On September 30, 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents conducted a raid at 1am in the morning on a Chicago apartment building. During the raid, the agents kicked down doors, detonated flash bang grenades, and zip-tied sobbing children. A few days after the raid, DHS published a video on its social media accounts valorizing the dangerous and unjustified action.The video is a compilation of a substantial quantity of footage edited for public relations purposes.
In the wake of ICE’s military-style raid, Democracy Forward submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking for all documents relating to the planning and execution of the raid, as well as all of the raw footage that was captured during the raid. The government has failed to respond to the request in the legally required time.
On November 21, 2025, Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE to enforce the FOIA, as the agencies had failed to respond to multiple requests for records that would shed light on the Trump-Vance administration’s unconstitutional and unconscionable pursuit of its immigration agenda.
Timeline
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Filed a FOIA request to DHS and ICE seeking all documents and video footage related to the raid.
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Lawsuit filed to compel the release of the requested information.
