Kristi Noem flew into Chicagoland for a made-for-camera immigration sweep, and the cameras caught the part she didn’t script. In a video the Homeland Security chief proudly posted from a pre-dawn raid in Elgin, Illinois, viewers can see multiple men in cuffs. Hours later, local outlets reported at least one of them was a U.S. citizen, undercutting the tough-on-crime victory lap Noem tried to take online.
The man at the center of the mess, 37-year-old Joe Botello, says he woke up to shouting, shattered glass, and armed agents flooding his home before sunrise. Per The Chicago Tribune, he and his roommates were marched out, zip-tied, and loaded up, and, he says, no one told him why. Botello, who was born in Texas, says one agent even questioned how he spoke English “so well,” prompting him to point out the obvious: he’s American. He was released after showing ID, but says the encounter left him shaken.
OMG. What @Sec_Noem isn’t telling you is that this guy in the video is a U.S. citizen named Joe Botello. They smashed in the doors, dragged him and his roommates out in handcuffs, then posted a video online suggesting he was a criminal, despite knowing he was released soon after. https://t.co/ZTDUUyxqwm pic.twitter.com/odRlbZbrNk
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) September 16, 2025
Noem’s post trumpeted the arrests as part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” a rolling crackdown in and around Chicago that the department says targets people with criminal records. Her team never mentioned the citizenship snafu while amplifying the footage, or the fact that two U.S. citizens were briefly detained during the same raid before being let go.
Pressed about the incident, DHS split hairs: nobody was “arrested,” a spokesperson said, the citizens were “briefly held” for everyone’s safety while agents cleared the house, standard protocol in a dynamic operation. That defense did little to calm critics who said the video, boosted by a Cabinet secretary with a flair for law-and-order photo ops, showcased exactly the overreach they fear.
The agency has cast Midway Blitz as both a public-safety mission and a memorial. Officials say the push was launched in honor of 20-year-old Katherine “Katie” Abraham, killed in a January hit-and-run. The accused driver is a Guatemalan national who, authorities say, lacked legal status. Naming the operation after Abraham has become a political touchstone for the Trump administration as it leans into high-visibility enforcement in so-called sanctuary jurisdictions.
Mr. Botello is glad that he was released. But he says that agents never showed anyone in the house a warrant at any point, and when he asked them where they were taking his roommates, they refused to answer him. pic.twitter.com/OIlItu3Pue
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) September 16, 2025
On the ground, the fallout is immediate. Community groups and local leaders describe a surge of fear, not just among undocumented residents but mixed-status households, neighbors, and bystanders who worry about getting swept up when agents hit a block at 5 a.m. NBC’s local investigative team spoke with Botello and reported at least one citizen’s mistaken detention in Elgin, echoed by other Chicago outlets tracking the blitz.
Politically, the optics cut both ways. For the administration, Noem’s patrol-side posts reinforce the message that Washington is cracking down. For opponents, the Elgin video is Exhibit A of an operation that blurs lines between targeted enforcement and dragnet theater, and one that can humiliate, or even endanger, the very people it claims to protect. That tension only sharpened after an unrelated shooting by an ICE officer during a separate suburban stop days earlier, which advocates seized on to warn about escalation.
Botello, meanwhile, offered the kind of advice no American expects to need before heading to bed: keep your ID close. It’s a bleak punchline to a viral stunt, and a reminder that in the scramble for wins and soundbites, real people can end up as collateral content.
