ALBANY PARK — At least three people were detained by federal immigration agents Friday morning in Albany Park on the Northwest Side.
According to video and eyewitnesses, two men were detained by agents around 9:30 a.m. near the intersection of Lawrence and Kedzie avenues.
Another man was detained by Border Patrol agents on Avers Avenue just south of Lawrence at around the same time, according to video and a neighbor named Jordan, who asked to only use her first name.
The two men who were detained on Lawrence Avenue are U.S. citizens and live nearby, friends told Block Club.
On Friday morning, Alivia Olson and Olivia Dunn were walking on Lawrence near Kedzie when they heard a whistle blowing and realized immigration agents were on the street. That’s when they saw their friend being handcuffed on the ground by three officers.
Video provided to Block Club shows people running up to the agents to ask why the man was being detained.
“It’s assault,” one agent said. “He assaulted a federal agent.”
The agents then lead the man away down the street in handcuffs.
“Once we got down here, we see them throwing someone to the ground, we look and see who it is and it’s actually our friend, which is pretty shocking,” Dunn said. “A good friend of ours who is a U.S. citizen, tall white man. They said he was assaulting a federal agent. None of us saw that happened, I don’t know how that could have happened.”
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement Friday, said that Border Patrol agents arrested five undocumented people from Guatemala, India, Ecuador, and Mexico in Albany Park and that they “will all remain in ICE custody to receive full due process pending immigration proceedings.”
McLaughlin’s statement did not mention two U.S. citizens being arrested.
Video provided to Block Club shows another man also being detained during a skirmish with immigration agents in front of a stopped car on Lawrence that also involved Ald. Rossanna Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd). That man is an Albany Park resident and U.S. citizen, his roommate Adam Stanley said.
In that incident, a man can be seen being thrown to the ground and then detained. Neighbors are heard blowing whistles and shouting at the agents.
In video of the second incident, Rodriguez-Sanchez can be seen approaching the car before an immigration agent shoves her.
Rodriguez-Sanchez on Friday said she was in a meeting around the corner when she and her staff heard whistles blowing and ran over to Lawrence.
“People did everything they could to prevent them from taking,” the people who were detained, she said.
The Northwest Side Rapid Response team, a group that alerts neighbors about immigration raids, confirmed Border Patrol and ICE presence in Albany Park on Friday morning.
Jordan, who is involved in several local rapid response networks, said she was responding to reports of immigration enforcement in the area Friday morning when she saw the man being detained on Avers Avenue.
Video of the incident shows several neighbors arguing with Border Patrol agents as they push a handcuffed man into the back of a grey minivan.
“What I saw this morning wasn’t law enforcement — it was an abduction. Border Patrol saw a brown person on a bike and took him,” Jordan said in a text message to Block Club. “Our neighborhood has been left to protect itself — Chicago law enforcement isn’t here for us. While federal agents act with impunity, it’s our community members with whistles and bikes who are keeping watch. If you’re feeling helpless, go find them and ask how to get involved in your local rapid response network.”
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