Officials in President Donald Trump’s administration have promised a “blitz” in Chicago. Illinois Democrats have warned of a “reality show” spectacle infringing on residents’ rights.
But the first full day of “Operation Midway Blitz” played out much like the last few weeks have as Trump has teased stepped-up immigration enforcement in the city, with sporadic reports of arrests and rising tension in Chicago’s Latino community as hundreds of federal agents move in — and many residents hunker down.
Details were scarce as videos surfaced of masked federal agents taking people into custody, with a smattering of arrests from the South Side to the west suburbs. Trump officials say they’re out to tackle crime, which has declined in Chicago over the last few years and hasn’t been driven by people lacking legal status.
The resulting uncertainty left a typically lively stretch of 47th Street unusually quiet early Tuesday afternoon in Back of the Yards. For Victoria Andraca, owner of Artesanías y Regalos Catrina, the season is typically her busiest as customers prepare for Mexican Independence Day celebrations. But this year, she said sales have been scarce.
“This affects all of us,” Andraca said. “It’s affecting my business, but I can’t blame those who don’t want to shop. It’s not that they don’t want to celebrate, it’s because they’re scared. They don’t want to leave their homes.”
In past years, Andraca has run out of Mexican flags and traditional attire she brings in for the season. This year, she worries she’ll be left with the stock.
“It’s a loss of investment, but there’s nothing I can do about it but hope people will come in and buy things,” she said.
Erika Tzintzun, an employee at Dreamcatcher Cafe, said Trump’s actions were disrupting the peace in her community.
“We’re being very cautious as it is, and having ICE come into our neighborhood would be terrifying,” she said. “Some of my family won’t be able to go out as much and do as much as they’d like to, which is devastating.”
Arrest reports trickle in
The source of their fear was laid bare in a video posted to Facebook by Little Village resident Jose Sanchez showing a man getting arrested at 26th Street and Kostner Avenue in the Southwest Side neighborhood.
Sanchez said he didn’t realize that the officers arresting the man were ICE agents until he got close enough to see their badges.
“They’re bullies with badges and guns,” said Sanchez, who added that he headed to a nearby Home Depot to alert people who were waiting for work there about the presence of ICE in the neighborhood.
A Fox News team riding along with ICE officers witnessed a man arrested outside his Cicero home. Neighbors said immigration authorities arrived around 7:30 a.m. in two unmarked vehicles and took the man as he was attempting to get into his car.
Officers broke the car’s driver-side window before pulling him out and cuffing him, neighbors said. By afternoon, shards of glass still littered the road and grass.
Rosa Mora and Jose Mora said they heard the news of the arrest from their neighbors who saw it.
“It’s terrible,” said Rosa Mora. “People are terrorized. You can’t even come out of your door just because of your color.”
In Chicago, city officials tried to stay abreast of the movement of agents as Chicago police and other local authorities remain in the dark on federal plans.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), chair of the City Council’s Immigrant and Refugee Rights Committee, said his office as of Tuesday afternoon had not seen immigration enforcement “to the level of what is being promoted by the president.” But he said he’s aware of “increased ICE activity,” referencing an incident in Archer Heights over the weekend where at least three people were detained.
Vasquez asked residents to report immigration enforcement sightings to mutual aid groups or an alderperson’s office using the “SALUTE method” — noting the size, activity, location, uniform, time and equipment seen in any suspected enforcement action.
Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez (25th) was trying to get details about a detained man who is married to a Chicago Public Schools teaching assistant at a school in his ward. He learned of the arrest from a mutual aid group. Sigcho Lopez said the man is from Honduras, but he doesn’t know where he was taken after he was detained near his Gage Park home this morning.
Northwest Side Ald. Ruth Cruz (30th) said reports of ICE sightings have started cropping up on the South Side, and she expects them to trickle north as the week stretches on.
Cruz urged residents to memorize or save the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights hotline number: 855-435-7693. She said she hadn’t noticed a major change in reported sightings or concerns from constituents since Trump’s announcement of the deportation campaign Monday.
“But we’re staying committed, we’re staying focused, and we’re taking everything very seriously,” Cruz said.
Border patrol boss headed to Chicago?
Speaking to reporters outside of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen Tuesday, Gov. JB Pritzker said reports that Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who led enforcement raids in California, is now in Chicago is “evidence that they have terrible plans for the communities of Illinois.”
Bovino, who is typically dressed in tactical gear, led the latest deportation effort in Los Angeles that has led to more than 5,000 arrests. Citing two anonymous sources, CBS News on Tuesday reported Bovino is in the Chicago area.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times to “stay tuned” when asked whether Bovino is in town. He’s posted social media videos of raids in California, and he also reposted the DHS announcement on Monday about “Operation Midway Blitz.”
Last week, Bovino posted a social media video featuring Border Patrol vehicles on the move: “We’re taking this show on the road to a city near you. We’re gonna trade these palm trees for some skyscrapers, and the mission continues,” Bovino said as Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” played in the background.
Pritzker has derided Bovino as “a guy who desperately wants to be a reality TV star. ICE needs to take it down about three notches, and we need [Trump border czar] Tom Homan to focus on something other than his failures in Illinois,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker accused Trump of a “nefarious plan, frankly, to bring military into cities so that ultimately, in the 2026 election, people will be normalized to the idea of militarization during the next election so that he can affect the outcome of that election.”
Chicagoans protest: ‘Hands off Chicago’
A few hundred people gathered Downtown across from Grant Park Tuesday evening to protest Trump’s ramped-up deportation campaign in Chicago.
Demonstrators held signs reading “ICE out of Chi” and “Hands off Chicago.” Led by speakers rallying the crowd, they chanted, “Hey Chicago, what do you know, crime is at an all-time low,” a reference to the city’s falling crime rates and the lowest summer murder count since 1965 this year. The protest, organized by the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, drew honks from supportive drivers on Michigan Avenue.
“We must organize,” one speaker said while addressing the crowd, “we must stay in the streets and keep each other safe.”
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