Daniel Greer is having trouble sleeping these days.
The 49-year-old Berwyn resident keeps dreaming of federal immigration officers showing up where he works at Concordia Cemetery in the west suburban village of Forest Park. Again.
Last week, Greer was one of four cemetery workers, all U.S. citizens, arrested during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation that crossed over onto the private Christian cemetery property. They were ultimately released without charges, but that was after they were hit with pepper balls and pepper spray unleashed by agents and then detained for hours, Greer recalled.
Greer, alongside two of the other three workers detained and Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins, stood together Monday evening at Constitution Court, a public square in the village’s downtown about three-quarters of a mile west of the cemetery. Hoskins called on the federal government to uphold the Constitution and demanded an end to the ongoing immigration crackdown pervading the Chicago area.
“We respect federal authority, but what we’re seeing here has been an overreach,” Hoskins said to members of the media. “So we ask for the immediate end of Operation Midway Blitz. This initiative has caused irreparable harm in our communities.”
With the Chicago area more than a month into President Donald Trump’s local mass deportation mission, federal immigration enforcement actions have encroached on schools, hospitals, businesses and busy city streets.
“This is bigger than Forest Park,” said Hoskins, who is making a run for the Democratic nomination in Illinois’ 7th Congressional District.
Broadview’s ICE holding facility, where there’s been weeks of protesting, sits just over 3 miles southwest of Forest Park.
In response to questions about the cemetery workers’ detainment, Department of Homeland Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement they were arrested during an active ICE pursuit.
“On October 7, ICE encountered two illegal aliens who attempted to flee arrest by crossing the Des Plaines River,” McLaughlin stated. “The river was fast flowing, and the illegal aliens were up to their necks with water and at risk of drowning.”
Concordia Cemetery employee Darren Eichler rubs his eyes while attending a press conference in Forest on Oct. 13, 2025, after he and other employees were detained for hours and subjected to physical force by federal agents while on private property. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
McLaughlin accused “four U.S. citizens” of trying to “impede officers’ efforts to rescue the illegal aliens by blocking them from the embankment.” Officers ultimately brought those in the river to shore and arrested them, according to McLaughlin.
“Despite the agitation and lack of help from local government, ICE successfully arrested both illegal aliens, including Martin Martinez Guereca, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico, previously convicted of assault in 2004, and Jaime Arturo Martinez Rojas, a criminal illegal alien from Mexico with previous arrests for drug possession and driving under the influence,” McLaughlin’s statement read.
Court records show a person by the name of Martin Guereca was convicted of assault in Cook County in 2004 and sentenced to three years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
The cemetery workers were arrested for obstructing “law enforcement from the rescue operation,” McLaughlin stated.
The account detailed by Hoskins, Greer and his fellow workers Monday night paints a different picture.
Greer, speaking with the Tribune after the news conference, said he and the other workers were doing maintenance work at the cemetery’s pump house — which pumps water through the cemetery — when they noticed that someone was in the Des Plaines River. They went over to see if the person needed help, but then heard voices telling them to leave the person alone, Greer recalled. The workers left but a few minutes later saw ICE agenta approach and ask to get access to the cemetery property, Greer said.
Concordia Cemetery employees Danny Greer, from left, Cordell Walls and Darren Eichler attend a press conference in Forest Park on Oct. 13, 2025, after they were detained for hours and subjected to physical force by federal agents while on private property. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
A video of the encounter acquired and published by WGN-TV last week briefly shows agents approaching the cemetery’s gate, requesting access, then using what appears to be a wirecutter to gain entry. The video goes on to show agents releasing what appears to be pepper balls and asking cemetery workers to “get on the ground.”
Greer said after agents were through the gate, he was pushed to the ground and pepper-sprayed.
“My face felt like someone put lighter fluid (on it) and set me on fire,” he said.
Afterward, Greer said agents ziptied his hands behind his back and sat him against the wall of the pump house. After about an hour to an hour and a half of waiting, Greer and two of the other detained cemetery workers were taken to the Homeland Security Investigations field office in Lombard. The fourth worker arrested was transported to Rush Oak Park Hospital for medical treatment, according to Hoskins.
In a statement to the Tribune last week, a Rush spokesperson confirmed that ICE agents had been at the Oak Park campus with a detainee who needed health care.
Greer said he and the other two workers taken to Lombard waited for another two hours in private cells before they were released without being charged.
“I asked them repeatedly what I was charged with, and they said that they had to talk with their supervisor,” Greer said.
Ever since, he’s been averaging three to four hours of sleep a night.
“If this is happening to me, a U.S. citizen, what are they doing to the other individuals?” he said.
Forest Park will be engaging in know-your-rights trainings with the wider community in the wake of last week’s incident, Hoskins said.
Darren Eichler, one of the other cemetery workers in attendance Monday, declined further comment after the news conference. But in a text message to the Tribune, Eichler described the encounter through a poem.
“Amidst a trembling exchange of power, one where my hands could not rise in defense, and the law, in theory, should have risen for me, a burning rain began to fall,” he wrote. “Oil-born, it clung to my skin, slick and stinging, baptizing me in disbelief.
“Then came the chorus — a hail of peppered fire, each shot a punctuation of pain, each breath thick with the taste of vinegar and fear.”
The Tribune’s Jason Meisner and Caroline Kubzansky contributed reporting.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/ice-forest-park-cemetery-workers/
