{"id":346412,"date":"2025-10-31T21:00:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T21:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/346412\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T21:00:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T21:00:18","slug":"lakeview-resident-calls-on-chicago-police-to-arrest-federal-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/346412\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeview resident calls on Chicago police to arrest federal agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leo Feler\u2019s message to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday began with him quoting the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

Standing at a downtown news conference with local elected leaders, the 45-year-old Lakeview resident then said masked federal agents violated that foundational language that sets warrant requirements and prohibits illegal searches by bursting into his property last week and leaving a bloody scene in his garage while trying to arrest construction workers who were installing windows on his building.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think many of you and many of the viewers who are watching this will have similar experiences as me,\u201d Feler said. \u201cAcross the United States, these types of jobs are done disproportionately by Hispanic and Latino workers. So I have a question for all of you and for all of the viewers: Should the US government be allowed to invade your property, to jump over a locked fence, to come on to your home?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GasGas is deployed as a vehicle of federal agents backs down the 3300 block of North Lakewood Avenue in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood on Oct. 24, 2025. (Alyson Lewis)<\/p>\n

Feler, an economist, showed the Tribune security footage timestamped to Oct. 24 that featured what appeared to be federal agents, faces shielded with bandanas, running through a gangway and struggling to pull down a man who was straddling a fence mid-escape.<\/p>\n

One worker was detained inside his garage, Feler said, adding that the agents did not appear to have a warrant at any point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent most of last weekend cleaning up blood at my property,\u201d Feler said. \u201cEvery now and then, I\u2019ll still be walking around and there will be a spot of blood I failed to clean up, and I will clean that up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbors blowing whistles \u2014 as well as Feler yelling, \u201cICE, you are not allowed on my property. Get off my property. This is the United States. You are going into people\u2019s homes\u201d \u2014 dominated much of the audio in his security camera footage.<\/p>\n

In one video, an agent hops over a fence and a voice off-camera then remarks, \u201cYou made me cut myself, and when I cut myself, I get mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

DHS spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

However, Feler also had gripes with local leadership in Chicago.<\/p>\n

He said he attempted to file a police report on Monday accusing the federal agents of trespassing, breaking and entering, burglary, battery and assault and kidnapping. But after being rebuffed at his local Chicago Police Department precinct, and then filing a criminal damage to property report with CPD\u2019s detective bureau, he got disappointing news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI later got a call from a sergeant saying they would not be able to continue with that police report because his higher-ups told him not to pursue it,\u201d Feler said, before addressing the media gaggle directly. \u201cSo I am asking you to come with me to the police precinct after this press conference to help me get a police report filed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago is bound by a sanctuary city ordinance that prohibits local police from cooperating with federal immigration officials. And as President Donald Trump\u2019s unpopular deportation campaign in the nation\u2019s third-largest city progresses, residents have grown increasingly emboldened to confront federal agents directly and try to physically block them from carrying out raids.<\/p>\n

Mayor Brandon Johnson has nodded to that sentiment, signing a flurry of executive orders banning immigration agents from using city land or private property to carry out their deportation operations. He has even called<\/a> for criminal charges against federal officers who violate his municipal decrees, and bristled at the notion that they were merely \u201csymbolic.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the mayor has yet to offer specifics on how he thinks enforcement against such agents should work. At the time Johnson signed the orders, Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling said that cops will not and cannot arrest federal agents \u201cbecause someone deems what they are doing is illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n

CPD spokespeople didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday about Feler\u2019s complaint. His alderman, Bennett Lawson, walked out with him after the news conference and promised to contact police district leadership on his behalf.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s news conference at the Cook County Building was convened by U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, a Chicago Democrat who called for DHS\u2019s Office of the Inspector General to investigate abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection during their operations in the Chicago area.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, 5th, prepares to speak as elected officials and residents who witnessed Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions hold a press conference at City Hall, Oct. 31, 2025. (Antonio Perez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Quigley stopped short of saying federal agents should be prosecuted under a future Democratic president but noted that \u201cdocumentation\u201d was a good first step.<\/p>\n

\u201cICE and CBP have blatantly violated the rights of Chicago and since they arrived in our city,\u201d Quigley said. \u201cThey have racially profiled citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another speaker the congressman brought up was Vanessa Aguirre-Avalos, the owner of the Luna y Cielo Play Cafe in Logan Square. She choked back tears as she laid out the lasting effects of the tear gas deployment from early this month outside her business as well as Funston Elementary School.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy business has suffered deeply because our families are too afraid to go out. I am behind on rent, and may soon have to close my business, a space built to keep our culture and our language and our children\u2019s joy alive,\u201d Aguirre-Avalos said.<\/p>\n

\"WipingWiping away a tear, Vanessa Aguirre-\u00c1valos, sho had witnessed an ICE incident outside her business, speaks as alderpersons, elected officials and residents who had witnessed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents activity during a press conference at City Hall, Oct. 31, 2025. (Antonio Perez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Aguirre-Avalos said one 3-year-old girl who has attended her day care since she was an infant clung tightly to her mother that afternoon and asked, \u201cMommy, what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow whenever she sees police lights, she freezes, reliving that trauma from Oct. 3,\u201d Aguirre-Avalos said. \u201cI\u2019m deeply worried about the trauma this is causing our children.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the while, arrests by federal immigration officers mount \u2014 including at O\u2019Hare International\u00a0 Airport, where a waiting area for rideshare drivers has been the grounds for more than 50 arrests. That parking lot is city property; the Johnson administration has responded to the immigration raids there by installing signage and security to keep the feds out, but they aren\u2019t working.<\/p>\n

Johnson, asked by the Tribune this week what he will do about immigration officers flouting his executive orders, said \u201cwe\u2019ll have to look at every single tool to hold this administration accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked how soon, the mayor said: \u201cSoon. As soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leo Feler\u2019s message to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Friday began with him quoting the Fourth…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":346413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5404,5295,5386,1818,409,1370,50,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-346412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-cook-county","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-immigration","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115470797262942415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}