Snatched: How ICE raids are shattering Chicago's immigrant world

One minute Maria was selling tamales from her food cart in Chicago's West Side. The next, her son told AFP, she was bundled into a van, the latest victim of President Donald Trump's aggressive crackdown on immigrants.

Maria's family was left to pick up the pieces, removing her cart, food containers and umbrella before launching a frantic search for the Mexican-born mother of seven who has lived in the United States for two decades, albeit undocumented.

By Saturday morning, 24 hours after her arrest, her family had still learned "nothing" about her status from US Immigration and Customs Enforcemnt (ICE), the federal agency conducting aggressive raids in and around the nation's third largest city.

"It could be days, it could be months, it could be years, or we may never see her again," Eduardo Santoyo, 22, said of his mother.

Maria's detention in broad daylight -- witnesses posted video online -- fit a recent pattern: Agents swoop in without warning, snatch an unsuspecting resident and drive off, with relatives left to panic over the fate of their loved ones.

"What are we going to tell my sister?" Santayo asked, refering to his mother's youngest child, who is only six years old.

Anguish colored the faces of Maria's son and another daughter, age 16, as they stepped in to continue running the tamale cart in the very spot where their mother was taken into custody.

This week saw scores of immigration detentions in Chicago, many of which only came to light after witnesses posted footage of the arrests on social media.

Alerts about raids are popping up regularly online as activist groups warn residents about sweeps in Latino-heavy neighborhoods like Cicero, Little Village and Pilsen.

Migrants reportedly have been detained at Chicago-area construction sites, near a university building, along strip malls and outside schools.

A local television producer, who holds US citizenship, was arrested by federal agents during immigration enforcement operations on Chicago's North Side, her employer WGN said. She was later released.

Federal agents also targeted rideshare drivers in a sweep Friday at O'Hare International Airport, resulting in 12 arrests, according to local reports.

- 'It could be anyone' -

While protesters have been beaten, tear-gassed and arrested in recent weeks at an ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, anti-immigration unrest across the rest of the city has been sporadic. 

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But the impact of the raids has been nothing less than chilling.

"You may not see a raid,  but this is affecting our community," said Casey Caballero, 37, a self-described soccer mom from Lombard who is married to a naturalized US citizen.

Caballero and others accuse immigratiom agents of discriminatory racial profiling.

Santoyo has US citizenship, but expressed anger and fear that such status may matter little if agents are doing what he suspects: targeting people because of the color of their skin and the language they speak.

"That's racism," he said. "If they come after me, I have papers, but how would they know that?"

Another tamale street vendor not far from Maria's cart said she had heard of her detention and quickly teared up over what happened.

"It could be anyone" swept up in the raids, she told AFP.

A heavily tattooed man, who said he was driving past when Maria was taken into custody, expressed outrage at the operation, noting she had been serving food to the community for years.

Nae Campbell, a longtime customer, recalled how this "good woman" could be found vending year-round, whether in searing heat or Chicago's famously bitter cold.

As for the raids, Campbell called them "the most...inhumane gesture I've ever seen."

"People have taken root here, they have families here now" and federal agents "basically just stripped them from their life. That's crazy," the 32-year-old hospital worker said.

But Campbell, who drove across the city for Maria's goods, said she had faith that the vendor's family would be supported.

"The community is definitely going to rally around them."

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