Federal immigration agents part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” may soon leave Chicago, according to multiple sources who said the controversial mission was rapidly winding down after a contentious two months of enforcement raids that have set the city and suburbs on edge.
Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, the top official on the ground leading the Trump administration’s efforts, was expected to depart Chicago for another assignment within days, and most of the Border Patrol agents under this command would soon be redeployed elsewhere, three sources told the Tribune Monday.
An on-call task force composed of FBI and assistant U.S. attorneys is also expected to close up shop in the coming days, the sources said.
In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseeing the operation, said “every day DHS enforces the laws of this country, including in Chicago. We do not comment or telegraph future operations.”
The agency recently said that agents had surpassed 3,000 total immigration arrests since the surge began in early September.
Controversy surrounding the operation, meanwhile, has continued unabated.
Gov. JB Pritzker on social media blasted Border Patrol after dozens of agents posed for a picture in front of the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park Monday. Block Club Chicago reported that an agent shouted, “Everyone say, ‘Little Village!’” as an embedded photographer took the picture of the agents, many of whom were masked, and as snow covered the top of the Bean.
The comments come days after Bovino and scores of federal agents this weekend engaged in a series of arrests and detainments in the Little Village neighborhood and DHS officials said someone fired at agents. Many community members later in the day confronted the agents, touching off a chaotic series of confrontations. Bovino and federal officials were seen circling the neighborhood and deploying chemical crowd-control measures at several locations.
Local politicians later called the sweeps “a reign of terror” and declared that the agents who carried it out were “a new American Gestapo.”
Pritzker posted that “making fun of our neighborhoods and communities is disgusting.”
“Greg Bovino and his masked agents are not here to make Chicago safer,” he wrote. “…they are posing for photo ops and producing reality TV moments.”
In response, Bovino — whom a federal judge declared had lied repeatedly in a deposition late last month — said Pritzker was “lying” and added, “feel free to join us in Little Village tomorrow.” Later, Bovino invited the governor to “join us.”
Since Sept. 8, DHS officials have reported thousands of arrests of unauthorized immigrants in and around Chicago as agents have filled multiple residential blocks with tear gas and other chemical munitions as neighbors push back on their actions, shot U.S. citizens whom they claim “rammed” their vehicles, killed an undocumented man whom they alleged was trying to evade arrest and left swathes of the city and suburbs blanketed in fear.