigration courtroom.
“The assistance desk has been a lifeline for the folks we serve,” she stated.
Again in Waukegan, Yenitza Marquina stated she doesn’t imagine the brokers had a signed judicial warrant after they arrived at her father’s residence on Sunday. She doesn’t know many particulars about her father’s immigration case.
She and different relations have been calling attorneys for authorized recommendation and making an attempt to get the phrase out about what occurred to her father.
As she considered what occurred to her dad, Marquina was prepared with a powerful suggestion for others: Assume twice earlier than opening the doorways to anybody.
“Don’t let no person come inside your own home in the event that they don’t have a search warrant,” she stated.
Contributing: Tessa Weinberg
