ICE Launches Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, Sparking Protests, Lawsuits, and Federal Court Restrictions

Details

On September 8, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of Operation Midway Blitz, a multi-agency immigration enforcement surge targeting the Chicago metropolitan area. The operation was named in honor of Katie Abraham, killed in a drunk driving accident by an undocumented immigrant in Illinois. DHS stated the operation would target "the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens" who had "flocked to Chicago and Illinois seeking protection under sanctuary policies."

Scope and Scale

Approximately 300 federal agents used Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago as a staging area for the operation. The ICE processing facility in Broadview, Illinois became the central hub for detaining and processing those arrested.

According to DHS press releases:
- By September 19, 2025: approximately 550 arrests
- By October 3, 2025: more than 1,000 arrests
- By mid-October 2025: approximately 1,500 arrests

A Chicago Tribune analysis of ICE data found that in the first five weeks, agents detained approximately 1,895 people—two-thirds of whom (1,271 people) had no known criminal convictions or pending charges. Another 343 had only pending charges with no convictions.

Detention and Transfers

The Marshall Project reported that people arrested in Chicago were subsequently detained across 13 states, including:
- North Lake Processing Center (Baldwin, Michigan): Over 380 detainees—the largest single destination
- Camp East Montana (Fort Bliss, Texas): More than 100 Chicago detainees; the facility has faced reports of failing to meet at least 60 detention standards
- County jails and privately-run facilities in Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico

A WBEZ/Sun-Times analysis found that self-deportation rates among those initially booked into Broadview soared to 36%—more than triple the 11% rate before the blitz began. The median time in detention before self-deportation was just three days.

Broadview Facility Conditions

The Broadview facility, designed as a processing center with a maximum 72-hour hold, became a de facto detention center. A Sun-Times and WBEZ investigation found officials were often holding immigrants beyond the 72-hour limit. On multiple days, the facility held more than 100 people despite not being designed for overnight detention.

On November 18, 2025, a lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions at the Broadview facility became a class action potentially affecting over 1,000 detainees.

Protests and Confrontations at Broadview

The Broadview facility became the site of sustained protests that drew national attention. Beginning in early September, demonstrators gathered outside the facility daily, with weekend protests drawing hundreds.

According to court documents, federal agents repeatedly deployed tear gas, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and flashbang grenades against crowds. ICE claimed protesters were violent, but video evidence reviewed by a federal judge showed otherwise.

On October 2, 2025, Illinois State Police, Broadview police, and other agencies announced a "Unified Command" to coordinate public safety and protect First Amendment rights, establishing designated protest zones with barriers.

Legal Challenges

Consent Decree Violations

On October 10, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ruled that ICE agents had illegally arrested at least 22 people without warrants, violating the Castañon Nava consent decree banning warrantless arrests unless agents have probable cause to believe someone is unlawfully present and a flight risk.

On November 12, 2025, Judge Cummings ordered the release of approximately 615 people detained during Operation Midway Blitz, finding their arrests potentially violated the consent decree.

Village of Broadview v. DHS

On October 9, 2025, a federal judge ordered ICE to remove a fence it had erected on village property around the Broadview facility without permits or notice to local officials.

National Guard Deployment Blocked

On October 9, 2025, U.S. District Judge April Perry temporarily blocked President Trump's deployment of the National Guard to Chicago, finding the deployment unconstitutional under the Posse Comitatus Act and the Tenth Amendment. On December 23, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the administration's appeal.

Use of Force Injunction: Chicago Headline Club v. Noem

On October 9, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting agents from using tear gas, pepper spray, or other weapons against journalists or peaceful protesters who don't pose a serious threat. On November 6, 2025, she converted this into a preliminary injunction after a two-day evidentiary hearing.

In her 233-page written opinion issued November 20, 2025, Judge Ellis found that Defendants' evidence was "simply not credible" and that agents' use of force "shocks the conscience."

Key Findings

Systematic Misrepresentation: The court found body camera footage repeatedly contradicted agents' official reports:
- On September 19, 2025, video showed agents deploying flashbang grenades, tear gas, and pepper balls "almost immediately and without warning," with one agent stating "fuck yea!"—contrary to claims protesters were violent
- On September 27, 2025, agents claimed protesters shot fireworks at them; agents later admitted the explosions were their own flashbang grenades
- In Albany Park, DHS publicized that a bicyclist threw a bike at agents; video showed agents took the protester's bike and threw it aside

Bovino's Admitted Lies: Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino admitted under oath to lying about a Little Village incident where he threw tear gas. He initially claimed he was hit by a rock first; over three days of depositions, he admitted no rock was thrown before he deployed the tear gas.

ChatGPT Reports: The court noted that at least one agent used ChatGPT to generate a use-of-force report from a brief sentence and images.

Documented Targets

Journalists shot with pepper balls or rubber bullets while displaying press credentials included reporters from Block Club Chicago, the Chicago Reader, and Unraveled Press. Religious practitioners including Rev. David Black (shot at least seven times with less-lethal ammunition) and Fr. Brendan Curran were targeted while conducting prayer vigils.

The Injunction

The court's injunction:
- Bars force against journalists
- Prohibits dispersing crowds absent exigent circumstances
- Bans riot-control weapons unless necessary to stop immediate physical harm
- Requires two audible warnings before deploying any weapons
- Mandates visible identification in two places on uniforms
- Requires body cameras during enforcement

On November 19, 2025, the Seventh Circuit stayed the injunction pending appeal, finding it "overbroad," but cautioned not to "overread" its order and indicated a "more tailored" injunction might be appropriate.

Administration Statements

President Trump: In early September, wrote on Truth Social: "Chicago is about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR," adding: "I love the smell of deportations in the morning."

Secretary Kristi Noem: On July 12, 2025, stated that "violence is anything that threatens [ICE officers] and their safety. So it is doxing them, it's videotaping them." On October 3 at Broadview, she told agents: "We're going to go hard. We're going to hammer these guys who are advocating for violence."

Chief Gregory Bovino: In June 2025 in Los Angeles, told agents: "Arrest as many people, that touch you, as you want to. Those are the general orders, all the way to the top." In October, he told CBS News that if "someone strays into a pepper ball, then that's on them. Don't protest, and don't trespass."

Community Response

Chicago residents organized rapid-response networks using whistles to alert neighbors of ICE presence. Parents organized "magic school buses" to accompany children to school. A hotline to report ICE sightings was heavily used on the first day of the operation.

Religious organizations coordinated prayer vigils and sanctuary resources. The weekly Friday morning prayer vigil at Broadview, led by religious figures including Fr. Brendan Curran and Rev. David Black, became a recurring presence throughout the operation.

Economic Impact of the Surge Model

The most rigorous evidence to date on the economic consequences of the "shock and awe" surge strategy that Operation Midway Blitz exemplifies comes from a Brookings Institution study, "Shock, awe, and economic fallout" (May 29, 2026), by Marcela Escobari, Ian Seyal, and Paul Beach. Escobari summarized the findings in a June 26, 2026 New York Times guest opinion essay, "ICE Is a Job Killer Everywhere It Goes"—an opinion piece, but one grounded in the peer-visible Brookings analysis.

Comparing 86 "surge cities" (those with the sharpest increases in ICE arrests between January and June 2025) against 255 non-surge cities, using federal payroll data and ICE arrest records from the Deportation Data Project, the study found:

• At least 668,000 jobs lost across the surge cities during the first nine months of 2025, with employment falling 0.73% below expected levels on average three to eight months after a surge—and 1.48% in the 51 cities observed at least six months out, indicating the damage compounds over time
• Roughly 13 jobs lost per excess ICE arrest, rising to about 30 jobs per arrest in cities tracked six or more months after their surge, as Fortune reported
• An estimated 51,000 to 297,000 of the lost jobs would have been held by American-born workers (roughly one to six American-born jobs per arrest), directly contradicting the administration's claim that mass enforcement frees up jobs for Americans
• Construction was hit hardest (down 2.2%, about 102,000 jobs), followed by accommodation and food services; arts and entertainment declined sharply despite employing few undocumented workers—evidence that suppressed consumer demand, not just worker removal, drives the losses

The study identified three channels of harm: direct removal of workers, operational disruption in specialized sectors, and collapsing consumer spending as immigrant communities go into hiding. In Los Angeles, Escobari noted, spending in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods fell 20 to 25 percent in the two months after a major operation was announced, costing the region an estimated $625 million in lost sales.

Two caveats bear on Chicago specifically. First, because the study's surge window (January–June 2025) and employment data (through September 2025) largely predate Operation Midway Blitz, its estimates do not directly measure the blitz's effect on the Chicago economy; the authors note later operations are excluded. The study's findings are nonetheless directly relevant as the best available measure of what the same enforcement model produced elsewhere—and mechanisms it documents, such as fear-driven withdrawal from work and commerce, match Chicago reporting on residents sheltering at home, whistle networks, and escorted school runs described above. Second, applying the study's per-arrest estimates to Midway Blitz's roughly 2,000 arrests would be only suggestive, not a measured result. Escobari also observed that, contrary to the narrative of ICE targeting blue sanctuary cities like Chicago, 56 of the 86 surge metro areas were in red states, which bore the brunt of the job losses.

Broader Context

Operation Midway Blitz is part of the Trump administration's broader deportation campaign. Similar operations have been conducted in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In early January 2026, DHS announced what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area, which has since resulted in multiple shootings by federal agents, including the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three.

Border Patrol Chief Bovino left Chicago in mid-November 2025. By December 31, 2025, the National Guard ceased participation in Chicago deployments.