A Chicago landlord says U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wearing vests that said “Police” broke into her building late at night and took six of her tenants, according to news reports.
Landlord and property owner Arminda Castelin told CBS, “My tenant called me very scared. He said that, ‘Police are trying to break into our house.’ ”
Castelin said when she came in on Monday, the doors were broken and the tenants were gone.
Castelin said six people — mostly fathers and husbands — were detained. She said some of her doors were broken, and her building is almost completely empty after the rest of the tenants fled in fear. She said a mother and a baby remained in one apartment, trying to figure out the next steps after the father was taken.
Castelin said she thought the agents were police officers, since that is what their vests said.
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“They (tenants) say police, but they don’t even know what kind of people it is,” she said. “They are just terrorized right now.”
Castelin said she looked at her tenants’ IDs and documents before they signed leases to make sure they were legal residents.
“It’s just so sad, you know?” she said. “They keep calling me, and I’m just trying to help them.”
CBS News Chicago reached out to legal analyst Irv Miller to see if ICE agents can wear police vests. Miller said there is no law or regulation saying they cannot.
