Elgin man who is a US citizen was briefly detained in latest Chicago-area ICE blitz

An Elgin man who was born in the United States said he was handcuffed, questioned and placed in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle before dawn, part of a blitz of immigration enforcement activity reported in the Chicago area early Tuesday.

Joe Botello, 37, recalled being jolted awake before 6 a.m. by his home shaking and the sounds of yelling upstairs on the main floor.

He said masked and armed agents were calling out the name of another man in Spanish and had forcibly entered his house in the 900 block of Chippewa Drive, destroying a front door and glass patio door in the process.

“I’m just blessed that I’m still alive,” Botello said. “I’ve been hearing it and seeing it through social media. But it never crossed my mind that it was going to happen here at the house … where I live.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared a video on social media of four men — including Botello — handcuffed and being led away from the home.

Noem appears to hop on a truck at the end of the clip, but she is not shown interacting with any of the detainees. Neither the video nor Noem’s message explain that Botello is a U.S. citizen and was later released.

“I was on the ground in Chicago today to make clear we are not backing down,” Noem posted on X as she shared a video of herself in Elgin. “Just this morning, DHS took violent offenders off the streets with arrests for assault, DUI and felony stalking. Our work is only beginning.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday released information on 11 more men arrested since “Operation Midway Blitz” began, though there were no details provided on exactly where or when the arrests occurred. All of the detainees were in the U.S. illegally, the DHS said.

Only one arrestee, Christian Lopez-Cervantes, could be independently verified through court records and other public information. He was taken into custody by federal authorities last week in Cicero, where video surfaced showing more than seven armed officers dressed in fatigues wrestling Lopez-Cervantes to the ground. His wife told the Spanish-language TV station Univision that the officers broke out the window of her husband’s car. “It seemed they were already waiting for him,” she said.

Court records show Lopez-Cervantes, 32, who had twice before been removed from the U.S. for illegal entry, got on the feds’ radar after he was charged with misdemeanor battery earlier this year for fighting with his wife’s ex-husband. On Sept. 5, he was charged under seal in U.S. District Court with illegal reentry of a deported alien. He appeared before a judge Sept. 10 and was ordered released on an unsecured bond, records show.

Cook County records show his battery charge was dropped that same day.

In their news release, the DHS stated Lopez-Cervantes had been charged with felony assault and domestic violence, but those charges were not listed in any local court record.

One other “Midway Blitz” arrestee identified by DHS, Luis Manuel Carrasquel-Hernandez, a native of Venezuela, had been charged in April with possession of a weapon after police arrested him in a Home Depot parking lot with a loaded pistol, court records show.

Gregory Bovino, an official with U.S. Customs and Border Protection who led immigration operations in Los Angeles this summer, posted on social media early Tuesday announcing that his agency had “arrived” in the Chicago area.

Often using confrontational tactics and posting in-your-face messages on social media, Bovino put out a short video on Instagram with a montage of images from just outside O’Hare International Airport and the Joliet area, as well as the Centennial Wheel at Navy Pier and Tribune Tower. “Operation At Large is here to continue the mission we started in Los Angeles — to make the city safer by targeting and arresting criminal illegal aliens,” he wrote on the post.

The song “End of Beginning” by artist Djo played in the background of the video clip, which features the lyrics, “You take the man out of the city, not the city out the man. … And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it. Another version of me, I was in it. Oh, I wave goodbye to the end of beginning.”

Matt Hill, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, chided Bovino on X Tuesday morning, pointing out, among other things, the federal government’s lack of communication with the governor while mocking the Border Patrol official’s video announcing his Chicago-area operation.

“As a federal law enforcement operation gets underway, they don’t pick up the phone to call the Governor but do have the time to create a TikTok video showing off beautiful Chicago scenery,” Hill wrote. “He’s not a serious individual but a wannabe social media star.”

This prompted a flippant response from Bovino, who wrote back, “Tik Tok, tik tok, time is up!! We’ve already arrested several criminals this morning. Much more to come, so stay tuned my friend,” followed by an American flag and several other emojis.

Bovino led Trump’s deportation missions in the Los Angeles area at a time when the Trump administration has made the region a top priority. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies, said authorities have made over 5,000 arrests since early June as part of those efforts, which have prompted protests and the deployment of the Marines and National Guard.

Speaking outside a church in Oak Park on Tuesday, Pritzker said “one of the strategies to protect our immigrant communities has been to make sure they know their rights, and we’re doing that not just in the city of Chicago but all across the state.”

“I think that maybe (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) thinks there’s a concentrated effort only in the city of Chicago and not elsewhere, but I have been to those communities — in fact, over the last several weeks — to make sure that actually they’ve been doing what we hope they have been doing, and they have,” he said. “That doesn’t mean, by the way, that no one is going to get swept up by ICE. Because if you’re just walking your child to school, you can get grabbed by ICE. Think about those children, by the way, that are in school right now, who will come home to an empty house because their parents have been taken with an administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant. Not because someone committed a crime, but an administrative warrant issued by an ICE agent. And now a child is showing up at home. No one’s home. This is what ICE is doing, this is what the president of the United States is doing.”

Bovino’s immigration enforcement operation appears to be separate from “Operation Midway Blitz,” which was announced specifically for the Chicago area by Noem last week. A spokesperson from U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not answer questions Tuesday about Bovino’s announcement.

Joe Botello steps through a patio door shattered by federal agents when they broke down the front and back doors of his home in the 900 block of Chippewa Drive in the early morning on Sept. 16, 2025, in Elgin. Botello said the federal agents did not show residents of the home a warrant, placed him in a vehicle, but eventually released him after scanning his driver’s license.(Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

As for the apparent raid at the Elgin home, Botello said agents had him put his hands behind his head and back up slowly through the patio door, telling him to be careful because the frame was filled with shards of glass. He said that he and five male roommates were handcuffed outside and placed into a vehicle that said U.S. Customs and Border Patrol on the side. Botello added that he was never told why he was handcuffed or read his rights.

According to Botello, one agent asked him how he was able to speak English so well and Botello said he replied that he was a U.S. citizen and had been born in Texas.

After checking Botello’s identification, the agents released him and one of his roommates, Botello said. The agents took the other roommates away in vehicles and didn’t say where they were going or why they were detained.

“They were about to take me without explaining to me where I was going to go or what was going on. And then I showed them my ID. I told them it was in my wallet,” Botello said. “I’m glad I was able to grab my wallet in order to have some type of identification.”

The front door of a home in the 900 block of Chippewa Drive is torn from its hinges and lies on a sofa after federal agents broke it down early on Sept. 16, 2025, in Elgin. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

The father of five said his first thought was that he would be late for work. Then he was grateful his children, whom he has on weekends, weren’t with him at the time because the scene would have terrified them. Botello spent the rest of the morning calling his daughter, patching the two empty door frames with plywood and scrambling to contact the loved ones of his roommates, in the hopes of tracking down their location.

“I’m still a little bit in shock. I’m just glad that I’m OK,” he added. “I recommend that everyone always have their documentation — their passport if they can, and any type of ID that would identify them. … Stay safe.”

State Sen. Cristina Castro, a Democrat who grew up in Elgin, said she was alerted by community members in the largely Latino northwest suburb of more than 100,000 people that law enforcement went to the home around 5 a.m. “in full military gear” and “SWAT-like vehicles,” and established their presence with the use of flash-bang grenades.

“I think we should brace ourselves, not only just in Elgin, but in other parts of this state and the city, (to hear of) more of these operations taking place,” Castro told the Tribune. “I think it’s unnerving. It’s unsettling. People are afraid. They’ve been afraid even to celebrate Mexican Independence Day weekend. But this is just going to put more fear in hard-working people who really just are here to have a better life.”

Ismael Cordova-Clough, left, hugs Delani Hernandez, both members of a volunteer patrol group in the Elgin area, as Hernandez cries after witnessing a man pulled from his truck and detained by federal agents along Route 31 on Sept. 16, 2025, in Elgin. As Hernandez cried she said “I couldn’t stop them, I couldn’t stop them.” It was her first day on patrol with the group which posts and livestreams any suspected ICE activities in and around Elgin. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

Delani Hernandez, a volunteer immigration advocate, said she witnessed another apparent raid in Elgin early Tuesday.

Near the Gail Borden Public Library on Illinois Route 31, she said she saw three unmarked vehicles with flashing blue and red lights pull over another car. Agents in ICE vests then questioned the driver, handcuffed him and took him away in one of the unmarked vehicles, leaving the driver’s car by the side of the road, Hernandez said.

“And he was just saying that he’s not a criminal, he has a family and that he’s going to work,” she said.

Hernandez, 27, said she and other volunteers patrol the Elgin area every day starting at 4 a.m. to try to spot immigration enforcement activity.

“A lot of people feel helpless. I feel defeated,” she said. “But I’m not going to give up.”

Roughly 40 demonstrators gathered in Franklin Park on Monday to protest the recent fatal shooting of a man by ICE in that northwest suburb. Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, 38, was shot and killed after he allegedly tried to flee a traffic stop Friday and struck an ICE officer with his vehicle. The ICE officer was seriously injured, according to federal officials.

“No justice, no peace,” protesters called out. “We want ICE off our streets.”

On Tuesday, dozens of community members, immigration advocates and activists rallied in nearby Melrose Park to decry the death of Villegas-Gonzalez.

“We are not here on a whim today,” said Nancy Salgado, director of organizing at P.A.S.O. West Suburban Action Project, in Spanish. “We’re very firm, with a firm step, to make it clear that ICE is not welcome in Illinois.”

The Associated Press and Chicago Tribune’s Jason Meisner, Adriana Pérez, Olivia Olander, Tess Kenny and Sam Charles contributed.

Originally Published: September 16, 2025 at 1:25 PM CDT