Fear and Faith: Mexican Street Vendors Stand Defiant Amid Chicago Immigration Crackdown

The massive Border Patrol presence in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood didn’t faze Ofelia Herrera, even though she and her husband Rafael Hernandez are in the United States illegally. After waiting for agents to move a few blocks away, the couple simply opened their food stand and continued serving Mexican-style corn on the cob and fruit-flavored “aguas frescas,” just as they’ve done for the past 18 years.

Sirens blared through what became a chaotic day as Chicago police responded to a Border Patrol call for help and confronted demonstrators. Yet amid this turmoil, the couple maintained their routine, standing out from many others gripped by fear during an immigration enforcement blitz that has rattled Chicago’s immigrant communities since early September.

“The only thing you can do is have faith in God and not be afraid,” Herrera, 47, said in an interview at the couple’s South Side house, already decorated for Christmas shortly after Halloween. “Fear gives way to depression and other things. At the end of the day, they don’t deport you to Mexico, but you are sick with depression because you didn’t have faith in God.”

Hernandez, 44, agrees. “We know people who have fallen into depression. They don’t leave the house. It’s very sad.”

Their Little Village food stand, adorned with American flags, sits in a bustling area that Border Patrol has frequently targeted. The commercial strip features family-owned restaurants serving traditional Mexican dishes and stores displaying sports team jerseys and quinceañera dresses. Vendors sell fruit and pottery from parked vehicles, while ranchera music creates a festive atmosphere that draws Mexican visitors from across Chicago and beyond.

Many of the couple’s friends haven’t ventured outside in more than two months. That widespread fear has sparked a grassroots effort to buy out street vendors, allowing them to go home early and avoid potential encounters with immigration authorities. While sidewalk traffic remains livelier than in many Chicago commercial areas, businesses along 26th Street have posted signs in Spanish and English demanding that immigration authorities stay away without a court warrant.

The couple knows people who have been arrested by heavily armed agents questioning their legal status – an egg vendor here, a tamale vendor there. They described experiencing tear gas unleashed by agents on demonstrators in a shopping center parking lot last month.

While many immigrants, even some with legal status, avoid speaking with reporters for fear of deportation, Herrera and Hernandez are eager to share their story to help people understand how the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts are affecting communities.

Herrera crossed the border in 2004, followed later by her two children who are now adults living in Chicago. Hernandez made the journey in 2005. Both paid smugglers thousands of dollars for multi-day treks through the Arizona desert. Acquaintances encouraged them to settle in Chicago, which has become the second-highest U.S. destination for Mexican immigrants after Los Angeles.

The couple met while working at a Mexican restaurant in Little Village. They have two U.S.-born children: their 10-year-old son, who speaks little Spanish and has been largely unaware of the immigration crackdown, and their 16-year-old daughter, who fears prolonged detention for her parents even more than the possibility of deportation to Mexico.

After taking a class at City Hall to obtain a municipal certificate for street vending, they purchased a house for $39,000 in 2017 that needed significant repairs. From 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, they serve tacos and burritos from a yellow truck in the dirt driveway of their home in Englewood, a predominantly Black neighborhood that ranks among Chicago’s poorest. On weekends, they head to Little Village for 11-hour workdays.

Since “Operation Midway Blitz” began in Chicago on September 8, the couple’s sales have plummeted by approximately 75%, Herrera said. Like almost everyone they know, their phones constantly alert them to warnings about where immigration officers are making arrests.

U.S. authorities maintain they are prioritizing criminals but acknowledge that anyone in the country illegally is subject to arrest. Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official leading enforcement operations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and now Charlotte, North Carolina, has specifically mentioned street vendors, saying, “Those folks undercutting American businesses, is that right? Absolutely not. That’s why we have immigration laws in the first place.”

The couple has adapted with small adjustments to their routine. Recently, when word spread through social networks that Bovino was making arrests in Little Village, they simply chose to shop for business supplies in another neighborhood.

They have returned to Mexico only once in more than two decades – a family visit in 2012 that required crossing the border illegally in Eagle Pass, Texas. While they hope to remain in Chicago, they are prepared to return to Mexico with their American citizen children if arrested.

“People are frightened because they have lives here, they have kids here, including us,” Herrera said. “We don’t want to go to Mexico but, if we have to, we will. What else is there to do?”