The federal agents on the screen wore black as they entered the museum’s doors. One briefly spoke to a staff member before walking down the hallway and out of the camera’s view, leaving the employees at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture in Humboldt Park feeling targeted and intimidated.
“Our community is under attack. The Latino community, brown people, are being targeted by this administration,” said Ald. Gil Villegas, 36th, at a hastily arranged news conference on Wednesday with other community leaders and other elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, who believed the federal government was there for immigration enforcement purposes.
But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents weren’t there for immigration reasons, said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement. They were there to hold a briefing in the museum’s parking lot ahead of an operation related to a narcotics investigation.
Museum staffers say the agents refused to identify themselves. In security footage reviewed by the Tribune and other media after the news conference, the agents were seen arriving in unmarked vehicles and standing in a group in the parking lot. Several of them entered without incident.
Still, the presence of federal officers at the museum on Tuesday set off a chain reaction of fear in a community already on edge. And regardless of why federal officers showed up unannounced at the museum, some local officials continued their criticism of their tactics.
“Agents of DHS … should identify themselves, like every law enforcement official is required to do,” said Ramirez, who represents Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District, in a statement.
The strong response from community leaders and local officials mirrored nationwide panic that was sparked in January after two Secret Service officers — who were mistaken for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — attempted to enter a school in Back of the Yards on the city’s South Side. Then, as on Tuesday, DHS confirmed to the Tribune that it was conducting a separate investigation, unrelated to immigration.
In recent weeks and months, nationwide fear has spread through images and videos on social media of President Donald Trump’s administration detaining people in public spaces. Most notably in Los Angeles this week, armed federal agents showed up in a park considered to be the hub of a well-known immigrant neighborhood.
With that visible enforcement front of mind on Wednesday morning, dozens of organizers and city and state leaders gathered inside the museum to condemn the federal government for targeting Latino communities for deportation.
The museum staff reported that about 15 unmarked vehicles drove into the Puerto Rican museum’s parking lot during operating hours on Tuesday, creating worry that the federal government was preparing to target upcoming festivals in the West Side park — the Barrio Arts Festival and the Colombian Festival, planned for the upcoming two weekends.
Although Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, the festivals are expected to draw large crowds of Latinos, a group frequently targeted in nationwide immigration enforcement raids.
“We have reason to believe that here in Humboldt Park, we may see what they demonstrated earlier this week in Los Angeles,” said Esmeralda Montesinos, an organizer with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
On Tuesday, the agents were on site at the museum between 3 and 5 p.m., according to Veronica Ocasio, the museum’s director of education and programming. They pulled their vehicles into the parking lot, she said, and then talked and milled around.
Ocasio said an employee of hers who was taking out the garbage overheard the agents talking about the upcoming festivals. The staff member immediately panicked, assuming they were discussing a strategy to detain people at the upcoming events.
Later, several tried to enter the building, Ocasio said, claiming they needed to use the bathroom. The agents and vehicles left after a different employee told them the parking lot was closing for the day. But they wanted to park their vehicles overnight, she said.
McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary, later clarified in a statement that the officials were part of the Financial Crimes Task Force, under the investigative arm of the federal agency.
“The Department of Homeland Security DID NOT target the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture,” the statement read.
The museum’s staff emphasized Wednesday that it didn’t matter why DHS officials were there.
“If they had just said they were working on a drug case, maybe it would have been a different story, but we can’t take that as fact now, after the point,” a spokesperson for the museum said.
Chicago police said they were not informed about the federal agents stopping for a briefing at the museum. Aldermen, meanwhile, expressed skepticism and concern about McLaughlin’s statement.
Ald. Ruth Cruz, 30th, said that it’s been “difficult to believe the information they’re sharing is accurate.” She cited a U.S. citizen who was pulled over in her ward by federal agents while walking his dog.
“They had him go up to his apartment and bring back his residence card,” she said. “Our community is scared. We feel that we’re under attack.”
At the news conference Wednesday, several elected officials shared their own immigrant stories, stressing that Latino communities in Chicago plan to present a united front against nationwide deportation efforts by the federal government.
“I am from Puerto Rico,” said Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd. “Our siblings that are coming into this country … for the same reason that I came here, because it was impossible to live under the conditions that we were in.”
They also shared harrowing stories of their own family members who have been affected by increased immigration enforcement.
State Sen. Graciela Guzmán, a Chicago Democrat, has several of her family members in Los Angeles, where she said “militarization has been unavoidable.”
“We had a cousin disappear a couple of months ago. We just found out he’s in Guantanamo,” Guzmán said, referring to a naval base in Cuba being used by Trump to detain dozens of foreigners.
