ICE launches ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ targeting immigrants in Chicago

The Department of Homeland Security said Monday it has launched a new immigration enforcement operation in Chicago as part of the Trump administration’s effort to target “sanctuary cities,” and immigrant advocates said several people in heavily Hispanic communities had already been detained.

President Donald Trump has said for weeks that he would send federal law enforcement officers to Chicago as part of an effort to crackdown on crime, but he has vacillated on the timing and scope of the operation. Over the weekend, he shared an illustration of himself as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore from the film “Apocalypse Now” on social media and wrote, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”

DHS said their latest enforcement is being dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz” and staged “in honor” of an Illinois woman allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant who had been driving drunk when he crashed into her vehicle. DHS republished an interview Monday with the parents of 20-year-old Katherine Abraham, who earlier this year was rear-ended by a vehicle authorities said was driven by Julio Cucul-Bol of Guatemala.

“President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message: No city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.”

The news of the operation was immediately met with rebuke from immigrant advocates and Democratic politicians who said the administration was using crime to target undocumented people who studies show do not commit crimes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens.

“As President Trump continues to wrongly hyper-fixate on deploying the military to Chicago, his Administration is now ramping up its campaign to arrest hardworking immigrants with no criminal convictions,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said in a statement after the announcement of the operation.

Trump and members of his administration have long railed against “sanctuary city” policies. Those policies encompass a spectrum of practices that limit cooperation with ICE on matters including inquiring about someone’s immigration status during an arrest or handing them over to federal immigration officers after they are detained.

Chicago city leaders and immigrant advocates said federal law enforcement officers began making arrests Sunday and had taken at least five people into custody, including a well-known flower vendor and people waiting at a bus stop and on the sidewalk. The activists said there had been “an escalation” in enforcement actions and several reported sightings of ICE vehicles.

“We believe this operation signals the beginning of ICE’s full escalation in Chicago and Illinois,” said Rey Wences, senior director of deportation defense for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute has found that a “growing volume of research demonstrates that not only do immigrants commit fewer crimes, but they also do not raise crime rates in the U.S. communities where they settle.”

The organization cited a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that found immigrants were 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the United States in 2020. Another study based on data from the Texas Department of Public Safety and published in 2020 found “considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens.”