ICE detaining African-Americans in Chicago? Truth behind viral claim
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided a South Shore apartment building in Chicago overnight, even as the city braces for military deployment. Following the federal agency’s actions, there have been several claims on X that ICE acted against black people.
The DHS said the area was known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates.(Getty Images via AFP)
“They raided an apartment building overnight, ziptied naked children, then separated residents into buses by race. This was an assault on Black and Latinx Chicagoans, targeted bc ICE is testing its Gestapo techniques here to see what happens next,” one person said. Another exclaimed, “The government shut down but ICE is still wreaking havoc on black Americans in Chicago!!!”.
To be sure, these claims come from unverified profiles. However, a ground report from ABC7 Eyewitness News has captured the harrowing situation for those in the building and shed some more light on these claims circulating online.
What people said about ICE raid
“My building is shaking. So, I’m like, ‘What is that?’ Then I look out the window, it’s a Blackhawk helicopter,” a person told the publication.
A person ABC7 Eyewitness News spoke to, said “They just treated us like we were nothing.” She added, “They, like, piling us all up in the back on the other side, and it wasn’t no room to move nowhere.”
Another person on the ground shared, “As I got to my unit to stick my key in the door, I was grabbed by an officer. And, I said, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’ He never actually told me. He said I was being detained.”
Yet another person claimed “One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, ‘f*** them kids,” while speaking to the news outlet about how the ICE raid impacted children in the building. A witness shared that trucks and military-styled vans were used to keep parents and their kids separate. “They had the Black people in one van, and the immigrants in another van,” one person also remarked.
Meanwhile, DHS officials in a statement said: “In the early morning hours of September 30, 2025, allied federal law enforcement agencies with CBP, FBI, and ATF, executed an enforcement operation in Chicago’s South Shore area, a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates. Some of the targeted subjects are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes, and immigration violators.” They noted that 37 people had been arrested.
