By Dylan Shrake
@redlineproject
AI disclosure: Summarize Wise was used to create a summary of the story. Perplexity was used to outline the story and generate possible topics of discussion. Sora generated both images, and ElevenLabs generated an audio of an interview.
Summary: Operation Midway Blitz targets undocumented immigrants in Chicago but overwhelmingly detains people without criminal records, raising due-process, racial-profiling and excessive-force concerns. Raids, chemical agents, and unlawful arrests — including U.S. citizens — have heightened fear, harmed mental health, disrupted schools, and triggered legal challenges over repeated violations of a federal consent decree.
On Sept. 8, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Midway Blitz. The primary objective of the federal initiative is to locate and arrest undocumented immigrants with criminal records in Illinois, specifically in Chicago.
The DHS has centered its focus and blame on Chicago due to its sanctuary city policies that prohibit both state and local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The operation is politically symbolic, announced to memorialize Katie Abraham, a 20-year-old Illinois resident who was killed in a hit-and-run by a drunk, undocumented individual.
Although “Operation Midway Blitz” was officially launched in September, it was previously a part of a bigger sequence of federal deployments that began in June 2025. The Trump Administration responded to protests in Los Angeles against federal immigration enforcement raids by deploying the National Guard to the city.
Patterns of deployment continued into August when troops were deployed in Washington, D.C. and into Chicago in September, when it was officially announced.
Under the operation, ICE has been directed to target violent offenders, including murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, gang members, and kidnappers. The Guardian reported on Nov. 19 that the Trump administration has revealed the names of 614 individuals arrested by federal immigration enforcement. However, 97% of those arrests did not meet the criminal charge target of the operation, according to a study by the The Guardian.
Civil Rights Concerns
ICE has been criticized for using harmful and aggressive tactics throughout the operation. From large-scale raiding to the use of excessive force and collateral damage, widespread fear has broken out among Chicago’s residents and visitors.
Days after a large protest outside of an ICE processing facility in Broadview on Sept. 27, Sen.Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) questioned DHS’s data. NewsOne reported on Sept. 29 that the arrest records highlighted by Durbin show less than 30% of those detained have any criminal background.
“Fewer than 30% of those who’ve been arrested have any kind of criminal background whatsoever,” Durbin told reporters. “So 70% of the people who are being detained have no criminal record.”
This is evidence of significant due-process violations, where federal immigration enforcement is discriminatorily targeting victims, detaining based on association, and ultimately resulting in compromised assessments and hearings.
Various media and news outlets have been increasingly painting and reinforcing negative stereotypes about immigrants. DHS.gov is a major news source that has used derogatory language to describe their targets, undocumented immigrants with criminal records, portraying them as “criminal illegal aliens.”
When media and official sources reinforce negative stereotypes, specifically framing all immigrants as being criminals, it encourages hostile and inhumane treatment toward that group. A common theme throughout the operation is racial profiling. To label immigrants with extreme and criminalizing language, it only further encourages media and enforcement to deem all immigrants as suspicious and recognize them as targets, even if they have not met the arrest requirements of ‘Operation Midway Blitz’.
Taelyr Molina, 20, a Hispanic student living in the Chicago suburbs, said she is concerned about becoming a victim of racial profiling.
“My last name is Molina,” she said. “When all of this started, I saw a video on TikTok of a man with blue eyes and I think ginger hair whose last name was Mexican, and ICE agents detained him based on his family name. Knowing what my last name is, I know now that I could be targeted solely for that reason.”
Block Club Chicago conducted an investigation that began on Oct. 1, in which a pattern of excessive force by federal agents had been established. Published on Nov. 18, Block Club Chicago revealed 49 counts of chemical agent use on protesters across 18 Chicago and suburban incidents.
The chemical agents include pepper balls, tear gas and flash-bang grenades. All are capable of causing significant harm.
Judicial Response and Legal Concerns
On Sept. 26, the National Immigrant Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois joined to submit a federal court notice regarding reports of 27 unlawful arrests made by DHS and other federal agents.
The notice is a challenge to the Trump administration, claiming that the warrantless arrests and lack of probable cause is a direct violation of a 2022 consent decree. The 2022 Castañon Nava consent decree prohibits ICE from being able to make arrests without warrants or probable cause.
As of Oct, 7, 2025, the consent decree has been extended by Judge Jeffrey Cummings until Feb. 2, 2026. Cummings found that the government had repeatedly violated it and is calling for the release of over 100 individuals detained in Chicago-area raids since the start of Operation Midway Blitz.
CBS News reported on Sept. 19 that “collateral arrests were not allowed during the Biden Administration but the Trump Administration threw out those restrictions almost immediately after coming into office as part of Mr. Trump’s efforts to beef up deportations.”
Although it is not inherently illegal for a presidential administration to approve of collateral arrests, it does raise concerns of due process violations and creates weariness about the First and Fourth Amendments. The policy change itself is not the big issue, but the enforcement actions under said change can be considered illegal if they go beyond their constraints.
The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. Law enforcement is required to have probable cause or reasonable suspicion in order to stop or arrest somebody, yet the operation heavily involves racial profiling. Instead of having valid and legal reasons to fulfill those duties, federal agents have been credibly accused of multiple accounts of racially profiling their target suspects; many of whom have not met the arrest requirements.
A formal request for investigation was addressed to Inspector General Joseph Cuffari at DHS on Oct. 27, expressing concerns and an immediate need to investigate multiple alleged violations of due process rights and indiscriminate deployment of immigration enforcement actions.
In the letter was a reference to a Chicago Tribune report on Oct. 13, where a United States citizen was arrested for the suspicion of her being an undocumented immigrant. Maria Greeley, a Latina service worker, was detained and zip-tied for over an hour by masked federal agents during her departure from work in Chicago. It was revealed that the woman had valid proof of her citizenship on her person, but the proof was not accepted by the arresting agents, who believed that her family name did not match their perception of her race.
Victim Physical and Mental Health Impacts
In the same request for invitation was a reference to a CBS News report from Sept. 28 about a pepper ball projectile that had been deployed on one of their own Chicago reporters. It was an isolated attack; no protestors or rioters were present, just the reporter, Asal Rezaei, driving through Cook County toward an ICE facility with her driver’s side window down. A masked ICE agent fired a pepper ball approximately 50 feet from inside the fence of the facility, hitting the side of her truck and flooding the inside of her vehicle with the chemical agent.
Rezaei revealed that the pepper ball made her vomit outside of her truck and left her face “on fire” for at least 10 minutes.
Pepper balls are considered to be a riot control weapon, commonly in the form of a powder irritant contained within a projectile similar to a paintball. The irritant compound is an extract derived from chili peppers, such as oleoresin capsicum, used to temporarily incapacitate an individual. Exposure to it results in the difficulty to breathe, see, and stand for upwards of 15 minutes.
On Oct. 3, NBC 5 Chicago reported on an immigration raid that took place in a Logan Square neighborhood, where a federal agent approached Rico Fresh Mart in an unmarked vehicle and deployed multiple canisters of tear gas. Only half a block away from the grocery store is Funston Elementary School, where students and recess were moved indoors after the tear gas blew toward the school.
As a result of the raids, teachers at Funston and schools around Chicago reported an increase in student absenteeism due to the fear of ongoing ICE raids.
The heightened anxiety surrounding Operation Midway Blitz is tampering with students’ education, which can and has led to difficulties in concentration in school and causing a general disengagement of both students and educators. Students are becoming more afraid to travel to and attend school in fear of being stopped or detained by federal agents, as it is evident that schools may no longer be considered a safe space from ICE raids.
Operation Midway Blitz is causing terror in everyday life, making the residents of Chicago and areas surrounding too afraid to go outdoors due to the collective dread that they are being constantly monitored and/or sought out by federal agents, even if they are not directly targeted.
Places that were once considered “safe,” such as schools and daycare centers, are now prone to and victims of the aggressive invasions of ICE. Even witnessing an individual being detained has resulted in increased anxiety, depression and PTSD-like symptoms in both adults and children.
Read more: Broadview ICE facility sparks turmoil among Chicagoans | Little Village vendors stand despite ICE raids