While Immigration and Customs Enforcement made national headlines two weeks ago with the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minn., Bloomington-Normal residents may have missed that ICE has recently been spotted in the BloNo area.
Their activity in the area included the detainment of at least three individuals, including an Illinois Wesleyan University student, junior Joytu Chowdhury.
Chowdhury, originally from Bangladesh, came to the United States legally on an F-1 student visa to pursue his education.
“Joytu is currently a junior at Illinois Wesleyan University, majoring in Finance with a minor in Computer Science. He is hardworking, dedicated, and deeply committed to his education and his future,” says a GoFundMe set up by Mary Cunningham, a retired Illinois State University professor, who Joytu has lived with for the last two years.
On Dec. 3, ICE agents came to Cunningham’s home and detained Chowdhury, transferring him to an immigration detention facility in Missouri. Cunningham has since started a GoFundMe to raise money for covering Chowdhury’s legal representation and immigration bond. The GoFundMe has reached 78 percent of its $20,000 goal. ‘The Argus’ reached out to Cunningham for comments or updates, but were unable to make contact.
“Even though I’ve only known him for a couple of months, I can definitely say Joytu is a really kind person who cares a lot about the people around him,” senior Hirat Rahman Rahi said. “There have been times when he’s used his own time and money to help others, especially if someone was sick or struggling,” Rahi said.
Rahi said he had no updates regarding the situation besides news of the GoFundMe.
In addition to Chowdhury’s removal, ICE agents were spotted alongside Veterans Parkway on Jan. 13 where they were seen detaining two individuals outside Hyvee. Pictures of the incident were posted on Facebook by The Immigration Project, a local nonprofit organization that provides legal services for immigrants in the southern and central Illinois area.
ICE’s appearance comes only two days after an “ICE Out for Good” protest took place near Veterans Parkway. The protest was organized by the American Civil Liberties Union of Central Illinois and Bloomington-Normal 50501 and included a few hundred protesters. The three detainments are some of the first public reports of ICE in the Bloomington area, even to Bloomington PD.
“We were not contacted ahead of time by ICE,” Bryce Janssen, Bloomington Police Department’s public information officer, said in a phone interview with ‘The Argus.’ “I really have no information about their involvement in Bloomington,” Janssen said.
The ambiguity surrounding ICE’s actions has led to mixed sentiments from Americans on both the mission of ICE and the legality of their actions. But the federal government’s involvement with immigration regulation is also not a new occurrence.
“The “Palmer Raids” under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer may be the best example of the federal government actually raiding where people lived in any way like what the feds are doing today in Minneapolis. The similarity is there,” history professor Robert Schultz said.
Schultz said other historical examples regarding the complicated relationship the United States has had with foreign immigrants. In 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts were used by the Adams administration as a method for restricting immigration and throwing members of the political opposition into jail. The 1918 Immigration Act aimed to control and deport people the government deemed were socialists, communists, or anarchists. President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed Executive Order 9066, which set up internment camps for Japanese Americans during the Second World War.
“The Supreme Court is going to have to decide if what the president is doing is lawful, constitutional or if he needs Congressional approval,” Shultz said.
The legal ambiguity of ICE’s methods has led to scrutiny from national media and citizens. In Sept. 2025, a raid was conducted in the middle of the night on 7500 South Shore Drive in Chicago.
“There was no search warrant—and I doubt a judge would ever have issued one—so this was in open violation of the 4th Amendment’s limits on search and seizure rules,” IWU political science professor Jim Simeone told ‘The Argus.’ “ICE is operating under an executive order claiming that the presence of migrants in the US, though authorized by Congress’s refugee laws, is a danger to national security and constitutes a national emergency. In the South Shore case, reporters followed up, and of the 45 people detained in the raid, only four had criminal records, and these included driving violations,” he said.
While many Americans have taken to the streets or the internet to protest ICE’s actions, many others worry about speaking out.
“What we are seeing right now in Minneapolis/St. Paul and other cities is the danger all protesters—citizens or not—are facing,” IWU history professor April Schultz said. “But we still have freedom of speech and I encourage students to speak out, practicing peaceful and respectful resistance to policies and actions they disagree with. Also, engage respectfully with students who may disagree with your perspective. This goes to the heart of what it means to be on a college campus.”
