Chicago attorneys with the National Immigrant Justice Center and the ACLU of Illinois are demanding justice for at least 22 people who they believe have been unlawfully arrested by immigration agents following Donald Trump's inauguration.
Concretely, the attorneys filed a motion against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, accusing the federal agencies of arresting at least one person without probable cause and creating warrants in the field after apprehending more than 20 non-violent migrants.
According to WBEZ, two people were still in custody as of Tuesday, 19 were released on bond, and one has already been deported. In their motion the lawyers asked for the immediate release of people still detained and bond reimbursements for those already released. The attorneys also demanded weekly reports on immigration arrests and additional training and discipline of federal agents involved in the arrests, per a local news outlet.
The attorneys argue immigration agents violated the Nava Settlement, a 2018 legal agreement that limits warrantless arrests, permitting them only for individuals who are likely to escape. Since January, the attorneys say, agents "failed to assess whether there was probable cause that an individual was likely to flee before a warrant could be issued."
Among the cited cases is the arrest of Julio Noriega, a 54-year-old U.S. citizen from Chicago. "I was born in Chicago, Illinois, and am a United States citizen," Noriega said in a written statement describing how he was arrested after buying a pizza in Berwyn. He was never asked about his citizenship status and was held until ICE agents eventually checked his ID.
Another case cited in the motion was that of Abel Orozco-Ortega, detained in suburban Lyons without a proper warrant. Orozco-Ortega was detained outside his home after a tamale run, according to his family.
According to the lawyers, federal agents were initially looking for one of his sons and arrested him instead. When agents found out they got the wrong person, they reportedly created an administrative warrant, as the father was already handcuffed.
Additionally, in Liberty, Missouri, DHS agents allegedly barricaded 12 restaurant workers inside a Mexican restaurant. They proceeded to arrest the workers without a warrant, per the legal motion.
Mark Fleming of the National Immigrant Justice Center told WBEZ Chicago that ICE agents might have felt pressure from the Trump administration's deportation objectives.
"In order to do this mass deportation that the administration has demanded of them, [federal agents] are going way outside the bounds of the legal guardrails around arrest and deprivation of liberty, both within the immigration laws but also under the U.S. Constitution," Fleming said. "[ICE agents] believed that they had developed a workaround the settlement, albeit an unlawful one."
An ICE spokesperson declined to comment on the ongoing litigation, according to WBEZ Chicago.
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