The Chicago Raid: The Government Said It Caught Terrorists; In Court It Never Said It Once
A counterterror-style raid with Black Hawk helicopters, BORTAC and the FBI ended with zero criminal charges — and the word Tren de Aragua does not appear once in the arrest records.
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After the raid, the government suddenly went quiet
Normally, after an operation like this, law enforcement holds a press conference, lays out the seized guns, drugs and explosives on a long table for the media to photograph, puts up posters with the names of the arrested, and announces "we made America safer." This time there was nothing. Melissa says that if you are going to tell the public you deployed Black Hawk helicopters, fast-roped from the sky, kicked in every door, took away both US citizens and immigrants, and paraded them in front of cameras like terrorists, you have to produce something to back it up. But days passed, weeks passed, and there was nothing.
— Melissa SanchezThe breakthrough was a single TikTok comment
Melissa searched TikTok for Spanish-language coverage of the raid. The comment sections were mostly hate speech — "these people should get out," "Venezuelans are the worst." But one comment was different: "Not everyone is like that, a lot of people in that building are hardworking, decent people." She judged that this person knew the detainees, sent a direct message, and the person turned out to be the aunt of a detained woman named Norelli. She then found the mother of another detainee, Gabriel, through Facebook comments, typed his full name into Google, and pulled up his booking photo — intake date September 30, Clay County, Indiana jail.
— Melissa SanchezClicking the next photo found all of them
At the bottom of the booking photo page there were "previous/next" arrows. Melissa clicked next and found another person booked into the same jail on the same day. She clicked again, and again, and started recognising the names and faces — they were all people who had appeared in videos DHS had released. Sitting on her bed, she said, "Oh my God, they were all booked together, it's them." By that weekend she had assembled a spreadsheet of more than twenty names. The site had nothing but names and photos — no information at all about any Tren de Aragua affiliation.
— Melissa SanchezNo search warrant, and no one explained
Melissa found most of the adults detained that night. They said consistently that no search warrant was ever shown — and in an immigration raid, forcing a door open requires a warrant. She also found that about a dozen children had been detained along with their parents, including infants. Five people separately described the same thing to her: a police dog biting a Nigerian resident's leg. Giancarlos said agents smashed the door, threw him to the ground, and struck his head with the butt of a rifle, in front of his six- or seven-year-old nephew. He repeated, "They treated us like criminals. I am not a criminal."
— Melissa SanchezOf more than twenty people, only three had records
Research reporter Mariam Elba pulled criminal records one by one: apart from three, none of the detained men had any criminal conviction in the United States. The three convictions were domestic violence, shoplifting and marijuana possession; one person had a conviction for assaulting a police officer and a pending theft charge, another had an illegal firearms charge. Giancarlos had essentially no criminal record, just a traffic ticket. Melissa also found an independent Venezuelan journalist and compared the names against the Tren de Aragua membership list she had compiled from Venezuelan law enforcement and Interpol data — none of these names were on it.
— Melissa SanchezBORTAC entering the city was itself an anomaly
Sebastian's law enforcement sources said BORTAC, the elite Border Patrol SWAT unit, does not normally operate in a city like Chicago, and bringing BORTAC into a city is "extraordinary." Fast-roping from a helicopter — sliding down a rope with no safety harness at all — had been requested by federal agents for urban use before, and was rejected when it went to Washington for approval on the grounds that the urban environment was too dangerous. That tactic is generally used only in a "hostage on the top floor of a building" scenario. At the same time, seasoned FBI and HSI investigators were pulled in to do the most basic immigration raid work, morale was extremely low, and there was a great deal of internal resistance.
— Sebastian RotellaIn court, gangs were mentioned zero times
Melissa and Jody went to immigration court to observe the detainees' hearings. The first was Johnny Caicedo's: no mention of the raid, no mention of Tren de Aragua, no mention of any crime — a total contrast with the spectacle of that night weeks earlier, and he was quietly sent away. They sat through a string of hearings, and the government had countless opportunities to say "this person is a criminal," "this person is a gang member," and it did not say it once. Across the entire so-called counterterror operation, not a single criminal charge was filed against anyone. At least two people were granted voluntary departure — which is different from deportation, and allows them to apply to re-enter the country in the future.
— Melissa SanchezThe arrest records say the landlord agreed
The team obtained the immigration arrest records of several detainees. Documents like these normally set out what the person did and why the government decided to arrest him. But in these records, the term Tren de Aragua does not appear once, and "gang member" does not appear once. What the documents say is: agents received information that undocumented immigrants were living in the building and illegally occupying some units, and that they had obtained written and verbal consent from the property owner and the property manager to enter the building. In other words, the government's own documents show they went in with the landlord's permission to arrest "squatters." The team contacted the landlord and property manager multiple times; all of them refused to respond.
— Melissa SanchezThe sources' conclusion: this was for show
Sebastian's sources — serving and retired law enforcement officials — said the operation was mainly for spectacle, to send a signal: we have gotten tough, and we will use fear to deter people from coming or to make them leave the country. Sebastian says his reaction was sadness, because he had expected to dig something up: maybe there really was a notorious gang leader in the building with a squad of armed men, and the government had failed to catch him. But the more he looked, the more there was nothing. He says he has deep affection for that community, and that if the federal government were genuinely going after crime he would welcome it, but this was a misuse of energy and resources.
— Sebastian RotellaIn their own words · checked verbatim
I was very curious to see, OK, what was behind this? What did they get? Like, who did they get? Like, for me, one of the basic questions is, like, who did they get?
Melissa Sanchez3:16
If you're going to tell people, we used a Black Hawk helicopter and we rappelled in and we grabbed, kicked down all these doors, we held all these U.S. citizens and carted off all these migrants and paraded them in front of the cameras as if they were terrorists, you should back that up with something.
Melissa Sanchez4:20
I was like, holy shit. And I remember sitting up in bed and being like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. They were all booked together. It's them. It's them. I found them.
Melissa Sanchez10:42
And he kept saying to me, they treated us like criminals. They treated us like criminals. I'm not a criminal.
Melissa Sanchez15:56
Remember, the raid was supposedly a counterterrorism operation. But of all the people they arrested, there was not a single criminal charge filed. Not one. Against anybody.
Melissa Sanchez31:30
The government, interestingly, doesn't say the words Trendi Aragua anywhere. It doesn't say gang member anywhere.
Melissa Sanchez33:31
I've heard of a landlord threatening to get rid of their tenant by calling ICE, but I have never heard of the federal government saying, okay, and I'm going to bring in helicopters, and I'm going to bring in Border Patrol, and I'm going to bring in the FBI, and I'm going to bring in ATF
Melissa Sanchez34:35
This is one of the most aggressive displays of force by these agencies in a U.S. city and like anybody's recent memory. This is not normal.
Melissa Sanchez39:50
Figures
| Number of immigrants detained in the raid | 37 | 2:10 |
| Number the government claimed were Tren de Aragua members | 2 | 2:10 |
| Number of units in the apartment building involved | about 130 | 6:25 |
| Number of names Melissa assembled from the booking photo site | more than 20 | 10:42 |
| Number of detainees with US criminal convictions | 3 | 20:06 |
| Number of detainees who have begun suing the federal government | 15 | 37:45 |
| Number of Venezuelan men sent to a Salvadoran prison | hundreds | 39:50 |
| Death toll from boats bombed in the Caribbean | more than 200 | 39:50 |
Glossary
- BORTAC
- The Border Patrol's elite SWAT unit, which normally operates only on the border; deploying it in a city is an anomaly.
- fast roping
- A helicopter insertion method in which you slide down a rope with no safety harness, and it is extremely high-risk.
- voluntary departure
- Different from deportation: it allows the person to apply to re-enter the United States in the future.
- Tren de Aragua
- A Venezuelan gang designated by the Trump administration as a foreign terrorist organisation.
How to listen
Journalists, policy researchers and legal practitioners focused on immigration enforcement, the limits of federal power, and investigative reporting methods.
The two sponsor reads around 23:08 and the production credits after 41:54 can be skipped.