{"id":402455,"date":"2025-11-25T00:41:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T00:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/402455\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T00:41:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T00:41:14","slug":"rep-underwood-warns-immigration-crackdown-in-chicago-area-not-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/402455\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Underwood warns immigration crackdown in Chicago area not over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican President Donald Trump\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the Chicago area may have ebbed in recent weeks<\/a>, but U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood cautioned Monday against assuming the effort is over after she was granted special access to the federal government\u2019s controversial immigration processing center in west suburban Broadview.<\/p>\n

Opponents of Operation Midway Blitz<\/a>, the chaotic and at times violent joint deportation mission carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, were heartened by this month\u2019s departure of controversial Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino<\/a>. But Underwood, the top Democrat on the congressional subcommittee that oversees the budgets for ICE, Border Patrol and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters the officials she spoke with Monday \u201chave not received any instruction around an end date.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Underwood said, ICE is looking to \u201cprobably triple\u201d the size of the staff at its Broadview processing center and Chicago field office \u201cby January.\u201d The agency also is \u201cpursuing contracts for temporary office space,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Pointing to $150 billion allocated to ICE<\/a> in the spending package Trump muscled through Congress over the summer, Underwood said that even if another government shutdown occurs early next year when the current funding deal runs out, the agency would \u201cbe able to hire and bring in these temporary structures to continue to grow immigration enforcement across our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Underwood\u2019s tour of the Broadview processing facility, which has been the epicenter of local protests over the Trump administration\u2019s hard-line immigration policies and the subject of an ongoing federal lawsuit over the conditions inside<\/a>, came after months of\u00a0similar access requests from Democratic members of Illinois\u2019 congressional delegation<\/a> were denied. The four-term lawmaker from Naperville said she was the first member of Congress in \u201cseveral years\u201d to get a look inside the facility.<\/p>\n

A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court last month described the two-story brick building on an industrial side street as a \u201cblack box,\u201d where those taken into custody have been cut off from most outside contact and kept in dirty and unsafe conditions. After a judge earlier this month ordered Homeland Security to improve conditions, the number of people being held there dropped substantially, the Tribune reported last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood talks with reporters near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview on Nov. 24, 2025. (Stacey Wescott\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

By the time Underwood arrived late Monday morning, no one was being held at the facility, with only a small contingent of security guards and the three ICE officials who conducted the tour present, she said. Underwood was told that the last person processed at the facility was overnight before she arrived, she said.<\/p>\n

The congresswoman said she was told the facility was nearly empty because \u201cthey were updating their security systems and installing new security cameras.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE did not respond Monday to questions about\u00a0Underwood\u2019s visit or her description of the agency\u2019s future plans.<\/p>\n

Trying to conduct proper oversight with little staff present and no one being held at the facility was \u201cchallenging,\u201d Underwood said.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Underwood said she saw only three showers and eight cots available in a facility that at times has held more than 100 people. The facility has no vendor providing food service, with meals\u00a0purchased from sandwich shops and big-box retailers, she said, and there likewise is no one under contract to provide medical care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had one package of Huggies, they had some sanitary pads for menstruating women, and they had foot powder,\u201d Underwood said.<\/p>\n

The Monday tour, led by Sam Olson, outgoing director of ICE\u2019s Chicago field office, was arranged through Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem\u2019s office, Underwood said.<\/p>\n

While the congresswoman intends to return to Broadview and has requested a tour of all other Homeland Security facilities in Illinois, the department only committed to Monday\u2019s visit, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that immigrants and U.S. citizens have been treated here is unacceptable, and it doesn\u2019t make us more safe,\u201d Underwood said.<\/p>\n

Despite her position on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Underwood said Monday that she did not know what Operation Midway Blitz has cost taxpayers to date.<\/p>\n

Underwood\u2019s visit came on the same day new data was released detailing the federal government\u2019s immigration enforcement actions nationwide over the past two months, the first update since before the record 43-day shutdown that ended Nov. 13.<\/p>\n

As of Nov. 16, ICE was detaining 65,135 people, an increase of nearly 5,400 from Sept. 21, the last day of available data prior to the shutdown, according to an analysis from Syracuse University\u2019s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC. Among that net increase in detainees, 97% had no criminal conviction, not even a minor traffic offense, indicating that \u201cduring the government shutdown, increasingly ICE targeted individuals with no criminal history,\u201d according to the analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition, \u201cdespite the enormous increase in the resources and government personnel devoted\u201d to immigrant removal operations, there has been only a 7% increase in deportations since Trump took office compared with the last full year of President Joe Biden\u2019s administration, the analysis showed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration continues to conceal most concrete details about its immigration enforcement activities \u2014 both on the level of resources the government is devoting to this effort as well as who it is targeting and has actually removed,\u201d TRAC said in a report released Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican President Donald Trump\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the Chicago area may have ebbed in recent weeks,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":402456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[69509,960,13045,5410,5386,1818,409,125422,121074],"class_list":{"0":"post-402455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-broadview","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-deportation","11":"tag-ice","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-immigration","15":"tag-lauren-underwood","16":"tag-operation-midway-blitz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115607561254779276","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}