Little Village faced displacement and gentrification pressures long before Operation Midway Blitz. It’s part of South Lawndale, where in 2024, nearly half of renters were spending more than 30% of their income on housing. The neighborhood’s proximity to downtown and rapidly gentrifying Pilsen– Little Village's boundaries are roughly from Cermak to 31st Street, and from Sacramento to Kostner–had also fueled concerns that development could push longtime residents and businesses out. The COVID-19 pandemic brought another period of upheaval, forcing some businesses to close and leaving others struggling.Then came President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.During the height of Operation Midway Blitz, federal immigration agents detained 3,841 people, according to federal data analyzed by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ.Little Village became one of the most visible targets. Federal agents made arrests in the neighborhood on the first full day of Midway Blitz and returned repeatedly in the months that followed.On Oct. 22 and 23 and again on Nov. 8, large groups of federal agents descended on Little Village, carrying out arrests and confronting residents and protesters. The Illinois Accountability Commission later singled out those three days for an investigation of what it described as an “occupation” of the neighborhood.The effects extended beyond the arrests. Fear of immigration agents kept people home. Shops and restaurants emptied, battering Little Village’s commercial corridors. A University of Illinois Chicago analysis released this month estimated that increased immigration enforcement that started in January of 2025 resulted in $1.26 billion in lost retail and restaurant activity across Cook County over the course of the following year. Researchers said residents of neighborhoods with large numbers of “Latin America-born” people made fewer trips to stores and restaurants outside their communities, a dip that continued for nearly a year.Immigration enforcement is quieter and less visible now, but the Trump administration continues to arrest hundreds of people each month.In Little Village, many continue to stay home, and some business owners are spending money accumulated over generations to remain open. Some are questioning whether they can afford to stay there.The Sun-Times spoke with residents, business owners and a neighborhood realtor about how immigration enforcement is reshaping Little Village—straining businesses, prompting property offers and leading some residents to invest in Mexico as they reconsider their futures in Chicago. María de la Luz Rodríguez hands out fliers for a community meeting for Cooperativa La Villita in Little Village.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times She fought displacement. Now she is wondering whether she can stayMaría de la Luz Rodríguez, 61, who’s lived in Little Village for 19 years, started working with the housing cooperative Cooperativa La Villita after watching apartment buildings change hands and tenants get pushed out. Rodríguez, from Veracruz, Mexico, helped develop and write the cooperative’s bylaws in Spanish and English, handed out flyers and spoke at community meetings. Eventually, the cooperative purchased its first building, a six-unit property on Whipple Street. According to its website, estimated monthly housing charges range from $950 to $1,150. By this summer, Rodríguez says, all of its apartments were occupied and the group was working toward buying another.“The cooperative is a group of people who really love Little Village,” Rodríguez says in Spanish.But Rodríguez, who does not have legal status, says her own ability to remain in Little Village has become uncertain. She lost her retail job after her employer began using the federal system E-Verify to check whether staffers are authorized to work in the United States.She planned to purchase a cooperative membership but could not afford to after she became unemployed. She continues to volunteer as a board member.She also lost work as a community health promoter after funding dried up. Now she is struggling to cover her rent.Peddling has become one way to get by. The Street Vendors Association of Chicago gave her $500 in assistance. She packs buñuelos and Veracruz-style peanuts into a suitcase and takes her wares to community and health fairs because there is more foot traffic than the Little Village business corridor.“Little Village is dead,” she says.Rodríguez says people in Little Village do not want to leave. Neighbors watch out for one another.She is nevertheless considering leaving herself.Rodríguez has family in Mexico and is thinking about returning to Veracruz. “There may not be much money there,” she says, “But at least I can have a coffee outside in my garden, or go outside for a walk and they are not going to grab me.” Erika Villegas has worked with several Little Village clients who have invested in property in Mexico.Pat Nabong/Sun-Times A home somewhere else Erika Villegas, 44, has worked with homeowners in Little Village for years. The RE/MAX broker says families there tend to hold onto their properties for decades, resulting in relatively little turnover.But Villegas is seeing some immigrant families consider a different future.Villegas says she has worked with several Little Village clients who have invested in property in Mexico, including families who are looking for a possible place to live in the future. The developers she works with are primarily in larger Mexican cities, while she believes Little Village families who actually return to Mexico may be more likely to go back to their hometowns.There are other signs that more Chicago-area families are keeping Mexico within reach. Requests at the Mexican Consulate in Chicago to register U.S.-born people for Mexican nationality more than doubled, from 3,800 in 2024 to 9,646 in 2025, according to the consulate.Through Villegas’ network, land can start at about $35,000, condos at $100,000 and homes at $135,000.“You don’t know what the future looks like because of the current policy, and what it will continue to do to families long term,” she says.Villegas has built a network of contacts in Mexico who can help clients find housing, start businesses and make a living. For families considering leaving the United States, she says, her job is not simply to sell their home but to help them figure out what comes next.“What is the plan,” she says, “and how can we get you to that plan?”Villegas says someone who has paid off a home over decades may be able to buy a house for substantially less in parts of Mexico and live on what remains.But she has encountered homeowners prepared to accept unsolicited offers before realizing they could be giving up $50,000, $60,000 or $70,000 in equity.The decision to buy in Mexico is rarely about one thing, she says. An owner may be dealing with problems involving tenants, building repair costs or a business that is struggling. Immigration status can make navigating those problems even harder.Eventually, Villegas says, the pressures can accumulate.“Sometimes people just are also tired,” she says. “Sometimes people don’t have the will to fight anymore.” Chef and owner José Luis López stands behind the counter with his wife Clarita at Los Candiles Restaurant in Little Village.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times Going where the customers are Around 1 p.m. on Aug. 13, Los Candiles restaurant at 2624 S. Central Ave. was nearly empty.José Luis (Louie) López was there with a kitchen worker and his wife, Clarita López, 40, who waits tables. There were plenty of tables but few customers.López, 44, pulled out the paper calendars he keeps to record the number of kitchen orders the restaurant fills each day. Before the pandemic, the restaurant typically recorded 40 to 50 kitchen orders on weekdays. Saturdays could bring as many as 90. Sundays, helped by church traffic, could reach 110.He pointed to this year’s calendar. One Tuesday had 12 orders. Another day had 14. Saturdays that once reached 90 were now in the 30s.“Everything is at half,” López says.His parents opened Los Candiles in 1995. The family owns the building and finished paying it off about a decade ago. That has spared López a rent or mortgage payment as business has fallen.But owning the building has not brought customers through the door.López says immigration enforcement is only part of what has hurt the restaurant. Food costs have risen and customers have less money to spend. When rumors spread that immigration agents have returned, he says, people become frightened again.To cope, he has increasingly taken Los Candiles outside Little Village.López began offering taquizas, or catered taco parties, in 2017. He brings a flat-top grill, rice and beans, tortillas and trays of toppings and cooks for customers on site.“That’s what’s keeping our head above water,” Lopez says.He approached Cody’s Public House, a bar in Lakeview with an idea for selling tacos there on Thursdays. The relationship eventually became a weekly gig.López says Los Candiles can sell more tacos during four hours at Cody’s than during seven hours at the restaurant in Little Village.“We made double the tips.”Without catering and the taquizas, López says, “We would have been long gone.” Little Village Community Council President Baltazar Enriquez stands in front of his property in Little Village.Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times The offers are coming Baltazar Enriquez, 46, never stops moving. The president of the Little Village Community Council zips from one conversation to another with the people seeking advice and help at his office. School supplies and diapers are on hand for people in need. When immigration agents began operating heavily in Little Village last fall, he became one of the neighborhood’s most visible organizers, warning residents about reported ICE sightings and helping coordinate community response. He also owns a five-unit building in the 2300 block of South Trumbull Ave.Unsolicited real estate inquiries about his property are not new. Enriquez says they began picking up during the COVID-19 pandemic. But since Midway Blitz’s last fall they have become much more frequent.“I get mail, phone calls, emails,” Enriquez says. On some days, Enriquez estimates he receives as many as 30 solicitations. Some ask whether he wants to sell. Others offer financing. He has saved screenshots of text messages from people asking about his property, as well as a late-August mailer from Sherman Property, a cash home-buying business, designed to look like a check made out to him for $316,222.He says prospective buyers have offered as much as $1 million to purchase his building. He has refused.One of his tenants, a senior who has lived in the building for 15 years, still pays $800 a month for a three-bedroom apartment. Enriquez says the man has told him that if the rent went up, he would have to leave and start over somewhere else, away from the doctors and neighborhood he knows. He says a new owner could charge $1,300 or $1,500 for the same unit.Little Village businesses are still recovering from months when customers stayed home amid immigration enforcement. Property owners are dealing with higher taxes and the costs of maintaining aging buildings.The ICE operations, he believes, made things worse.“They put [in] more fuel,” he says.Enriquez has spent years trying to build a life, investments and a future in Little Village. The question, he says, is whether everyone else will have the same choice. Mike Moreno Jr. says his family has no plans to leave Little Village.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times The cost of staying Around 4 p.m. on Aug. 13 Osito’s Tap was quiet and dimly lit. A bartender arranged liquor bottles as Mike Moreno Jr., 35, settled into a table nearby. The first customers had yet to arrive.Moreno’s family has been doing business in Little Village for more than half a century. His grandfather operated grocery stores in the neighborhood and his father opened Moreno’s Liquors on 26th Street in 1977. Moreno later opened Osito’s Tap near 26th and Ridgeway.The family has survived difficult times before, including the COVID-19 pandemic. But Moreno says immigration enforcement operations brought another kind of strain.From August through November last year, business at Osito’s and Moreno’s Liquors fell by half for two months and by at least 25% during the other two, Moreno says. The family cut costs and expanded delivery. They avoided layoffs.They also began spending savings.“We’re literally taking it from generations and generations, years and years of wealth that we built, and just reinvesting it and popping it back into our own businesses,” Moreno says.Moreno’s family owns properties in Little Village and has no intention of selling. But he says the inquiries from speculators have become increasingly difficult to ignore.Before the ICE arrests, Moreno says, he might receive four or five calls a week from people interested in buying property or offering financing. Now, he sometimes gets four or five in a day.Moreno says one caller told him he had seen media reports about the raids and their economic impact on Little Village businesses before asking about Moreno’s property.He usually blocks the numbers.“We’re not selling,” Moreno says. “We’ve been here for almost 50 years, and we’ll be here for another 50.”“As long as we work really hard,” Moreno says, “we can keep what’s ours.” ...read more read less