The Border Patrol official who led aggressive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in California introduced Tuesday that he’s increasing his deportation operation in Chicago, a big ramp-up of an unpredictable Trump administration marketing campaign that has more and more stoked concern throughout the metropolis’s immigrant communities.
“Effectively, Chicago, we’ve arrived!” Gregory Bovino wrote in a social media publish, accompanied by a video of Border Patrol brokers in Chicago. “Operation At Giant is right here to proceed the mission we began in Los Angeles — to make the town safer by concentrating on and arresting prison unlawful aliens.”
Talking to reporters, Gov JB Pritzker stated sources informed his workplace the Trump administration aimed to extend raids as Chicagoans celebrated Mexican Independence Day on Tuesday. The operation additionally comes as President Donald Trump as soon as once more vowed the Nationwide Guard can be deployed to Chicago regardless of opposition from Pritzker.
Division of Homeland Safety Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on social media that Chicago arrests on Tuesday included individuals arrested for violent assault, felony stalking or DUI. She didn’t present any names. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was additionally within the Chicago space for a number of hours Tuesday however had left by midday, in line with Pritzker.
Bovino, who is usually wearing tactical gear, led the newest deportation effort in Los Angeles that led to greater than 5,000 arrests. Dubbed “Operation At Giant,” the nationwide plan is an escalated effort concentrating on those that lack authorized standing. The California raids included ICE brokers coming out of an unmarked rental field truck and arresting individuals in a Residence Depot car parking zone. The bust, referred to as “Operation Trojan Horse,” was documented in a polished social media video, accompanied by rap music. Brokers in California additionally smashed automobile home windows and patrolled a park on horseback.
Tuesday’s enforcement in Chicago and the encircling suburbs are separate from the Division of Homeland Safety’s “Operation Halfway Blitz,” which was introduced two weeks in the past.
Immigration advocates say the hassle is essentially designed to unfold concern among the many space’s immigrant inhabitants and push individuals to self-deport.
The administration has amped up the hype round its enforcement efforts by embedding influencers whereas federal immigration officers conduct enforcement operations — and by counting on social media and pleasant conservative media.
Replying to a social media publish by Gov. JB Pritzker’s Deputy Chief of Workers for Communications Matt Hill, who criticized that ICE hasn’t referred to as Pritzker however has “the time to create a TikTok video exhibiting off stunning Chicago surroundings,” Bovino wrote, “Tik tok, tik tok, time is up!!”
“We’ve already arrested a number of criminals this morning. Far more to return, so keep tuned my buddy,” Bovino wrote. In different posts, Bovino stated he was “headed to McKinley Park” and Franklin Park.
An image of Silverio Villegas Gonzalez is seen at a memorial situated alongside the road close to the place he was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on Sept. 15 in Franklin Park. Villegas Gonzalez, a single father of two younger youngsters, was shot and killed by ICE brokers after attempting to drive away from a site visitors cease on Sept. 12.
Greater than a dozen individuals have been taken into custody by federal immigration brokers Monday in raids close to a police station in west suburban West Chicago and a Chicago courthouse, in line with a state lawmaker and courtroom officers. Federal brokers have been additionally noticed round courthouses in Chicago on Monday.
Talking on WBEZ on Tuesday morning, Mayor Brandon Johnson stated he deliberate to signal an government order on Tuesday “to guard individuals’s proper to protest,” as ICE’s deportation marketing campaign continues. He referred to as President Donald Trump’s deportation operations a “provocation of terror and anxiousness.”
Johnson final month additionally signed an government order aimed toward holding federal regulation enforcement within the metropolis to municipal guidelines on policing, whereas additionally holding tabs on new deployments and informing residents of their rights.
“I feel it’s unlucky that this president refuses to cooperate and work with municipalities throughout this nation,” Johnson stated. “We would like criminals off the streets. There’s methods you possibly can coordinate.”
President Donald Trump on Monday teased that Chicago is “in all probability subsequent,” for a federal process drive — and the Nationwide Guard — to fight crime. His feedback got here as he introduced a “Memphis Protected Job Pressure,” which additionally consists of the deployment of the Nationwide Guard and regulation enforcement from the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE and Homeland Safety.
“We’re going to be doing Chicago, in all probability subsequent,” Trump stated.
Trump voiced comparable statements on Tuesday on the White Home Garden, saying he’s planning to ship troops to Chicago, regardless of opposition from Gov. JB Pritzker.
“So I’m going to go to Chicago early, towards Pritzker. Pritzker is nothing,” Trump stated. “If Pritzker was good, he’d say please are available in.”
Pritzker fired again that “you possibly can’t take something that [Trump] says critically from sooner or later to the following. He’s attacking verbally. Typically he assaults [by] sending his brokers in. Typically he forgets. I feel he could be affected by some dementia… and the following day he’ll get up on the opposite facet of the mattress and cease speaking about Chicago.”
Pritzker stated Tuesday’s ramped-up raids appeared extra widespread, however nonetheless adopted the Trump playbook “to trigger challenges and mayhem on the bottom.”
“The more durable the ICE brokers are available in, the extra individuals wish to intervene and step in the way in which of them. And when that occurs and when there’s any type of touching or engagement with these ICE brokers that entails precise potential battery, nicely, that’ll be the excuse,” Pritzker stated. “And it’s mistaken, by the way in which — they’re inflicting it.”
The Democratic governor has claimed for weeks that the White Home technique is to extend immigration enforcement, prompting protests that might then be used to justify a Nationwide Guard deployment.
Rejecting Trump’s assertion that the raids are supposed to tamp down crime — which has fallen in Chicago over the previous couple of years — Pritzker says it’s about normalizing navy presence in communities to lower voter turnout within the 2026 midterm elections.
Pritzker stated Bovino “has a historical past of appearing in methods which can be fairly violent towards individuals, a lot of whom are usually not criminals.
“They’re grabbing individuals who have Brown pores and skin, or who communicate with an accent, or who communicate in one other language, and never people who find themselves responsible of or are accused of perpetrating a violent crime,” the governor stated.
“Take into consideration these youngsters which can be in class proper now, who will come dwelling to an empty home as a result of their mother and father have been taken with an administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant. Not as a result of somebody dedicated against the law, however an administrative warrant issued by an ICE agent,” Pritzker stated. “Now a toddler is exhibiting up at dwelling… That is what ICE is doing. That is what the president of the USA is doing. It’s mistaken.”
Immigration raids this week appear to have centered on the suburbs, although Pritzker stated his workplace stays at the hours of darkness on federal plans. The raids additionally create confusion for native police departments who “see skirmishes happening, [and] they don’t know if these are actual ICE officers, particularly in the event that they’re sporting masks in unmarked vehicles and aren’t carrying or exhibiting their identification,” Pritzker stated.
Contributing: Mariah Woelfel.
