Swap-O-Rama ICE raid separated Chicago newlyweds – she self-deported to Mexico, he’s still in ICE detention

On a recent afternoon in the rugged, arid mountains of the Sierra Mixteca region in southern Mexico, Alexa Ramírez is anxiously waiting for her husband, Alexander Villeda, to call.

The couple try to talk at least once a day since Ramírez, who’s 38, was deported back to Mexico in October.

Villeda, 30 years old and originally from El Salvador, is thousands of miles away in an immigration detention center in Battle Creek, Michigan. The couple was arrested in October during the immigration campaign in Chicago dubbed Operation Midway Blitz — separated just eight days after they got married. Neither has a criminal record.

In this part of rural Mexico, the land is rocky, the mountain slopes are steep and internet and phone service is spotty. When her phone finally rings, Ramirez’s face lights up with a smile.

“Hola, mi amor,” she says in Spanish. “Hi, my love.”

These days, instead of heading to her shift at the Mariscos La Sirena restaurant where she was working in suburban Crestwood, shopping at the outlet malls or grabbing ice cream at La Michoacana, Ramírez is back at her parents’ farm, in a town of just 1,257 people. She spends her days helping her parents with the goats and sheep, cooking, cleaning the house and trying to avoid the town gossip. She doesn’t want anyone to know she got deported. If they find out, she says people might make fun of her situation.

WBEZ is using a variation of Ramírez and Villeda’s full names and is not naming her hometown to protect their safety.

The life Ramirez had envisioned with her husband — living and working in Chicago, saving up to eventually finish building a house in Mexico and starting a family business — has been shattered.

Her new husband, isolated and lonely in detention, is fighting his immigration case and hoping to secure his release on bond. He feels pressure to agree to voluntarily self-deport, but then he’d end up in his native El Salvador, not Mexico. Getting out on bond gives them their best shot at reuniting in Mexico, but there are more complications: He’s not a Mexican citizen, and he doesn't have a job there.

On top of all that, there’s the logistical nightmare of figuring out how to ship everything they own in Chicago to this remote area. When you get deported or sent to detention, you don’t take anything with you.

Ramírez is processing her situation one day at a time. But she worries a lot. She and Villeda aren’t working, and they don’t know when they’ll see each other again. Villeda’s daily calls keep her going, but the phone charges are expensive. So they try to keep them short and focused on the practical things, which doesn’t leave much time to just talk. Between lawyer fees, commissary purchases and bills in Chicago and in Mexico, their savings are quickly evaporating.

It’s stressful.

“There's no telling when he'll be released,” Ramírez says as she starts to cry. “Learning about what my husband is going through [in detention] has been difficult.”

She tries to keep herself busy: “I feel like that makes the days go by faster and keeps me from thinking about it. Little by little, day by day, I'm trying to make sense of what happened.”

Caught in Trump’s deportation campaign

After her arrest, Ramírez signed a form agreeing to voluntarily leave the country — to self-deport — at the immigration processing center in suburban Broadview where she was held for four days. Two days later, she was in Mexico.

Many others made the same decision. During the first five and a half weeks of Operation Midway Blitz, more than 150 people who were initially detained in Broadview decided to self-deport, a WBEZ analysis found. Most were Mexican citizens. This was the second highest number of self-deportations among all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities in the country. One of the goals of the Trump administration has been to get more immigrants to self-deport.

Operation Midway Blitz has mostly targeted Latino immigrants and has been characterized by its aggressive tactics and unlawful arrests. Federal agents used force in at least 141 incidents, according to a WBEZ and Chicago Sun-Times review of hundreds of court documents, videos and news reports.

The Broadview facility where both Ramirez and Villeda were held has been the subject of a federal lawsuit over the conditions inside, where former detainees testified they were forced to sleep on the floor near an open toilet and cells were overcrowded. Ramírez says she wanted to get out; there was little food and water, and she was unable to shower.

The alleged human rights violations of Mexican citizens have drawn the attention of Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

“The Mexican men and women who go to the United States are not criminals;” Sheinbaum told WBEZ in Spanish during a press conference at the National Palace earlier this month in Mexico City. “They are honest people who seek to help their families in Mexico, and without them, the U.S. economy would not be what it is.”

She told WBEZ she has expressed her disapproval over the treatment of Mexican immigrants in the United States to the Trump administration, including to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Experts back up Sheinbaum. A 2024 study by the University of Illinois Chicago Great Cities Institute found that Latinos in Chicago, who predominantly are of Mexican descent, contribute nearly $100 billion annually to the GDP of the Chicago metropolitan area.

Yet this year, more Mexicans than any other nationality were deported from the Midwest under President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, according to a WBEZ analysis of data obtained through a public records request by the Deportation Data Project.

Crossing the border

Ramírez had relatives in Chicago who encouraged her to head to the United States. In her hometown, it's common for people to try to migrate to the U.S. to make a life beyond subsistence farming.

In 2019, she decided to join three of her brothers who were already living in Chicago. She had tried unsuccessfully to launch a small food business in nearby Tlaxiaco, a town with a commercial corridor and more foot traffic than where Ramírez lives. Without a college degree, job options were slim, and Ramírez was getting tired of bouncing between restaurant jobs in the towns near her family’s farm and in Oaxaca City, the largest city in the area.

To get to the United States, she paid $7,500 for a smuggler, raising the money through family and bank loans. She says that was easier than applying for a temporary work visa that she heard was impossible to get. Her first attempt crossing the U.S./Mexico border landed her in a Texas detention center known as “las hieleras” in Spanish, or “the iceboxes," because of how cold it is inside. She made it into the country on her second attempt.

Ramírez quickly found a job at the La Mariscos La Sirena restaurant. She tried to log more than 50 hours of work each week, making on average $250 a day. In Mexico, she says her average daily salary is about $17. And she met someone at the restaurant who would change her life forever.

‘The woman of my life’

It wasn’t love at first sight.

“I didn’t like him,” Ramírez says. “When I first started [working at the restaurant], we asked each other's names. But that was all.”

Villeda had been working there for a while. He arrived in Chicago in 2015 on a tourist visa that eventually expired. He left El Salvador, hoping to escape the gang violence and organized crime that made it nearly impossible for young people to thrive.

Ramirez says she found Villeda a little annoying at first. He questioned her guacamole-making skills.

But the future couple had the same 12-hour shift, and they had no other option but to chat.

Eventually, a friendship developed, and then something more.

“We had the opportunity to go for a walk, and that’s when he asked me to be his girlfriend,” Ramírez recalls with a smile. “After we got to know each other a bit more, we kissed for the first time.”

Speaking from the Michigan detention facility, Villeda reminisced about working late shifts with Ramírez. At the end of the long day, they often left the parking lot of the restaurant and the moon would be out.

“We had a saying each time we said goodbye: ‘When you look at the moon, remember me,’” Villeda says in Spanish. “I miss her company, her joy, everything we did together.”

The couple decided it was time to finally tie the knot after three years living together in a big house they shared with Ramírez’s brothers. They got married on Oct. 9.

Villeda's uncle, Angel Obregon, the first one in the family to migrate to Chicago from El Salvador about 40 years ago, said he’d never seen his nephew so happy in the 10 years Villeda lived in Chicago.

“From the moment he met her, he told me, ‘This is the woman of my life,’” Obregon said in Spanish.

Just eight days after the wedding, the couple was torn apart.

Honeymoon at Broadview

The arrest happened in front of Villeda’s mother, who was in town visiting from El Salvador to celebrate the couple’s wedding.

Ramírez noticed a helicopter hovering above as she and her new husband wandered through the popular Swap-O-Rama market in Back of the Yards.

They were aware of the increased immigration enforcement in the area; she was concerned, but Villeda told her to relax.

“All of the sudden, I heard, ‘Immigration!’” Ramírez said.

When they looked around, two agents were already behind them, demanding proof of their legal status in the US.

They were dragged away in handcuffs.

The couple was sent to the Broadview immigration processing center. Once inside the brick building, they were split up: Ramírez was in the women’s cell, while Villeda was held right across in the men’s cell.

“That was pretty much our honeymoon,” Ramírez says. “We’d see each other through a small area of the women’s window that was not covered by paper.” They would try to communicate but weren’t able to understand one another. "I would simply blow him a kiss and that was all," she says.

Ramírez didn’t fully understand her legal options, and she says she wanted to escape the difficult conditions inside Broadview. She signed the self-deportation form.

At the time, she had no idea there was a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging that immigration agents had been arresting people without warrants or probable cause — in violation of a settlement agreement that restricts the ability of ICE agents to make such arrests in Illinois and nearby states.

Citing potential violations of that settlement, a federal judge in November ordered hundreds of immigrants released as an alternative to detention. If Ramírez hadn’t decided to self-deport and stayed in detention, her name could have appeared on lists provided by the government of people covered by that lawsuit. The case is now in front of an appeals court.

“This government … violated the law thousands of times over the last couple months,” Mark Fleming, an attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center — one of the groups that filed the lawsuit — said at a press conference last month. “By the time we got the list [of names], 60% had given up. They were already back in their home country or a third country.”

After she had been deported, Ramírez learned that her husband was on one of those lists.

Being in detention hasn’t been easy for him. Villeda hates not being able to go outside whenever he wants. If he signs the papers to self-deport, he could get out of detention quicker, but he’d be sent to El Salvador — and Ramírez is in Mexico. He says he doesn’t want to sign if he could be released by the judge along with hundreds of others.

Margaret O'Donoghue, an immigration attorney with Ahlgren Law who is representing Villeda’s case, is arguing he should be released on bond because he is not a danger and has no criminal record. Villeda is asking the judge to release him so that he can gather his assets and leave the country on his own terms.

In an email response to questions about the alleged violations of the settlement agreement, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, “We continue to unapologetically enforce the laws of our nation and remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from the streets of Chicago and the rest of our great country.”

As they wait for the court to decide, both Ramírez and Villeda know he will spend the holidays in detention, thousands of miles from his wife and family.

The stigma that comes with deportation

In Mexico, Ramírez is surrounded by family. Her parents are both happy she is back.

“It wasn't in her plans to return yet, but I feel supported because when we were alone, we struggled a lot,” Ramirez's mom says in Spanish as she shepherds about eight goats up the hill on a recent December afternoon.

But for Ramírez, who wanted to do more with her life than farming, it’s not easy to reintegrate.

The Mixteca region is a predominantly rural area where most residents rely on subsistence farming and remittances from the United States. The region offers few job opportunities and the Ramírez family has three adult children working in Chicago. Her brother helped purchase an excavator, which the family rents out for construction projects, and built a stable for the farm animals, which provide the food the family relies on.

Now that she is back, Ramírez has tried to get into a routine. She goes to church on Sunday afternoons and helps her parents. Outside her immediate family and her church community, not too many people know she was sent home.

“I saw my uncle the other day, and I’m not sure how he learned that I was deported,” Ramírez said, adding that it was an uncomfortable encounter.

She tries not to pay too much attention to what others might think. “I thank God for what I was able to do. He gave me the opportunity to do my own thing,” she says.

Experts in Chicago and in Mexico say there is a stigma that follows those who get deported or are forced to return to their homeland. Some people see them as a failure.

“There's this myth that everybody that got deported or returned had some criminal record,” says Esme Flores Marcial, co-director of the immigrant rights organization Otros Dreams en Acción in Mexico City. She says some people think they deserve it because they were in the U.S. without papers. But the reality, she says, is that there aren't enough legal pathways for Mexicans to migrate to the United States.

Ramírez has also tried to get government services, including the limited cash assistance that she was promised under a federal program known as Mexico Te Abraza, or Mexico Embraces You. But it’s been hard to access.

The program was created last January to support Mexicans deported from the United States. It is a source of pride for Sheinbaum, who shared data at that press conference in Mexico City that shows about 140,000 Mexicans in the United States have been deported back to Mexico in 2025. Of those, some 74,000 people received a debit card loaded with 2,000 Mexican pesos — which is just over $100 U.S. dollars — to cover expenses such as food and local travel, Sheinbaum said.

The program is also supposed to provide shelter in border towns, health care and help finding employment.

The reality for Ramírez has been different.

Landing in Mexico

When she arrived in the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, in October, the shelter there was packed. This is where a lot of people from Chicago first end up after they are deported. Ramírez says she was told she needed to stay there to receive the debit card with the financial support. Tired of being handcuffed and frustrated by the whole situation, she figured out a way to get home on her own.

Her hometown is miles away from the information centers established by the Mexican federal government at the border and other key areas of the country. Ramírez looked into getting connected with the services offered by the federal program. But getting the support isn't as easy as officials make it sound. Ramírez got hold of the agency that helps returning migrants in the town of Tlaxiaco, about a 40-minute drive from where she lives. But she was told that she would have to travel to Oaxaca City to claim what could be less than $100.

“It’s not worth it,” Ramírez says. “It's not convenient for me to go all the way there; it's three hours there and three hours back, plus paying for transportation. I said no thank you."

“There's always more that can be done,” Sheinbaum told WBEZ in response to questions about the reach of the program. “I believe we should never be complacent or say that we've already achieved everything. We must always keep working and seeking to provide support in every way.” Sheinbaum said ultimately, one of her main goals is to make sure Mexico becomes a country where residents can thrive and not feel forced to migrate to the United States.

A half-built home

For now, Ramírez is focusing on getting her husband out of detention. Villeda has a court date in January. As the days go by, Ramírez feels less optimistic that he will be released on bond.

She says the worst-case scenario is that he will be deported to El Salvador.

But she’s started working on getting passports for her parents. She wants to travel with them to El Salvador to pick up Villeda and bring him to her family's farm.

As she stands on top of the half-finished brick house that she and Villeda had started building with the money they earned in Chicago, Ramírez starts to cry.

“It would be wonderful if we could meet again,” she says.

They had hoped to build something together in Chicago. Now, they have to find their way to each other again so they can finish building their house and their life together in Mexico.