At least three people were detained by federal immigration enforcement agents Wednesday morning outside the Menards store in Naperville.
One of those arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was Martin Morales, a Montgomery resident who owns Martin Morales Wood Flooring Inc., according to his daughter, Veronica Beltran. Two others were his employees, she said.
“My mom called me. I was at work and she told me that my dad had gotten taken by immigration,” said Beltran, who rushed to the home improvement store on Fort Hill Drive. “But when we got here, it was too late because they had already taken him.”
Beltran and her sister, Karina, stood in the parking lot as they watched their father’s van get towed away.
“It’s ridiculous, the world that we live in,” Beltran said. “Harming so many families, separating so many families, so many kids from their parents when they should be focusing on getting the criminals, the ones that harm this country, not the ones who work their asses off and pay taxes.”
The arrests come as part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s ongoing “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Naperville, said in a news release that she had been briefed Monday on ICE’s actions in the Chicago area as a ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Appropriations and was disturbed by what was happening. As of Monday, 250 people had been taken into custody by immigration officials since the local operation began in early September, she said.
“Everyone deserves to feel safe in their community,” Underwood said in the release. “Like all Illinoisans, I’ve been concerned and alarmed by reporting about ICE’s conduct and operations in our state under Donald Trump.”
Beltran, a green card holder, said Wednesday night that the Morales family had not heard from her father. They were in the process of trying to determine where he had been working so they could retrieve his tools.
According to Underwood, detainees who have been arrested and processed are being taken to locations in Indiana and Wisconsin.
One witness to the arrest of Morales and the other two men was a 60-year-old Warrenville resident who declined to give his name.
“I was pulling up to buy some stuff and, you know, to have it happen here in your neighborhood, it really brings it home,” he said. “They were putting people in the cars, handcuffed. I really couldn’t figure out who was doing what but it did say federal agents.”
“It looked like there were two going away in one car and it looked like another agent was talking to somebody else and it looked like he was probably getting taken in too,” he said.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Beyond the 250 arrests noted by Underwood, it is not known how many immigration-related arrests have been made in Naperville specifically or the Chicago area as a whole.
Beltran said her father came to the United States from Mexico 40 years ago and was in the process of obtaining legal residency.
A Menards employee told the sisters what he witnessed, she said.
“He said that he saw some men with masks and rifles and that they came up to my dad’s van and they were talking to him and then they left,” Beltran said.
Her father went inside the store only to have the agents come back as he was returning to his vehicle, she said.
“And that’s when they pulled him and his workers out and handcuffed them and took them,” Beltran said of the account she received.
Menards declined to comment for this story.
Throughout the morning, witnesses and those who heard about the arrest came up to the sisters to hug them and offer support.
“I can’t believe here in Naperville, well, the United States in particular, but here in Naperville that they’d be so callous as to just pick people off the street just for being a different color and nationality,” the Warrenville resident said. “It’s unconscionable.”
cstein@chicagotribune.com