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The Gregorio brothers had just begun their dawn commute to assemble wooden pallets in late January when federal officers from the SUV drew them in the Chicago suburbs. Johnny and Byron were in one car. The third brother, Marco, was traveling separately in another car behind them.
After Johnny Gregorio handed over his identification, an officer with immigration and customs enforcement opened his door and pulled him out. Over a dozen other officers arrived. Gregorio could see them stopping his brother Marco.
All three lived and worked in the United States without permission after arriving from Guatemala. He had no criminal history. However, Byron Gregorio had been deported. Instead of detaining him alone, authorities detained all three brothers.
In an attempt to fulfill its campaign pledge to deport millions of people, the Trump administration relied on tactics that spurred gusts of court agendas across the country and created an atmosphere of terror. There were new cases each week as agents detained immigrants and closed them abroad in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay. Panama; and recently, a dangerous prison in El Salvador, where people have far fewer opportunities to communicate with lawyers and relatives without a hearing.
But in Chicago and other cities, quiet operations are underway to raise legal issues similar to federal agents welcoming one, two or three people.
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Lawyers for Johnny and Marco Gregorio allege that their arrests were at least 22, violating a court settlement that barred undocumented people they accidentally encounter while providing warrants to others. The so-called secured detention was the subject of a 2022 class action settlement that sets stricter parameters on how agents handle these situations, including new restrictions on warrantless arrests.
A Trump administration lawyer has denied allegations that an arrest occurred in violation of that agreement, known as Nava, after one of the former plaintiffs. Specifically, court records show that the administrative lawyers argued that the arrest was not justified.
Under the NAVA settlement, ICE agents must adhere to strict guidelines to make warrantless arrests, such as establishing that someone will try to escape instead of taking part in court cases.
“The administration’s approach to immigration enforcement and the way it responds to court orders has been bound to be a coal mine canary of this administration’s overall approach to democracy and the rule of law,” said Mark Fleming, Associate Director of Litigation at the National Center for Immigration Justice, where Jhony, Marco Gregorio, and other Demtaines advocate for the courts of Nava Statle.
Observers and advocates say they don’t expect the White House to stop the crackdown or adjust its tactics due to legal pushbacks.
“I don’t think they’re backing down,” said Kathleen Arnold, a professor at DePaul University refugees and a forced immigration research. “They assumed there was no hindrance to the legitimate process that would prevent the ice from doing exactly what they wanted.”
Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment.
During the initial roundup in January, the administration revealed that local law enforcement agencies are part of a strategy for enforcement in Chicago and other sanctuary cities where local law enforcement has been denied to help arrest immigrants. “They forced us to go to the community and find the man we were looking for, so there would be more collateral arrests in the sanctuary cities.”
The stricter arrest guidelines from NAVA were adopted as national policy under the Biden administration, plaintiffs’ lawyers said, but were withdrawn after Trump took office in January. The agreement remains in effect in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin, with all states covered by their Chicago ice offices. It is set to expire in May.
This month, lawyers for the National Center for Immigration and Justice and the Illinois ACLU went to Chicago courtrooms, citing the NAVA settlement, seeking an order for the federal government to stop the creation of warrants on the ground, compensated for bond costs and provided weekly reports of warrantless arrests. They are also seeking releases of two clients identified in the still-detained lawsuit.
When debating that ICE and Homeland Security are violating the NAVA settlement, the lawyers for the two Gregorio brothers said Johnny and Marco were clearly not a flight risk. They both have lived in the United States for over a decade and have connections between the Chicago area and the suburbs of Maywood, where they live. Johnny Gregorio is married and has a child born in the US
The lawyer said the only warrant against them was written after they were taken into custody.
“The creation of warrants after the facts will not cure the warrant-free nature of these cases,” the plaintiff’s lawyer wrote:
Ultimately, the two brothers cited in the lawsuit and most of the other immigrants were released and allowed to remain in the United States for at least for now. Two of the 22 people are still in ice custody, and one has been deported, said lawyers for the two advocacy groups.
Jhony and Marco Gregorio are currently facing an immigration case where they can see them being excluded from the United States. The pair’s lawyers have not argued that Ice is unfair in the arrest of brother Byron and that he is not the party of the lawsuit. It is unknown if he has been deported.
Among the people released is Julio Noriega, a 54-year-old Chicago man. According to the witness declaration in his latest NAVA filing, when he was approached by an ice officer in January, he was handing out his resume to local businesses seeking work.
Before he had the opportunity to explain, Noriega said, the officers put him in handcuffs and moved him into the van. It’s after he’s already taken to an ice processing center and waits for a few hours before an officer checks his wallet and realizes he’s a US citizen.
Abel Orozco-Ortega, 47, was also arrested in January, who was also nominated for the new NAVA filing. He had just returned home from buying breakfast for his family, and officers took him into custody outside the Lions home, a Chicago suburb where he lived with his family for the past 15 years.
The state medical board has evidence that the doctor was hurting the patient. It renewed his license – twice.
Federal agents were looking for Orozco Ortega’s son. They did not find him, but they took Orozco Ortega into custody. Orozco Ortega said in a statement that he had no criminal history. His lawsuit filing does not detail why the agent was looking for his son. Orozco-Ortega lives in the United States without permission.
His wife, Yolanda, said he was not a criminal and sued for his release. “He has no evil, he has no drugs. He goes to church,” she said at a recent press conference through an interpreter. “Is it a crime to wake up early every day for work to support your family? I just don’t know.”
Fleming said the center continues to compile examples of arrests.
