Illinois and Chicago on Monday accused federal immigration officials of an illegal occupation that’s led to “fear,” “indiscriminate violence,” and an “impermissible interference with state sovereignty” designed to force local leaders to abandon critical public policy.
They did so in a new federal lawsuit that amounts to the broadest challenge yet to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign. It accuses the feds of an “organized bombardment,” in which “uniformed, military-trained personnel, carrying semi-automatic firearms and military-grade weaponry, have rampaged for months.”
“Illinois and Chicago seek to vindicate their sovereign authority to govern, grow, and maintain public order and stability against an unchecked federal government,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit is similar to, but goes further than, the high-profile lawsuit brought by protesters, media and clergy last fall that challenged the feds’ tactics. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued an historic order in that case in November, limiting the feds’ use of force.
The plaintiffs in that case have sought its dismissal. But Ellis hesitated to grant their request after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week. Now state lawyers have sought to have their new case assigned to Ellis, given the similarities.
A hearing on the question has been set for Thursday. President Barack Obama named Ellis to the bench in 2013. For now, the new case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis, who was appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden in 2024.
Minnesota officials also filed a similar lawsuit Monday.
The Trump administration suffered repeated losses at Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse since the start of the immigration enforcement campaign known as “Operation Midway Blitz.” The state and city already sued successfully to block Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops last fall. They even handed Trump a loss at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Now their new lawsuit makes claims about the feds’ capture of biometric data, warrantless arrests, immigration enforcement at “sensitive locations” like courthouses and schools, the swapping of license plates and trespassing on private property.
It points out that, for decades, federal agents enforced immigration laws and arrested individuals subject to removal “without significant impact on public order and safety.” But since September, they “have imported interdiction tactics from the border into Chicago’s neighborhoods, and then, as one senior official put it … ‘push[ed] the envelope.’”
The lawsuit seeks an order barring U.S. Customs and Border Protection from conducting civil immigration enforcement in Illinois without Congressional approval, and ending policies that have led to the biometric scanning, the concealment of license plates and warrantless arrests.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the complaint “reads like a far-left manifesto, not a serious lawsuit.”
“The Trump administration is enforcing federal law and arresting criminal illegal aliens in cities across the country,” she said. “Chicago’s lawsuit uses aggressive rhetoric meant to smear law enforcement officers and incite violence against them.”
Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat who has not ruled out a 2028 presidential run, said, “in the face of the Trump administration’s cruelty and intimidation, Illinois is standing up against the attacks on our people.”
Attorney General Kwame Raoul added that, “Border Patrol agents and [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] officers have acted as occupiers rather than officers of the law.”
And Mayor Brandon Johnson said that, “the Trump administration has repeatedly violated the law and undermined public trust.”
Their lawsuit comes amid growing outrage about the feds’ tactics, especially since the fatal shooting of Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. Questions have also been raised about state officials’ ability to prosecute federal agents.
The new lawsuit refers to “the occupation of Illinois and Chicago” by immigration agents. It echoes claims from the National Guard litigation, arguing that the feds are trying to punish the state and city, especially over their so-called sanctuary jurisdiction status.
That means local authorities won’t assist ICE in tracking down immigrants without legal status.
“The federal government’s menacing, violent, and unlawful incursion impedes Illinois and Chicago from carrying out core sovereign functions in violation of the Tenth Amendment,” it alleges.
The lawsuit points to two shootings in the Chicago area committed by immigration officers — the Sept. 12 fatal shooting of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez and the Oct. 4 shooting of Marimar Martinez by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood.
The feds initially charged Martinez with assault in a case handled by Alexakis, only to drop the charges later.
“Hundreds of residents have been injured by Border Patrol’s widespread use of tear gas in residential neighborhoods, including children, the elderly, and first responders,” the lawsuit alleges.
Beyond that, the lawsuit alleges that Border Patrol and ICE have used an app called Mobile Fortify to scan the fingerprints and faces of people in Illinois including a U.S. citizen, a teenager, and a man on his way to work.
It says the feds have “unlawfully arrested dozens of U.S. citizens across the country” under an illegal warrantless arrest policy, likely including many in Illinois.
And it complains of a “proliferation of immigration enforcement activity at and near sensitive locations including courthouses, daycares and preschools, K-12 schools, community colleges, healthcare facilities, homeless shelters, and domestic violence shelters.”
Among other incidents, it cites the Nov. 5 incident in which federal agents entered the Rayito de Sol Spanish Immersion Early Learning Center and arrested a teacher.
“Agents subsequently reentered the daycare, searching rooms — including rooms where children were present — and interrogating other staff as to their immigration status,” the lawsuit claims. “The daycare center closed for the remainder of the week as a result of this incident.”
The lawsuit complains that Homeland Security adopted an illegal policy “allowing immigration agents to conceal, remove, or swap legally required license plates when engaged in enforcement activities in Illinois.”
It points to Plate Watch, a hotline launched by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias. It says Giannoulias’ office “received hundreds of reports of violations of state law governing the display of accurate license plates by vehicles which were, upon information and belief, operated by federal immigration agents.”
The lawsuit accuses immigration agents of unlawfully trespassing on private property, including at a cemetery, an open-air flea market, in residential yards and on city property.
Finally, it notes that immigration enforcement is likely to surge again in Chicago, quoting a recent social media post from Bovino.
“If you think we’re done with Chicago, you’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself,” it said. “Don’t call it a comeback; we’re gonna be here for years.”
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