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According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), more than 900 people have been arrested since the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” — a federal campaign of terror the administration has waged against Chicagoland since September 8 — though that number has not been independently confirmed.
On the night of September 30, hundreds of federal agents surrounded and stormed an entire South Shore apartment building near 75th Street and South Shore Drive. Agents rappelled from helicopters onto the building’s roof, broke down doors, and forcibly removed citizens and non-citizens alike from their homes during the attack. Neighbors say children were taken from their beds and zip-tied together. Some of the children were reportedly naked as they were forced into the street, where they remained for hours, before some were dragged into vans. As neighbors expressed concern for the children, one witness claims an agent laughed and said, “fuck them kids.” Residents report that their homes were more or less looted, with toys and personal papers scattered across hallways. One resident whose door was not successfully knocked down during the raid said that his electronics and furniture were seized while he was at work the next day.
Friday morning, in the village of Broadview near Chicago, Illinois state police arrested people who tried to block Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles, in a bid to localize crowd control of protests outside the Broadview ICE facility, where protesters have tried to disrupt ICE activity, and ICE agents have frequently responded with tear gas, pepper balls, and foam baton rounds.
The Illinois state police were joined by police from the county sheriff’s department, who insisted they were there for our protection. However, when protesters attempted to move into the street, they were violently corralled onto sidewalks by the state and county police. Even though the protesters had effectively been contained in this manner, ICE agents eventually marched up Harvard Street and attacked the crowd anyway — an action that state and county police participated in.
The federal agents were accompanied by a camera crew and used drones to film the attack, which preceded the passage of Kristi Noem’s motorcade through the area. Like the attack in South Shore, the moment seemed to have been aimed at content creation. A number of protesters and journalists were manhandled and brutalized by agents, myself included. Five activists were arrested.
On Friday, in the Logan Square neighborhood, federal agents deployed tear gas from an SUV in the middle of a residential neighborhood — just blocks from an elementary school and a grocery store. The incident was caught on video. Witnesses say the agents were being heckled by neighbors as they rolled down the street. A federal agent rolled down a window and lobbed a tear gas canister directly into the street. The cloud drifted toward homes, toward families. “For no reason, [they] tear gassed the whole crowd,” one witness told NBC Chicago. DHS has offered no explanation or comment on the incident.
That same day, Chicago Alderwoman Jessie Fuentes was handcuffed by federal agents in Humboldt Park while trying to speak with them about their presence in the neighborhood hospital.
On Saturday morning in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood, Border Patrol agents shot a woman near 39th Street and Kedzie Avenue. The official justification for this shooting has been fantastical and shape-shifting in nature. In one version, the woman was armed with a semi‑automatic weapon, and agents fired “defensive shots.” In another, she was merely caught in the crossfire — struck when agents opened fire on someone else allegedly trying to run the agents over. (DHS previously claimed that Silverio Villegas Gonzalez attempted to run ICE agents over, alleging that one agent was seriously injured, before the agents shot and killed Villegas Gonzalez in Franklin Park on September 12 — a story that does not match available evidence.) DHS also claimed that the woman they shot had been identified in a Customs and Border Protection intelligence bulletin for doxing federal agents. None of these allegations — about weapons, vehicles, or online threats — have been verified. There is no video, no photo, no credible witness account to back DHS’s contortionist claims, which should be regarded as fascist propaganda.
What is known: the woman survived. She drove away from the scene and received emergency assistance at a nearby auto shop. When neighbors gathered to protest the shooting, federal agents unleashed tear gas, pepper balls, and foam rounds— striking demonstrators, legal observers, journalists, and people just trying to get home. Chicago police were also visibly overwhelmed by tear gas.
On Saturday, the Trump administration announced that he would send the National Guard to Chicago. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the press, “President Trump has authorised 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets.”
On Saturday, a federal judge in Oregon blocked Trump’s attempt to federalize that state’s National Guard to send troops into Portland. In her ruling, Judge Karin Immergut wrote that the administration’s justification was “simply untethered to the facts,” finding no evidence of the kind of widespread chaos that could legally justify deploying the Guard over a governor’s objections. The order, which lasts until at least October 18, makes clear that states still have constitutional standing to resist federal takeover of their National Guard units. Whether the administration will respect the court’s ruling, or if this decision will strengthen the hand of city and state officials resisting the federal invasion of Chicago, remains to be seen.
The immigration crisis the administration claims to be responding to is no crisis at all. Chicago is a welcoming city. We have sanctuary policies. Immigrants are welcome here. The president is waging war on our city for welcoming those he wishes to expel. DHS is terrorizing our communities and staging violent spectacles to produce fascist propaganda — and sometimes, for what appears to be purely recreational violence. This is a pivotal moment in the struggle against fascism and authoritarianism. To ignore what’s happening in Chicagoland would be a damning mistake. Trump is normalizing attacks on blue cities because he intends to overpower hubs of democratic resistance. He plans to hold onto power — and expand it — by any means necessary, legal constraints and elections be damned. The entire country must raise their voices against this aggression. In Chicago, activists and organizers are exhausted, but we will continue to do all we can. Chicagoans will not be a conquered people.
Correction: This article has been updated to note that the woman shot by Border Patrol agents drove away from the scene of the shooting, not to the hospital, and to clarify that Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was killed in Franklin Park, a village outside Chicago.
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