Amid the deportation efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, rumors circulated in late September 2025 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended upon a home in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, and detained construction workers who were on a roof.
The rumor spread on social media platforms such as X (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and Reddit, further alleging that ICE agents removed the ladders the workers were using, forcing them to have to jump from the roof.
ICE Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Snopes via email that the allegation about removing ladders and forcing workers to jump from the roof was false, adding that the department's agents arrested four people in the country illegally during a "targeted immigration enforcement operation" in Naperville on Sept. 17.
Snopes also reached out to Bobby Fischer, the homeowner named in local news reports about the incident, via LinkedIn, as well as theDepartment of Homeland Security for comment. We will update this article if we receive a response from either.
We have opted not to give this claim a rating because we have not been able to obtain and review any video footage of the alleged incident firsthand.
According to local news reports at outlets such as WGN and WLS, the incident occurred the afternoon of Sept. 17, while the homeowners were out.
In an interview with WLS available on YouTube, Fischer said he received "frantic texts" from neighbors alerting him to a "police presence" at the home. In this interview, which appeared to be the origin for the rumor about the ladders, Fischer said neighbors told him the ICE agents were targeting roofers who had been working on the house.
"They had to jump off the roof," Fischer told WLS. "Because to trap them, the agents knocked down the ladders so they could not leave the roof and basically they said either jump or stay up there." He told the station five of the six workers jumped down and ran, and that one was injured before he was detained.
Fischer also said his neighbors reported agents "chasing one guy down the street in a residential area, guns drawn." He the station he later learned all the workers were properly documented.
In an interview with WGN, also available on YouTube, one of the roofers — who did not want to be named — said in Spanish, "It's very hard what is happening to us. It's a lot of harm that they're doing to us."