President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Act” includes funding to ramp up deportations across the country. Some northern Illinois communities have already seen an uptick in immigration enforcement arrests.
The Elgin Rapid Response Team maintains a pretty active Facebook page. There are posts on know-your-rights and ways neighbors can support each other, such as donating grocery items for a door-to-door food drive.
Posts also alert the community about the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents with videos and pictures of verified arrests in the city and surrounding area.
In a video posted in June, agents have a man pinned on the ground as his pregnant wife pleads for his release.
“No esta haciendo nada. Va a trabajar para dar a su familia comida.”
“He’s not doing anything,” she said. “He’s heading to work so that he can feed his family.”
Rafael Villagomez is a local realtor and member of the rapid response team.
“Just very violent,” he said about the video. “Do you have to go to those extremes?”
The arrest happened amid a spike in immigration enforcement arrests in June.
According to ICE data, as of the end of June, 72 percent of the individuals in custody of immigration authorities have no criminal record, even as President Trump campaigned on the deportation of violent criminals.
If someone believes immigration enforcement agents are operating in the community, they reach out to the group via a tip hotline or social media, and the team will verify if federal agents were present.
Villagomez said they receive up to a dozen tips a day.
“Out of that, you probably get a couple detentions that are taken,” Villagomez said. “It just depends on who they're looking for. And obviously, now there's a lot of collateral damage. They're going for one person, and they're taking two because those people were there."
In another Facebook post there are images of agents, some with their faces covered, arresting several men. One wears a t-shirt of a local roofing company.
“Their (arresting) numbers obviously are not what they wanted,” he said. “So, they don't have any other option than to go for the working people. That's who they're targeting.”
Villagomez said he’s concerned with the manner agents arrest residents wearing masks covering their faces, heavily armed, and refusing to identify themselves.
“It seems like people are just getting kidnapped,” he said. “They're coming in, they're capuchados. We don't even know who they are. They ask them for their name, their badge. No dicen nada, and they just take them.”
Elgin City council member Rosamaria Martinez said the Latino community is scared.
“It brings fear not only to people who are undocumented,” she said. “It brings fear to people who are documented.”
“It brings fear to me because that’s just wrong to just go ahead and stop somebody, especially without the due process.”
Elgin Mayor David Kaptain said the city’s large Hispanic population may be one of the reasons it’s a target of immigration enforcement.
“Elgin is a majority minority city,” he said, “and so, I think that's why it draws the attention.”
According to the U.S Census Bureau, 51 percent of Elgin’s residents are Hispanic.
WNIJ asked the mayor for his response to residents who may be afraid of getting arrested by ICE because of their physical appearance, regardless of their legal status.
“Well, I think that that borders back on discrimination,” Kaptain said. “And all I can say to them is that we follow what the laws are. The city of Elgin is not involved. ICE does not involve us in these things.”
He referred to the Illinois Trust Act, which former Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican, signed in 2017. It prohibits local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration enforcement actions.
The law requires a separation between local authorities and immigration enforcement agents. But it doesn’t prevent ICE from making arrests.
