CHICAGO – This week, President Donald Trump and his Department of Homeland Security bragged that since the start of Operation Midway Blitz in early September, Chicago has seen a significant decline in violent crime.

What we know:

In a statement, DHS called the drop in crime “a historic win in the fight against violent criminal illegal alien crime” and alleged that the achievement was something that “Chicago’s sanctuary politicians have failed to do for decades.”

“This has been achieved despite the extraordinary resistance from Chicago and Illinois Radical Democrat ‘Leadership,’ and the constant Violent Leftwing Terrorism against ICE Officers and Federal Agents that Insurrectionist Democrat Officials refuse to stop or prosecute, including constant physical assault and attempted assassination,” said Trump in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

Since the start of Operation Midway Blitz, DHS said in Chicago:

  • Homicides are down 16%
  • Shootings are down 35% (the lowest in four years)
  • Robberies are down 41%
  • Carjackings are down 48%
  • Transit crime is down 20%

A DHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the broader context of the crime numbers.

Dig deeper:

But several weeks before federal immigration agents descended upon the Chicago area, local officials were already touting a significant drop in violent crime in the city.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, ending with the month before Operation Midway Blitz began, the city recorded 285 homicides. That represented a 29% decrease compared to the same time period last year, when the city had 402 homicides, according to a city crime data dashboard. That time period covers the summer months when violent crime tends to spike in the city, but before the beginning of the federal operation.

Over that same eight-month period, the number of shooting victims was down by nearly 36%, robbery victimizations were down 32%, carjackings were down 49%, and the number of overall violent crime victims was down 21% compared to 2024.

Some statistical categories didn’t see significant declines, like criminal sexual assault victims, which actually rose by 1.8%, and human trafficking victims, which were up by 6.3%, though from a very low level, compared to last year.

Before the start of this year, Mayor Brandon Johnson said it was possible for the city to see fewer than 500 homicides in 2025, a mark not seen since before the spike in violence seen in cities across the country during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Violent crime has also been down all over the U.S. the past couple of years since the pandemic-era spike.

The nationwide trend has been tracked by research from the Council on Criminal Justice, an independent and nonpartisan organization, and analysts from the Real-Time Crime Index.

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