The couple’s routine reflects a broader shift among immigrants in Chicago. Nearly a year after Operation Midway Blitz officially ended, some workers are changing shifts, limiting trips outside or moving errands to nighttime and before dawn. The adjustments can bring lost income and add to the stress of living with the possibility of detention.

From the start of 2026 through the first week of August, ICE made 1,560 arrests in Cook County, according to an analysis of agency data obtained by the Deportation Data Project. Legal and community groups have documented encounters at places including courthouses, schools and grocery stores, even as enforcement operations have become less publicized.

“We’re becoming gente de la noche — people of the night,” said Baltazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council. He said he knows immigrants who have taken night shifts to reduce the chance of an encounter with ICE. One mother, he recalled, gets only two or three hours of sleep before caring for her children in the morning.

For Dominguez, 49, and Dávila, 67, the changes began after they saw agents detain people near their home last fall. Dominguez said agents came close to their windows as a girl on a skateboard warned residents to stay inside. He said agents knocked the girl off her board and that tear gas canisters landed behind the couple’s home and near a neighbor’s house.

The couple covered their windows, locked the doors and turned off the lights. For weeks, they tried to stay inside. A friend with legal status drove Dávila to shop and do laundry, while Dominguez continued going to his warehouse job but stopped driving himself. He sometimes took an Uber to work and waited hours after his shift for a coworker to take him home because a second ride was too expensive.

Dávila said her husband lost an estimated 10 to 20 pounds and became anxious and angry. The couple has set aside enough money for about two months of rent in case one of them is detained. They also order more clothing and household items online, which Dávila says can cost more than shopping in person.

The strain extends beyond the household. Rosemary Magaña, a therapist and program director at the Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health, said moving daily activities to nighttime can cut people off from visits, weekend outings and other social connections that help them cope. She has also experienced the vigilance herself: during the early days of Midway Blitz, she said, she became so tense after driving her son to school that her neck stiffened and she could not move it.

At Cook County Health, psychiatrist Dr. Hugo Solari said patients describe adapting their lives to avoid ICE. Some seek telehealth visits or prescriptions by mail; others delay preventive care because they are afraid to leave home. Anxiety can disrupt sleep, he said, and chronic stress and irregular sleep can affect both mental and physical health.

Imelda, a childcare worker who does not have legal status, now takes only occasional evening babysitting jobs. She is identified by a pseudonym because she fears deportation. During an earlier nanny job, she continued taking a child to museums, parks and the library while watching for agents. Caregivers shared warnings about enforcement nearby, she said, and she tried to hide her fear while working.

Her current work keeps her indoors but amounts to about two jobs a month. She said leaving home has become difficult, and her children are afraid, too. Trips to the park and time playing outside have become less frequent.

“It doesn’t have to happen to you for it to traumatize you,” Magaña said, describing the effects of prolonged fear across immigrant communities. The Coalition for Immigrant Mental Health offers free virtual support circles for immigrants and people who support them.

Not everyone can move work to nighttime. Guillermo Flores, 54, has sold fruit and snacks from a pushcart for about 16 years. He says he has a vending license and pays taxes, but reports of enforcement in his neighborhood sometimes keep him home for a day or more, costing him income.

Rather than sell after dark, Flores now buys supplies at 5 a.m., two hours earlier than before. He still works during the day, but for fewer hours. He worries that staying out late would expose him to robbery as well as immigration enforcement.

“We have to protect ourselves from ICE, and we also have to protect ourselves from robberies,” Flores said.

Dávila and Dominguez still run errands together. When they are apart, she waits for a text confirming he has reached his warehouse job. If the message does not arrive around the usual time, Dominguez has told her, she should understand that he may have been detained. Dávila has saved a year of his daily check-ins: “I’ve arrived.”