For over a year, Chicago officials have sought to limit the city’s complicity in the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation campaign. But Chicago police may not have gotten the message.
Since last October, federal immigration agents have repeatedly made use of Chicago police property—sometimes in view of cops themselves.
Unraveled has obtained multiple videos from witnesses and city agencies showing an ongoing pattern of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents using Chicago Police Department (CPD) parking lots across at least four police districts, despite a mayoral executive order banning civil immigration enforcement operations on city-owned lots. ICE activity has ranged from meeting and parking their vehicles in the lots to using them as a secure space for transferring detainees. In one incident this past August, ICE arrested an observer in the 25th District Grand Central lot and held her for hours on CPD property while police officers drove by.
“Feds auto crash our east lot”
Screenshot from city security video showing ICE agents arresting a rapid response observer in CPD’s 25th District Grand Central parking lot on August 1. Source: FOIA
Unraveled has verified at least seven occasions in which ICE made use of police lots between October 2025 and September 2026. Six incidents occurred since July 1 of this year alone. Records obtained from Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) show the office has received seven complaints about ICE allegedly using police facilities since this past March.
One major incident took place August 1 in the parking lot of CPD’s 25th District “Grand Central” station on the city’s Northwest Side.
Unraveled spoke with an ICE observer who filed a complaint alleging federal agents ripped her from her car and detained her for hours in full view of Chicago police officers.
“Sara,” identified by pseudonym, said she first witnessed ICE conduct a traffic stop in Humboldt Park. Agents left without detaining anyone. Aware that ICE had previously been seen using police parking lots near detentions, she drove to the nearby 25th District station.
Unraveled submitted a public records request for four hours of security footage from the lot during the time Sara said the encounter took place. The video provided is missing 118 minutes of its final two hours. When asked about the missing section of video, the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) said it had not been redacted—and on that day, “Chicago Public Safety camera(s) may have been out of service or experienced technical problems.”
Via public records request, Unraveled obtained a shift log from police monitoring surveillance cameras in the 25th District Strategic Decision Support Center (SDSC) that morning. A note reads, “Feds auto crash our east lot.” The section to document technical problems with cameras was left blank:
Copy of a CPD surveillance center continuity log from August 1. Source: FOIA
Despite the missing section of footage, the provided video shows at least six ICE agents gathering in the rear of the 25th District lot shortly after 9:20 A.M.:
Roughly ten minutes after ICE drove into the lot—and after a Chicago police cruiser drove directly by them—video shows the ICE observer entering. Around the same time, agents can be seen moving their vehicles out of view of the camera. After Sara parks her car in the middle of the lot, the agents who appeared to leave return, and quickly surround her.
A black Chevy Tahoe pulls behind her just before a blue Subaru with visible damage to its rear bumper blocks her in from the front:
A CPD crash report on the incident includes a plate for the black Chevy Tahoe that was linked to an ICE sighting in Irving Park just over three weeks later. Chicagoland ICE alert groups also recorded the damaged blue Subaru at a sighting in Humboldt Park in July:
The damaged blue Subaru seen in CPD POD camera footage was also recorded by ICE watchers just under one month prior. Source: FOIA and Grito Latino Addison
Sara claimed she recognized the driver of the blue Subaru as the ICE agent now known to be Chicago local Martin Lagunas. Lagunas’ violent behavior is documented to have spanned at least three states since the Trump administration’s ICE surge began.
The agent Sara believes she recognized as Lagunas can be seen exiting his vehicle. Sara backs up slowly and appears to make contact with the Tahoe behind her. Feds immediately swoop in to snatch her from her boxed-in car, handcuff her and move her into a black SUV. Minutes into the incident, the CPD security camera in the lot zooms in, indicating employees in the surveillance center are adjusting it live to view the scene.
Sara said she had not expected such a reaction from the agents, and she feared for her safety when they swarmed her car.
“I was not expecting them to do that because I wasn’t doing anything illegal. I was just videotaping them. And the fact that they came back to get me felt very extreme,” Sara said.
The footage of the incident then shows ICE driving Sara out of the primary 25th District east parking lot.
Map showing the two 25th District parking lots. Source: Google maps
She told Unraveled agents held her for two to three hours afterward in a secondary lot west of the station and verbally harassed her. She also said they claimed CPD was aware of ICE using its parking lot.
“Once they started boxing me in, I knew what was happening…I was immediately afraid because I knew that ICE agents can get extremely violent. I did think about Renée Good. I was very afraid,” Sara added.
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After ICE agents returned her to the primary lot two to three hours later, her car had been towed away. She said she saw several police officers interact with the ICE agents after she returned.
A safe space for ICE
Sign outside CPD’s 17th District parking lot in Albany Park prohibiting use for immigration enforcement. Photo: Steve Held
Unraveled has verified at least six other instances of ICE entering CPD lots; one dates back to nearly a year ago. 40th Ward Alderman Andre Vasquez provided video of federal immigration agents leaving a parking lot attached to CPD’s 24th District parking lot last October:
“I think there’s a lack of protocol and accountability in place,” Vasquez said. “So even though we have executive orders that have been introduced, it seems as though the police department itself doesn’t have a policy to hold accountable the folks who should be reporting out when this stuff happens.”
Vasquez referred to how, also last October, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order mandating “no City-owned, leased, or operated parking lot, vacant lot, storage facility, or garage shall be used as a staging area, processing location, or operations base for civil immigration enforcement.”
The same executive order mandated city departments to put up signage on their properties. CPD told Unraveled, in response to a public records request, it has no records indicating which of its lots have signs installed as of this past September 8.
CPD’s 25th and 11th District lots share facility space with Cook County courthouses. Public defenders have recorded ICE agents near those courthouses on at least six occasions since February, despite an administrative order banning immigration arrests in the vicinity of county courts. Legislation signed by Governor JB Pritzker has also failed to prevent ICE from steadily arresting people at courthouses elsewhere across Illinois.
Winter brought a slowdown in ICE activity across the city. Sightings of ICE in parking lots peaked again this summer, starting with CPD’s 11th District lot on July 5. A community member also provided Unraveled video showing federal agents transferring a man between vehicles outside the station:
Witness video shared with Unraveled also shows another incident in the 25th District parking lot on August 28, just over three weeks after Sara was detained there. In the footage, ICE can be seen transferring a man in handcuffs from one vehicle to another.
City security video of the lot that day, obtained from OEMC via public records request, shows ICE agents in the lot for ten minutes while they conduct the transfer:
Local ICE observers further recorded agents parking their vehicles in—and driving through—CPD’s 17th District lot in Albany Park on both September 2 and 3. Rapid response groups reported ICE detained a total of five people in two days across the neighborhood, which is home to several of Chicago’s immigrant communities.
Witnesses filed reports with COPA over these incidents:
 
This morning, an ICE detention occurred in my neighborhood and was reported on Facebook. I went to the 17th district lot to see if ICE was using it for transfers and to store vehicles as they have before. I saw an ICE vehicle parked in the CPD only lot immediately south of the 17th district office.
I went inside and spoke to Sgt. Kowalski star number 1038. I informed him ICE was using his parking lot and would they do anything about it. He told me they would not monitor the lot and there were no cameras to monitor. When I asked what he would do about the ICE vehicle parked in the lot, he said they would leave it in the lot and ICE could come pick it up when they were done.
I found out from a member of a nonprofit organization in contact with the family of the detained man that they had tracked his phone to the 17th district lot and that he had likely been transferred to another vehicle there. Sgt. Kowalski had told me there had been no transfers that morning.](https://wordpress.jinxpress.org/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2026-09-29-at-8.16.24-AM.png)
Complaints filed with COPA after ICE was spotted in CPD parking lots on September 2 and 3*.* Source: FOIA
According to one report, the family of a man detained by ICE tracked his phone to the 17th District lot on September 3. The complainant also alleges the desk sergeant on duty that day denied ICE was in the lot.
“Unfortunately what we’ve seen with CPD is that they’ve essentially rolled out the red carpet for ICE to able to continue their reign of terror here in Chicago,” said Omar Flores, a local community activist with the group Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, during a September 12 press conference addressing the use of the 17th District lot.
Unraveled has confirmed, based on witness photos, that ICE was then again present in CPD’s 14th District lot on the morning of September 10:
Federal agents driving a black Tahoe were seen inside the lot of CPD’s 14th District station on September 10. The 14th District station sits between Chicago’s Logan Square and Humboldt Park neighborhoods. Source: Provided
No responsive records
These incidents, in and outside of police parking lots, have occurred not just in the face of Mayor Johnson’s executive order, but despite a growing list of state and local laws like the 2017 TRUST Act, the 2021 Way Forward Act and Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance. All are meant to curb collaboration between federal immigration agents and local law enforcement.
This past July, CPD issued a directive instructing officers to file a report when members of the public inform them of federal immigration agents or other federal law enforcement allegedly violating state or local law during their operations. Officers are mandated to inform their superiors of the claims and to preserve any relevant evidence.
They are also directed to complete “Incident Involving Outside Law Enforcement Agency” reports. In response to a request for reports completed since July 1 (a period that includes at least six incidents in CPD parking lots), CPD alleged no records exist:
Response from CPD to a records request for reports on incidents involving outside law enforcement. Source: Email
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office, in an email statement, said it and CPD “are actively monitoring and responding to reported violations of municipal and state law by federal immigration agents, while working to document and compile evidence of violations of Mayor Johnson’s executive order.”
In March, Chicago’s City Council passed a new ordinance authorizing COPA to investigate alleged collaboration between CPD officers and federal immigration agents.
“As with any addition to our jurisdiction, we are committed to developing a thorough understanding and navigating the challenges that may come with this new area of responsibility,” a spokesperson for COPA said in a statement to Unraveled. “As we continue to work through these investigations, we will approach our work thoughtfully and fairly, while operating in accordance with the City’s Welcoming City Ordinance.”
Court filings in Chicago and Illinois’ ongoing federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, over the tactics immigration agents have utilized since the start of the second Trump administration, also show the city is aware federal immigration agents have repeatedly trespassed on city and privately-owned property since last year while conducting their operations.
Examples in the city and state’s initial January 2026 filing include ICE agents using areas operated by Chicago Public Schools as well as city-owned rideshare lots at O’Hare International Airport. Another filing in the case from August notes continued activity around Illinois courthouses. The filings do not, however, mention Chicago police officers assisting or abetting ICE activities.
As for Sara, she said she hopes to see an investigation that gets to the root of how ICE may be communicating with CPD officers sympathetic to their mission.
“I think it’s very obvious that there is collaboration occurring.”
Dominic Guanzon and Zoë Takaki contributed to this reporting.
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