Content warning: graphic depictions of police violence

Two Chicago area ICE agents made national headlines when they left a man bloodied in the street last month. 

Five days later, one of the feds was captured on video threatening to kill a young ICE observer. The two viral incidents number among many the agents have instigated so far this year, Unraveled has found. Social media pages belonging to the pair indicate both are U.S. military veterans.

ICE agent Jaupre Wiliams and his supervisor Esteban “Steve” Rivas tried to arrest a Black man in the near Chicago suburb of Evanston on September 20. Once the two agents realized the man was a U.S. citizen and not their intended target, they drove away from the scene, leaving the injured man splayed on the street.

Just days later, Williams was seen with three other federal agents outside the Cook County Domestic Violence courthouse. Local ICE observer Benjamin Luhmann and a colleague going by Howell were on-scene responding to an immigration arrest at the courthouse that day; the Cook County Public Defender’s Office confirmed the person ICE arrested was one of their clients.

“Stay back,” Williams tells Howell as the feds approach the observers. 

Howell then asks if Williams will kill him if he doesn’t comply:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dd1fjqXpk4z

“If you interfere, I will. If you interfere, I will. If you interfere, I will,” Williams affirms. 

Both incidents speak to an escalating pattern of violence against ICE observers, immigrants, and other community members that Williams–who Agent Rivas told Evanston police is one of “his” officers–has engaged in for months.

“All of these agents have been observed before, but specifically this one was the same one in Evanston a few days prior…there’s this train of aggressive behavior,” Howell told Unraveled. “I’m sure there’s more people that have witnessed this agent and similar tactics that just haven’t come to light.”

Jaupre Williams and Esteban Rivas

The Instagram account lxspinguinxs first identified Agent Jaupre Williams in August 2025 after he was spotted in a DHS (Department of Homeland Security) uniform outside federal buildings in Los Angeles. A screenshot of a since-deleted LinkedIn profile belonging to Williams includes his official DHS.gov email address. Before joining DHS, according to the profile, he worked as an administrative specialist with the U.S. Marine Forces Reserve.

Unraveled independently verified Williams’ identity through visual analysis of his activity across Chicagoland compared to photos from a public Facebook profile showing his distinctive tattoos. Across all incidents, Agent Williams is wearing a body armor vest with a tan strip of fabric across the chest, and a black, full face mask. A photo from the Facebook profile shows a man in military garb with a Chicago flag patch on his chest:

The Pacific Antifascist Research Collective first identified Agent Steve Rivas in a social media post one day after he and Williams injured the man in Evanston. A case report about the event filed by the Evanston Police Department identified Esteban Rivas at the scene that day. The address provided is the Chicago ICE field office: 

A public Facebook profile appearing to belong to Agent Rivas indicates he was enlisted in the U.S. Army. A photo from the profile shows a young Rivas in military uniform sitting on top of a tank.

Unraveled reached out to both Facebook profiles in an attempt to confirm ownership, but did not receive any response. A public information officer for the U.S. Marine Corps confirmed Williams is no longer enlisted. As first reported by Ryan Ottignon for The Daily Northwestern, Williams and Rivas are both identified as Chicago ICE ERO agents in the recently released “Icepick” leak that exposed information on thousands of DHS federal records. Chicago ICE Agent Martin Lagunas is also named in the dataset.

A summer of violent encounters

Agent Williams aided in a violent arrest in the parking lot of the Kane County Judicial Center on June 15 in St. Charles, Illinois. Federal agents have targeted the Kane County Judicial Center at least six times since May. Though the Court Access, Safety, and Participation Act (CASPA)–which Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed last December–bans immigration arrests of people attending court proceedings, agents have nonetheless increasingly targeted people outside Illinois courthouses this year. During the arrest, Williams brandished his baton while guarding another agent smashing open a car driver’s window.

An image shared anonymously with Unraveled also shows Williams and another agent detaining two people in a car stopped at a traffic light in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood on June 28. He can be seen kneeling on a passenger’s back while arresting them:

Williams threw a man to the ground during another arrest in Humboldt Park on August 11. 

Video shared to social media shows Williams running at the man–who is on his phone, unaware of ICE approaching behind him–at full speed before tackling him. Agent Rivas can be seen driving up to assist in the arrest. The entire incident lasted less than a minute: 

[EMBED 8/11 HUMBOLDT ARREST]  

The pair were also amongst a crew who crashed into a car on Interstate 55 on August 24. Federal immigration agents have repeatedly crashed into cars in Chicago since Operation Midway Blitz, including with a dangerous tactic called a PIT (precision immobilization technique) maneuver. Photos of the scene show the detained person’s blue truck pinned between the agents’ black SUV and a concrete barrier.

Witnesses told Unraveled Rivas was driving the black SUV that day. He allegedly brandished his gun at the driver in a Home Depot parking lot before taking off for a chase:

Feds eventually moved the crashed car off the highway ramp and into Chicago’s McKinley Park neighborhood as they waited for a tow truck to arrive. A crowd of community members, observers, press and elected officials soon formed. Locals blew whistles and heckled the agents for the nearly two hours it took for a cooperative tow truck to arrive.

Williams was the only agent on scene to draw a weapon, namely his baton, once a crowd had gathered. Agent Rivas, meanwhile, was seen talking to former Chicago police commander Joseph Mark, who was recently demoted to desk duty after he was disciplined for his handling of the immediate aftermath of CBP agent Charles Exum shooting Marimar Martinez last year. 

Less than two weeks later, Agent Williams drew his weapon during an arrest in a workplace bathroom on September 3 at Assemblers, Inc., a food manufacturing facility in McCook, Illinois. Video of the incident shows Williams holding his handgun by his side and aimed at the ground. Seconds later, he holsters the gun and draws his taser, also aiming it at the ground.

Bystanders tell the federal agents the building is private property, and ask to see a warrant. Their pleas go ignored. Instead, Williams shouts at them to “get the fuck back,” and pushes them. 

With his taser still drawn, he and the other agent then leave the building, taking the person they just detained with them:

[EMBED 9/3 MCCOOK DETENTION]

Not the intended target

Williams and Rivas’ behavior eventually landed on national radar when they aggressively tried to arrest a U.S. citizen and Evanston resident on September 20. In video shared by bystanders, Agent Rivas is seen straddling the man as he calls out for help. Williams stands above them, shuffling through papers.

The detained man called 911 as the incident continued, during which he asked Williams and Rivas why he was being arrested. 

“I’m a fucking US citizen,” the man says.

“Why didn’t you say that to begin with?” the agents yell back.

Eventually, Williams and Rivas get off of the man, who tries to crawl away on the ground. The pair stare at him for a moment, get in their cars, and leave the scene. Bystanders came to the man’s aid while waiting for first responders to arrive. He was treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Evanston police body camera footage shows Rivas confirming he mistook the man he and Williams briefly detained for someone else. 

“Once he said that he was a U.S. citizen, I couldn’t really disclaim that,” Rivas said.

Federal immigration agents have mistakenly detained the wrong person before—leading to deadly results. 

ICE agent Gregory Feathers fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston on July 7. He was not the agent’s intended target. ICE agent David Brouillette fatally shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero six days later in Maine. He was not the agent’s intended target. Mario David Coronado Juárez died in a car crash after an attempted ICE vehicle stop last month in Michigan. He was not the agent’s intended target.

“DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence,” a DHS spokesperson told Unraveled. “We know who we are targeting ahead of time. If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability.”

Bringing the war back home

Williams and Rivas find company among the 7,500 veterans who work for ICE. The agency claims veterans comprise about one-third of its workforce.

“We value the commitment, work ethic and experience that veterans bring to the job, as well as their specialized skills and talents,” the agency says. 

One of those veterans is David Brouillette, the ICE agent who fatally shot 25-year-old Colombian immigrant Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero five times after ramming his car. Brouillette joined the army in 2010 after serving in the Maine Army National Guard since 2007. While enlisted, he interrogated sources and prepared reports in his position as a “human intelligence collector.” 

When Brouillette applied to be in the military, recruiters encouraged him to stop using psychiatric medications and reapply after he was initially rejected due to his mental health diagnoses. Once accepted, he was deployed to Afghanistan from 2012 to 2013. His ex-wife told NPR he threatened to shoot her in the face, left death threats via voicemail, and physically abused his teenage daughter. 

Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fatally shot 37-year-old Renée Good in front of her wife in South Minneapolis in January, joined the Indiana National Guard in 2002. He earned several U.S. Army medals from his deployment to Iraq in 2004 as a machine gunner, a specialized role requiring advanced weapons handling and training in marksmanship. Ross worked for U.S. Border Patrol—another agency within DHS that boasts its recruitment of veterans—for nearly two decades before joining ICE.

A DHS spokesperson refused to confirm any specific information about Agents Williams and Rivas, their training, or how the agency is tracking officer misconduct across incidents overall.

“We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” the spokesperson told Unraveled. “They are facing a 1,600% increase in assaults against them, a 3,300% increase in vehicular attacks against them, and an 8,000% increase in death threats against them.”

These statistics often cited by the agency remain unverified.

Raven Geary, Dave Byrnes and Dominic Guanzon contributed to this reporting.