South Philly block rattled after ICE sought one migrant with criminal charges and arrested four others

Rob McKinney was hosting his parents at his South Philadelphia home during the July 4th weekend, their Sunday morning just getting started, when his father glanced out the window and said, “I think there is an ICE raid happening across the street.”

McKinney, 39, opened his front door to see three unfamiliar cars parked at the curb and multiple agents swarming a corner house. It was about 8:45 a.m., and it would take less than an hour for ICE agents to be in and out of the house and placing handcuffed men into cars, he said.

The arrests of five undocumented Guatemalan immigrants underscore the complicated narratives that can emerge in Philadelphia, a city that has long welcomed newcomers from other shores, and now has been freshly targeted by President Donald Trump for its refusal to help enforce federal immigration laws.

In a single event, a South Philadelphia neighborhood was left rattled, its calm broken by the movement and shouts of men in tactical vests. One undocumented man, accused but not convicted of violent criminal offenses, was seized by ICE agents. Four other men at the house were arrested and charged with immigration violations.

All five were placed in deportation proceedings.

Trump says so-called sanctuary cities like Philadelphia let dangerous immigrant criminals roam free, putting citizens and law-enforcement officers at risk. City officials say that’s false, that no local policy can or does block ICE from doing its work. Nor are immigrants who commit crimes shielded in any way from arrest and prosecution.

In fact, it was Philadelphia police who first arrested the man that brought ICE to South Philadelphia.

It was not immediately clear how ICE knew where he was living.

“Philadelphia police has no involvement in this action,” said Joe Grace, spokesperson for the administration of Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. “As it is an ICE action, we don’t have any other comment.”

Days after the arrests, a sense of unease lingered on the short stretch of 20th Street between Watkins and Pierce Streets.

On a telephone pole someone had posted a handmade sign that alerted, “La Migra! Spotted 7/6/25.”

The brick rowhouse where the arrests took place looked empty. An upstairs window was half-closed, and a white exterior security door hung open. A digital padlock had been clicked onto the main front door.

McKinney said he didn’t know the five men beyond casual neighborhood hellos, but they looked like “young, hard-working guys,” all of whom “left really early in the morning, and returned home late at night, looking like they had a long day at work.”

One neighbor, Rachel Hale, said that on that Sunday morning she suddenly heard people outside shouting in English — so loud it seemed to echo in her living room.

Hale, 31, who lives directly across the street, said her partner looked out a window and narrated to her what was happening: “A whole group of guys with vests, obviously ICE and not police.”

She didn’t have much interaction with the men, Hale said, but she was upset because “they are still neighbors and part of the community.”

Efforts to reach the owners of the house were unsuccessful.

Juntos, the Latino advocacy organization based in South Philadelphia, said it appeared that ICE agents went to the home looking for one man, then arrested four others who were living there. The latter are “collateral arrests,” when ICE takes undocumented people into custody who simply happen to be present.

“It is one of the biggest changes from the previous administration,” said immigration attorney Brennan Gian-Grasso, who is not involved in the case but previously served as head of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Enforcement used to actually be focused on public-safety criteria, and at the most, the four gentlemen that did not have pending charges would receive” notices to appear in Immigration Court.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson said that on July 6 the agency conducted a targeted operation that resulted in the arrest of Daniel Fernando Alvarez Enriquez, 19.

Philadelphia police had arrested him on Feb. 13, lodging charges of aggravated assault, robbery, theft by unlawful taking, simple assault, conspiracy, resisting arrest, and reckless endangerment of another person. Enriquez, police said, allegedly attacked a man who attempted to stop Enriquez’s companion from robbing a woman in South Philadelphia.

Philadelphia police said that incident occurred at about 10:40 p.m. on Jan. 10, when Enriquez and another man were on the 1400 block of South Eighth Street. Enriquez’s companion approached a woman who was sitting inside her car, then pulled her hair while attempting to grab her phone. A bystander intervened to try to help the woman, and Enriquez then physically assaulted the man, police said.

Enriquez and the other man fled in a car. Police arrested them on Feb. 13.

Enriquez was freed on $50,000 unsecured bail, which means he was not required to post money initially but would be liable for the entire amount if he failed to appear in court.

Immediately after the arrests, Juntos said it was “disgusted but unsurprised” by ICE activity in the neighborhood, and criticized the agency for “masked agents, collateral arrests, and shadowy tactics.”

As Enriquez’s arrest record became known last week, Juntos said that regardless of whether ICE sought one person, they took four others into custody. Juntos was able to identify the men only afterward, by talking to one of the men’s partners.

One man already has been deported to Guatemala, leaving a wife and seven-month-old baby in Philadelphia, according to Juntos.

The location of the others was not immediately known.

Federal arrests of migrants who face no criminal charges “directly stems from the administration’s immigration policies,” said Rita Fernandez, director of the Immigration Policy Project at UnidosUS, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil-rights organization.

 “The administration has intentionally pivoted away from policies that largely targeted legitimate security threats towards ones that enable immigration agents to detain individuals irrespective of their criminal background,” Fernandez said. “... And when you’re pursuing individuals without any criminal history, you’re going to inflict serious harms on the Latino communities across the country.”

Santa Torres, 30, who works at a corner store on Watkins Street, said she wasn’t surprised by the arrests. For days before, rumors had circulated of unfamiliar vans rolling slowly through the streets.

“Some of the neighbors don’t have papers and you can feel their distress,” Torres said. “They are scared, come out of their doors looking left to right, scanning for unknown cars.”

Torres is a U.S. citizen, but as a Latina she still feels threatened, she said, worried that ICE could arrest her for no reason.

Another woman, Peña, who declined to provide her full name because she’s undocumented, said the arrests made her question the risk of staying in the United States. She came from the Dominican Republic, seeking to provide a better life for her two daughters at home. She recently gave birth to a son in this country.

Tougher ICE enforcement has largely kept her indoors, she said, going out only for her job and doctor’s appointments.

“I have to go to work; who is going to feed my daughters if I don’t?” Peña said.

Some polls show softening public support for Trump’s immigration policies.

In June, a national Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters showed 54% disapproved of the president’s handling of immigration issues, with 43% approving. And 56% disapproved of his handling of deportations, with 40% approving.

McKinney said that one of the men arrested on 20th Street had lived in the house for more than two years and that the others arrived in the last six months. He heard recently that one man faced some type of criminal charges, but that didn’t change his feelings about what he witnessed.

“I feel really helpless,” he said. “It’s a sadness for the state of this country, and existential sadness for what I thought this country was and what it actually is.”