Trump administration begins immigration arrests in Chicago

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced Sunday it had begun a multiagency immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, as the Trump administration sought to show it is quickly fulfilling a campaign promise to ramp up arrests and deportations.

Officials said a host of law enforcement agencies would conduct such operations in the coming days. The Justice Department announced that its acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, had traveled to Chicago to oversee the effort to address what he called a “national emergency.”

The Trump administration has enlisted various law enforcement agencies within the Justice Department – the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the U.S. Marshals Service – to assist operations in Chicago and elsewhere.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement Sunday night that it had made 956 arrests Sunday, though it was unclear how many of them were in Chicago. Local officials in Chicago said they had not been involved in the operations. In some neighborhoods, residents said people were concerned, but also confused about how the reported immigration operations were going to play out.

Bove said in a written statement that he had watched agents from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security deploy in lockstep “to address a national emergency arising from four years of failed immigration policy.” The Justice Department, he added, was working to “secure the border, stop this invasion and make America safe again.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that federal agencies have started “enhanced targeted operations” in Chicago “to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.”

Bove urged local officials to aid in the effort, and warned there could be consequences for those who do not.

“We will support everyone at the federal, state and local levels who joins this critical mission to take back our communities,” he said. “We will use all available tools to address obstruction and other unlawful impediments to our efforts to protect the homeland.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that his state would cooperate with federal authorities in deporting immigrants convicted of crimes or with pending deportation orders. But he emphasized that state law enforcement would not take part in targeted raids or profile people in the state who might be without legal status.

Pritzker also said there was no new legal basis for the memo Bove issued last week indicating the department may investigate and prosecute officials in any jurisdictions that refuse to assist with the deportation crackdown. “They’re just putting that out because they want to threaten everybody,” he said.

Pritzker’s office was not given advance notice of the arrests, officials in the governor’s office said. A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department reiterated Sunday that the department, in accordance with municipal code, does not document immigration status or share information with federal immigration authorities.

The field offices of the FBI and the DEA assisted in the operation, officials in Chicago confirmed.

In the Logan Square neighborhood, on the city’s northwest side, residents seemed on edge as news reports emerged about the federal operations, Georgia Hampton, a 31-year-old podcast producer, said as she sat inside New Wave Coffee on Sunday. “It feels like everyone is waiting to have some information to spread,” Hampton said. “Everyone is holding their breath.”

In Little Village, on the southwest side, Juan Sanchez, a 35-year-old electrician who was born in Chicago, said the streets seemed especially quiet. Even residents with legal status, he said, seemed tense.

“I can tell you that even for those of us who are citizens or have a green card, there’s fear,” he said. “I’m scared myself – not that I’ll be deported, because I was born here, but I’m scared that I may get scooped up in a mass arrest.”

Immigration enforcement is an everyday feature of the Homeland Security Department, which oversees agencies including ICE. But the Trump administration has vowed to devote more Justice Department personnel to those efforts as it takes more aggressive action.

Several immigration advocacy groups in Illinois filed a lawsuit against ICE last week, attempting to prohibit the agency from conducting certain immigration operations in Chicago. The lawsuit asserted that the Trump administration was curtailing free speech through its deportation threats and targeting Chicago because of its “sanctuary city” status.

Bove, who was part of Trump’s defense team in his Manhattan criminal case, is now overseeing much of the department’s day-to-day activity while the Senate works toward a confirmation vote on Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general. A vote on her nomination is expected this week.

Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, said Sunday that the operation in Chicago, which was focused on public safety threats with a criminal background, had resulted in some arrests, though he did not specify how many. They included members of the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua and individuals with sexual offenses, some of whom he said had been convicted of other crimes.

He confirmed that in the course of the operation ICE officers made “collateral arrests,” picking up migrants who were around the target of the operation. Such arrests have been criticized by immigrant rights groups and were not common practice during the Biden administration.

Homan said other operations were taking place across the country and would continue. He said other agencies were supporting ICE in those efforts and would help increase the number of arrests authorities could make.

“We’re going full-on on this one, and more resources means more arrests,” he said, “which means more criminals off the streets.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.