Residents gathered at Scoville Park on Friday, July 24, to light candles, recite poetry, and sing protest anthems honoring two men shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers earlier in July, the Wednesday Journal reported.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was killed July 7 in Houston during a vehicle stop. Johan Sebastian Durán Guerrero, 25, was killed July 13 in Biddeford, Maine. Neither man was the intended target of the ICE operations that led to their deaths, according to The Guardian. Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, was driving his work crew to a job site when agents in unmarked vehicles pursued him. Guerrero, a Colombian immigrant, had a work permit and a Social Security number.

The vigil at Lake Street and Oak Park Avenue was organized by Maureen Meshenberg, who described herself as a "concerned neighbor." She said the event was part of a nationwide movement supported by the Disappeared in America campaign, which coordinates nonviolent action in support of immigrants' rights.

Oak Park Township Trustee Juan Munoz spoke at the gathering and disclosed his own detention by ICE. In early October 2025, Munoz was arrested while protesting outside the Broadview ICE processing facility in suburban Chicago. According to court testimony reported by WTTW, Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino pushed Munoz to the ground, knocked the phone from his hands, and detained him inside the facility for eight hours before releasing him at a gas station without explanation.

"The trauma of what ICE is doing in our communities does not end when someone is released. It does not end with a funeral. It lives in the families who are afraid," Munoz said at the vigil. "For too many Latinos, our humanity is measured by our legal status."

Betty Alzamora, a Forest Park Park District commissioner who has volunteered with PASO (West Suburban Action Project) for 30 years, told attendees that ICE enforcement in the western suburbs is not new. She said she has worked with families who lost members to immigration detentions long before the recent escalation.

The vigil came nine days after ICE agents took an Oak Park resident into custody on July 15, according to attorney Scott Sakiyama, who told the Wednesday Journal he filmed the detention. That arrest occurred despite the village board's unanimous passage of an "ICE Free Zone" ordinance in November 2025, which bans immigration agents from using village property for staging or processing. The ordinance does not, and legally cannot, prevent federal agents from operating within village limits.

Attendee Jane Hseu said the local ICE activity drove her to the park. "It's all around us," Hseu said. "They took somebody in Oak Park like a week or two ago, and it's all over the Chicago area."

Following the two July killings, the Trump administration ordered ICE agents to suspend most vehicle stops until further notice. Guerrero's death was the 11th fatal shooting by federal immigration officials since President Trump's second term began in January 2025, according to The Guardian.