On Thursday, October 16, Cynthia Olivares grabbed the fanny pack in which she carries her ID, a copy of her passport, wallet-sized know-your-rights cards, and a wet wipe for potential tear gas exposure. She and a partner drove around Back of the Yards to conduct a migra watch. By the time Olivares hit the road, reports of federal immigration agents sightings were already circulating in the neighborhood. As they drove around, scanning the streets where agents had been spotted in recent weeks, they stumbled upon a raid in progress at Swap-O-Rama flea market at 4100 S. Ashland, where federal agents eventually detained fifteen people.
For decades, Swap-O-Rama has been a staple of Chicago’s South Side. It’s a vast outdoor flea market where hundreds of mostly Latino immigrant vendors rent small stalls to sell everything from boots and quinceañera dresses to phone chargers and home goods. The Back of the Yards location, one of several across the region, has operated for more than thirty years and draws thousands of shoppers each weekend.
The raid at Swap-O-Rama came just ten days after Mayor Brandon Johnson reminded businesses that they have the right to deny entry to federal agents and signed an executive order prohibiting agents from using city-owned property for immigration enforcement activities.
Olivares recalls men entering the space dressed in military-style uniforms. Masked federal agents with no visible badges or ID numbers arrived later in about ten agents. She said that when people tried to close the gates to keep federal agents from entering, agents forcibly opened them despite people screaming that they were on private property.
Videos posted on social media show a chaotic scene unfolding as vendors scrambled to try to get away. Some sought refuge on top of portable toilets. A mother pleaded with agents to let her go, saying that she has children she needs to care for, as they dragged her away.
At one point, Olivares witnessed a detained man throw his wallet towards a bystander, only for the agents to snatch the wallet back, claiming personal belongings must remain with the man.
“The things that we thought were set in place, the laws, the constitutional rights, it seems to have all left in that moment,” Olivares said.
After the raid, Olivares said she had a heated exchange with Swap-O-Rama’s assistant manager, who told her that vendors were aware there was no safety protocol in place in case federal agents showed up. Olivares said she saw the lack of preparation as a slap in the face to the vendors and shoppers who expected protection. The Weekly reached out to Swap-O-Rama management for comment but did not receive a response.
ICE’s Chicago Field Office did not respond to questions about agents’ presence at Swap-O-Rama, the number of people detained, or whether they had judicial warrants to enter the property.
A longtime vendor who gave his name as Gebahet Bustamante said he counted about seventy-five agents that day. He said he confronted the agents and asked them if they had names or a list of people they were looking for, but the agents ignored him.
A video of the incident that Bustamante posted on Facebook generated comments calling for a boycott of Swap-O-Rama, but he said it is not easy to leave. Sales would not be the same elsewhere because of how popular it is compared to other locations.
Another vendor, Mario—who asked that his last name not be used due to his status—and his wife have sold jewelry and speakers at Swap-O-Rama for twenty-eight years. Like many other vendors, they did not open up their stand the weekend after the raid. Sales have plummeted since. Mario, Bustamante, and others have asked for their monthly rent to be reduced until January as they anticipate sales will remain low due to the recent raid and the uneasiness it has caused in vendors and customers alike.
“If we work or don’t work, we have always paid Swap-O-Rama what we owe,” said Mario. “So I think, considering what happened, and with all the time we have been here, we deserve something.”
The vendors explained that following the raid they were hesitant to individually approach management and owners because when they have raised concerns in the past, they would be labeled as “troublemakers” and get their post or floor space taken away.
So instead, they sought the help of longtime Swap-O-rama vendor and immigration attorney Maritza Jaimes. She has helped her parents sell Western wear for over twenty years, on the weekends, since she was five years old.
Though Jaimes prefers to leave her professional identity at the door when she’s selling on weekends, the raid and the impact it has had on vendors moved her to help. She drafted a letter that was signed by over one hundred vendors and sent to Swap-O-Rama’s owners.
Jaimes then met with corporate lawyers for Swap-O-Rama, who addressed some of the concerns the vendors raised. At the meeting, Jaimes went through a list of requests that included posting signage prohibiting federal access without signed judicial warrants, securing the premises, and creating procedures in case agents comes again.
Since then, some changes have been made.
At the entrance to Swap-O-Rama, management placed large signs in English and Spanish on the fence and doors that provide notice to all law enforcement and immigration agents that they are not allowed onto their private property without a valid judicial warrant signed by a judge. The gates that once stood open to the flow of shoppers now stay closed, allowing staff to better control who comes and goes.
Additionally, employees are getting trained by management on what a judicial warrant is and on company protocol in case agents show up again—protocols that Jaimes helped review and refine. This includes how to document ICE presence and encounters with federal agents, and noting how many people are detained, what agents wear, whether or not agents identify themselves, and agents’ responses to staff’s requests for judicial warrants. If vendors are detained, their information will now be shared with local nonprofits who offer resources to those detained.
Security guards will also have to go through this training, which Jaimes said is important since they constantly switch and take turns monitoring the entrance.
But despite these new safeguards, Swap-O-Rama has felt empty in the weekends after the raid. The majority of stands remain closed, their merchandise stored away behind tarps and locks. Areas where vendors set up tables in large open rooms are vacant, exposing the blue tape that outlined the spaces where vendors were normally stationed.
Vendors said their rent for November was reduced by half, but sales are expected to remain low for several months. Customers are paying a dollar less for entry. Some vendors were appreciative of these small gestures by the owner.
Moving forward, vendors said they want to build a trusting relationship with Swap-O-Rama through quarterly meetings with management that will allow them to work through concerns together. Although the signs posted outside might increase the vendors’ sense of safety, some still do not feel safe because of the numerous examples of federal agents disregarding the law and people’s constitutional rights.
Jaimes, like other vendors, has heard the calls to boycott Swap-O-Rama, but says it is difficult because it is not the corporation that would be feeling the effects of a boycott.
“I myself want to boycott major corporations, but this is so different. It is such a unique space because there’s so many Latino vendors, so boycotting this place impacts a lot of families that depend solely on this income,” she said.
The Weekly reached out to Swap-O-Rama management for comment, but they did not respond.
In recent months, Back of the Yards has seen heavy immigration enforcement that has extended far beyond the raid at Swap-O-Rama. Olivares leads a program with about twenty local youth that now canvass streets and distribute know-your-rights material after reports circulated of agents using neighborhood shopping areas to stage operations.
Tensions have been growing between residents and shopping center owners over agents’ use of private property in other areas too.
In recent weeks, rapid response groups in the area have documented several occasions of federal agents using the Yards Plaza shopping center at 4636 S. Damen as a staging area for immigration enforcement. According to Olivares, in one instance, agents illegally detained a woman on 53rd and Ashland and dropped her off 1.5 miles away behind the Dollar Tree at Yards Plaza. The woman had to walk home. Although she was released, her husband and another man were taken that day despite a pending asylum case and an upcoming court hearing.
Through calls and emails, youth and advocacy groups have tried to put pressure on the owners of Yards Plaza, Friedman Properties, in the hopes that they would protect the community members that shop there and reside nearby. To date, Olivares and the youth have not received a response from Friedman Properties.
The Weekly reached out to Friedman Properties for comment but did not receive a response.
“That’s why we decided to continue the fight. We are going to put the pressure now on the businesses who are holding this space and are letting other people invade our space,” Olivares said.
Evelyn, who asked that her last name be withheld for safety concerns, managed her parents’ stand at Swap-O-Rama the weekend after the raid out of precaution for them. She said it’s usually full of shoppers and vendors by 9:00am.
“There are people that have been coming here for years,” she said, “and this is the first time I have not seen them.”
José Abonce is the senior program manager for the Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative and a freelance reporter who focuses on immigration, public safety, politics, and race.