SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (WLS) — Despite the claims by President Donald Trump and immigration authorities that violent criminals are the primary targets of recent arrest operations and raids, a review of cases by the ABC 7 I-Team has revealed a different picture.
Many of the new immigration arrest cases and relevant federal court records are kept confidential from the general public, but the I-Team managed to uncover one particular case that was presented in front of a judge on Tuesday.
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In this court hearing, a Venezuelan migrant who was apprehended in the immigration raids conducted in the vicinity of Chicago over the past weekend was ordered by the judge to be released from custody immediately because immigration officials lacked the necessary legal documentation for his detention and deportation.
Edward Martinez-Cermeno, 24, was arrested in Schaumburg on Sunday on a misdemeanor charge of illegally entering the United States back in 2023.
Agents with the U.S. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), along with prosecutors, said Martinez-Cermano entered the U.S. illegally “by crossing the Rio Grande River… near Eagle Pass, Texas.”
Martinez-Cermeno’s federal defender said in court he fled Venezuela to the United States for his safety, after working as a police officer.
After crossing the border and making his way to Chicago, Martinez-Cermeno has been living with his girlfriend’s parents, Maria and Ruben Occhipinti, the couple told the I-Team on Tuesday.
Walking the halls of Chicago’s federal court building, the Occhipintis said they are still trying to shake off the trauma of what happened this past Sunday night, just before 8 p.m., when immigration agents appeared at their door for Martinez-Cermeno.
“They were pointing their guns at me and my husband, they knocked him down to the ground,” Maria said, speaking in Spanish. “They just left without an explanation. They didn’t show many, any documents. We were scared, we’re all in crisis.”
It’s unclear what exactly led immigration agents to the Occhipintis’ door on Sunday.
Cook County court records show Chicago police arrested Martinez-Cermeno for a felony retail theft charge in January 2024, and a warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to appear in court.
But Tuesday’s hearing only dealt with the immigration charge he was arrested on — 8:1325(A)(1) or “improper entry by alien.”
That charge is a misdemeanor, not a felony, and the magistrate judge determined that while the case proceeds, Martinez-Cermeno should be released.
The judge concluded Martinez-Cermeno was not a “serious flight risk” in part due to a pending asylum case that is scheduled to be heard in April 2026, and his ties to the community via the Occhipinti family.
After spending roughly 48 hours in federal custody – first at the HSI offices in Lombard, then at the MCC Chicago federal prison – Martinez-Cermeno is scheduled to be released from custody Tuesday evening.
While prosecutors mentioned that there is an “ICE detainer” for Martinez-Cermeno, and that ICE would likely take him into custody upon his release, the judge said this was legally unacceptable as ICE did not have the proper judicial warrant to detain him further, and that an ICE detainer is only a “civil request.”
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Martinez-Cermeno’s retail theft case out of Cook County is still open, and he has yet to enter a plea to the felony charge.
As Martinez-Cermeno stood in federal court, White House officials were driving home President Trump’s message of “launching the largest mass deportation operation in American history.”
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “If you are an individual, a foreign national who illegally enters the United States of America, you are by definition a criminal.”
Former immigration officials tell the I-Team the current approach by the new administration is not focused on public safety, rather it’s focused on “volume and quotas”.
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement has the hardest job in law enforcement,” said Jason Houser, former ICE Chief of Staff during the Biden Administration. “When you sort of make it about this quota game, or you make it about, you know, ‘We need to bring in as many people into custody,’ that takes [the] emphasis away from public safety.”
Houser explained the work necessary by immigration investigators to arrest violent offenders, drug and sex traffickers, requires hundreds of hours of investigative work.
“That is just not a volume game, where you can say, ‘Go arrest 35 of those today,” Houser explained. “When you kind of create those numbers like that, those quotas, you put the pressure point on officers to just go out there and arrest those that are most accessible.”
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