Ex-residents of apartment building targeted in massive immigration raid seek millions in damages

CHICAGO — In a series of federal tort claims filed this week, immigrant rights groups took the first step in suing the Trump administration on behalf of 18 former residents of a Chicago apartment building that became the site of a surreal middle-of-the-night military-style immigration raid in September.

The raid, which began after midnight on Sept. 30, 2025, unfolded in dramatic fashion as immigration agents rappelled down from a Black Hawk helicopter onto the building’s roof in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. Some of the roughly 300 total agents who orchestrated the raid deployed flashbang grenades and broke down doors without warrants, allegedly holding residents at gunpoint or using other types of force to march them outside in their pajamas or various states of undress.

By dawn, dozens of residents — children and adults, undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike — shivered in the parking lot, their wrists and, in some cases, ankles restrained with zip ties. The Department of Homeland Security denies children were “handcuffed or restrained” during the raid but acknowledged some juveniles were taken into custody “for their own safety” to ensure they “were not being trafficked, abused, or otherwise exploited.”

The former residents, which include two U.S. citizens, are seeking millions of dollars in damages for federal agents’ actions during the raid. The legal filings, made public on Wednesday, describe residents’ screams in both fear and pain — including one man who suffered multiple dog bites from a K9 agent. The filings also detailed residents’ embarrassment at being filmed by a professional camera crew despite not being fully dressed. The footage would ultimately become highly produced promotional video for DHS used on social media.

“The U.S. government has no right to inflict this level of emotional distress and property damage and then just walk away — seeking compensatory damages is a necessary step toward righting the wrong these members of our communities, including families with young children, experienced that night,” said Allena Martin, senior litigation attorney at the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center.

The chaotic night, just a few weeks into “Operation Midway Blitz,” marked a major flashpoint in the mass deportation campaign. Top White House immigration policy advisor Stephen Miller justified the raid claiming the building was a “Tren de Aragua complex filled with TdA terrorists,” referring to the violent Venezuelan gang.

But not one of the 37 residents arrested in the raid has been charged with a crime, despite the Trump administration’s claims that two of the arrestees were “confirmed” members of Tren de Aragua.

Instead, the 18 residents who filed claims this week — one of whom was detained outside the building a week prior to the raid — claim they and their neighbors were “targeted based on race and ethnicity.”

In the aftermath, many of the 37 people arrested remained in immigration detention for weeks or months. A number of them have been deported or have asked for voluntary departure.

In response to a request for comment, DHS sent the same statement it’s issued for months, saying the raid “was performed in full compliance of the law,” and touting the arrests of immigrants with criminal records. Two of those arrested, including a U.S. citizen, allegedly had active warrants out for them.

In addition to the NIJC, three other major immigrant rights groups are behind the effort, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic and the Chicago-based MacArthur Justice Center.

“We should not live in a country where the federal government can use violations of the Constitution as propaganda and get away with it,” Jonathan Manes, senior counsel at MacArthur Justice Center, said. “This raid was a nightmare turned into reality. It put federal agents’ abuse of power on full display while leaving the Chicago community traumatized.”

A traumatic night

Though civilians can sue state and local law enforcement officers for alleged civil rights violations, federal law enforcement officers are exempt. Instead, those who believe they were harmed by federal agents or other employees can file complaints under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows for compensation for death, injury, property damage or emotional distress.

The 18 former residents are seeking $5 million each, plus property damages.

The federal government has six months to respond or settle a claim within six months. If an agency does neither — or denies a tort claim — filers can then sue in federal court, where individual officers can be deposed and internal government records subpoenaed.

The claims name DHS and subsidiary agencies U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Border Patrol. It also names the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, both of which fall under the U.S. Department of Justice.

The legal filings paint a picture of how agents stormed the 130-unit building shortly before 1 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 30. The account of one man, Johandry José Andrades Jiménez, describes how his wife woke him up after hearing helicopters outside and other noises from within the building. Within minutes, agents were outside their unit, yelling for them to “Open the door! Get out! Get out!” according to the filing.

When Andrades Jiménez did not open the door, agents allegedly hit it forcefully enough for them to breach the apartment. Four “heavily armed” agents entered and “pointed their weapons” at him.

“The agents … ordered Mr. Andrades Jiménez to get on the floor ‘or I’ll kill you,’” the filing states. “Agents struck Mr. Andrades Jiménez in the head with a rifle and threw him to the floor. They did this in front of his wife and children, who were crying.”

He was then zip-tied and asked whether he was a member of Tren de Aragua, which he denied.

Still shirtless, he was eventually forced into a van with 15 other male residents who’d been arrested and taken to the ICE processing facility in Chicago’s near-western suburb of Broadview. There, he was allegedly held in crowded conditions and “deprived of adequate basic necessities, including water.”

Over the next two months, he was transferred to several ICE facilities in multiple states and eventually deported in December, according to reporting from ProPublica, separating him from his wife and three daughters, the youngest of whom was six months old at the time of the raid.

Other claimants’ filings, the majority of which are for members of three separate families, described children’s reactions to the raid. In one family’s account, the father feared agents would break down their door and hurt their four children, so instead he opened the door. When he did, he saw “agents pointing guns into his apartment” right at his family. The couple “huddled with their children as the children screamed and cried in terror,” according to the filing.

Agents restrained the father with zip ties and then yelled at the family in English, pushing all six of them out of their apartment in their pajamas, with the father and mother held at gunpoint, according to the filing. As they walked through the hall, “the family saw agents break down their neighbors’ doors. children became increasingly distressed and started crying even harder than they already were.”

Once outside, agents lined up the family with dozens of other residents and took pictures of each person in line. When agents separated the father, their children became even more upset.

“Her children were crying and screaming, except for D.J.D.L., who was having a panic attack — he could not speak or move,” according to the mother’s claim, referring to her 9-year-old son by his initials.

Landlord coordination

In January, the Illinois Department of Human Rights opened an investigation into the building’s former landlords, who coordinated with DHS prior to the raid claiming the complex was becoming overrun by Tren de Aragua. According to February legal filings that cite two arrest records from the raid, agents attested to having received “owner/manager’s verbal and written consent.”

Arrest records also stated the raid was planned “based on intelligence that there were illegal aliens unlawfully occupying apartments.” The Department of Human Rights’ official housing discrimination charge alleges building management “unlawfully discriminated against their tenants” both by neglecting maintenance requests and then tipping off DHS.

In addition to many longtime residents, most of whom were Black U.S. citizens, the building was home to many Venezuelan migrants who arrived in Chicago in the latter half of the Biden administration. Republican governors sent thousands of migrants in busses from states like Texas to “sanctuary” cities run by Democrats, including Chicago.

Some living in the complex were squatters, and reporting by ProPublica found there had been drug dealing and prostitution in the building. In June, one Venezuelan resident allegedly executed his neighbor, another Venezuelan national, after he and two others forced their way into the victim’s apartment.

A recently published report by a state commission charged with memorializing alleged abuses during Operation Midway Blitz cited an internal CBP report on the raid that pointed to federal law enforcement intelligence as the basis for the operation. According to the report, the feds had intelligence “indicating that TdA (Tren de Aragua) members and other suspected criminals had ‘seized control of approximately 30 vacant apartments’ in the building and that ATF had conducted several undercover operations to purchase illicit firearms in the apartment complex.”

The building, which had been deteriorating for years according to reporting by the Chicago Tribune and Block Club Chicago, was left in shambles after the raid. In November, remaining residents were forced out of the building after a Cook County judge deemed it uninhabitable and ordered the property vacated for safety reasons.

The state Department of Human Rights’ January filing alleges building management “blamed Venezuelan tenants for their own (management’s) failure to provide needed locks and security service, as well as other needed maintenance and repairs, and perpetuated stereotypes” so that all Venezuelan nationals living in the building would be associated with Tren de Aragua.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

Hannah Meisel

Hannah has been covering Illinois government and politics since 2014, and since then has worked for a variety of outlets from NPR affiliate stations to a startup newsletter. She’s a graduate of both the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U of I’s Springfield campus, where she received an M.A. through the Public Affairs Reporting program and got her start reporting in the Capitol.