Since early September, President Donald Trump’s administration has escalated its deportation marketing campaign within the Chicago space, focusing on suburbs and metropolis neighborhoods which can be residence to massive immigrant communities.
The president has mentioned his “blitz” on Chicago is supposed to make town safer for its residents.
However the rush of federal immigration brokers into the world has stoked fears and upended routines — and the outcomes haven’t decisively confirmed the federal authorities’s declare that it’s arresting “the worst of the worst” criminals.
After a chaotic few weeks, right here’s extra on what has occurred to this point, the place issues stand and what might come subsequent.
How lengthy will this immigration operation final?
President Donald Trump’s administration has not mentioned how lengthy it plans to proceed its deportation marketing campaign within the Chicago space.
The Chicago Solar-Occasions has reported the operation might final at the very least by way of the top of September. However the federal authorities’s plans have continuously modified. And Trump’s continued on-and-off threats to deploy Nationwide Guard troops to town have left these plans unclear.
How many individuals have been arrested?
The U.S. Division of Homeland Safety mentioned this week that 550 folks have been taken into custody within the Chicago space in the course of the September operation.
However that determine can’t be verified as a result of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers haven’t launched complete arrest information since January. Different teams that acquire and publish immigration enforcement data solely have information by way of the top of July.
ICE has mentioned that it’s arresting “the worst of the worst” in its Chicago-area marketing campaign and named dozens of immigrants who’ve been taken into custody. A few of these arrested right here have violent prison histories, together with a person convicted of homicide who served a long time in jail and one other who sexually abused a toddler. Others have been beforehand deported from the nation.
However a Solar-Occasions evaluation discovered some have been arrested in different states, and about half of the names and alleged expenses launched by Homeland Safety couldn’t be definitively matched to courtroom data.
How and the place have arrests occurred?
Largely following a playbook they first utilized in Los Angeles earlier this yr, federal immigration authorities have more and more used extra aggressive ways within the Chicago space over the previous few weeks, each throughout arrests and in response to protests.
ICE officers began the deportation marketing campaign this month by arresting a small variety of folks in public locations, akin to a flower vendor in a parking zone on the Southwest Facet.
Then ICE began conducting visitors stops within the metropolis and suburbs — certainly one of which noticed a federal agent shoot and kill a person in Northwest Suburban Franklin Park. Movies obtained by the Solar-Occasions have since revealed new particulars that depart from the DHS narrative after that taking pictures.
They’ve additionally gone after immigrants at their workplaces, and public areas akin to outdoors House Depot shops the place individuals are ready for handbook labor jobs.
In a serious escalation led by U.S. Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem on Mexican Independence Day, Border Patrol brokers in a militarized car and fatigues busted into an Elgin home within the early morning hours. They arrested 4 males and briefly detained two extra, together with one who was a U.S. citizen.
What are the impacts?
The federal operations have induced widespread worry in metropolis and suburban immigrant communities.
Individuals have modified their habits in some instances, akin to staying residence from work or skipping physician appointments.
Some mother and father have had their older kids or neighbors stroll youthful siblings to and from faculty as a result of ICE sightings have been reported at college pickup and dropoff instances.
The service business has helped mitigate danger, too. Some barbershops have began giving haircuts at folks’s personal residences and grocery shops have provided residence deliveries.
Congressman Jesus “Chuy” Garcia speaks about residents taking obligatory precautions throughout a press convention at West twenty sixth Road and South Albany Ave in Little Village, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. Elected officers and immigrant rights teams gathered to supply updates on Mexican Independence Day occasions and security as President Trump ramps up federal enforcement in Chicago.
Anthony Vazquez/Solar-Occasions
Immigration advocacy organizations that run a authorized hotline are receiving 250-400 calls per day in September, in response to a spokesman for the The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. That’s the best name quantity this yr and has led the teams to rent extra operators.
The operation, in the meantime, has created alternatives for the Trump administration to exhibit the aggressiveness of its operation to the president’s political base. Trump and the DHS have posted social media movies styled after motion motion pictures displaying raids and arrests all through the Chicago space.
What have protests been like?
There have been loads of demonstrations in downtown Chicago and a few suburbs, most of which have remained peaceable.
Individuals have additionally gathered outdoors an ICE facility in west suburban Broadview, the place immigration authorities take immigrants who’ve been arrested.
That’s the place confrontations have elevated in depth. Protesters have tried to dam an entrance to a parking zone to disrupt ICE operations.
In return, ICE and Border Patrol brokers have began utilizing tear gasoline and pepper spray in opposition to demonstrators, a few of whom have been struck by pepper balls or uncovered to gasoline with out warning. Brokers have additionally shoved protesters, together with a congressional candidate. Some protesters have thrown objects or slashed tires on ICE autos.
What do we all know concerning the circumstances in ICE services?
Federal authorities haven’t set free a lot details about their immigration services — even to elected officers — so the total image of the circumstances inside is unclear.
However individuals who have been detained within the Broadview facility have described troubling circumstances.
Gladis Yolanda Chavez Pineda, a Honduran girl detained in June, mentioned she stayed in “inhumane” circumstances on the facility for 4 days and was certainly one of 30 girls held in a room with no beds, no blankets and little meals.
Rosalio Pelayo Salgado, a Mexican man arrested in September, mentioned he was saved in a room with 150 folks, the place they have been known as slurs and solely given meals and water for good habits. He was at Broadview for at the very least every week.
One method to be taught extra about circumstances in a detention heart could be by way of inspection data revealed by ICE. However that doesn’t embrace the Broadview facility as a result of it’s technically not a detention heart.
It’s purported to solely be a spot the place individuals are processed into detention after they’re arrested. An Illinois regulation prohibits the feds from working immigration detention services within the state, so ICE isn’t supposed to maintain folks at Broadview for lengthy.
The Solar-Occasions and WBEZ proceed to ask for extra data from officers and households of those that are detained.
How have politicians reacted?
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have forcefully slammed Trump’s immigration enforcement as a scare tactic focusing on immigrant communities. They’ve mentioned his Nationwide Guard threats are unconstitutional and have threatened authorized motion. Johnson just lately accused Trump of “auditioning to turn into a dictator,” whereas Pritzker in contrast Trump’s insurance policies to the “early days of Nazi Germany.”
Different Democrats in federal, state and native workplace have condemned Trump, too. And a few, together with many operating for Congress, have proven as much as protests outdoors ICE’s Broadview facility.
The three Republican members of the Illinois congressional delegation, in the meantime, have all voiced help for Trump’s efforts, particularly Rep. Mary Miller, who has been an outspoken critic of Pritzker and the state’s sanctuary insurance policies.
Have there been authorized challenges?
There have been combined outcomes on the authorized entrance.
A federal decide in Chicago this summer season tossed a lawsuit introduced by Trump’s Justice Division looking for to invalidate sanctuary legal guidelines in Chicago and Illinois that assist defend immigrants.
Pritzker and Johnson have mentioned they are going to sue, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom did, if Trump sends the Nationwide Guard troops to Chicago. However whereas a lower-court decide has sided with Newsom, appellate judges in California have been deferential to Trump.
In the meantime, the U.S. Supreme Court docket has allowed federal brokers to proceed stopping folks primarily based on race, language and different elements in California amid the identical immigration marketing campaign that expanded into Chicago, known as “Operation At Massive.”
In Chicago, there have been particular person lawsuits filed by individuals who have been detained since these operations started. However litigation aimed on the broader marketing campaign has but to materialize.
Contributing: Mariah Woelfel, Jon Seidel, Tina Sfondeles, Lauren FitzPatrick, Sarah Karp, Tom Schuba, Sophie Sherry, Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere
