Two weeks later, federal agents busted doors and windows of a South Shore apartment building and arrested 37 people. \u201cSome of the targeted subjects are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes and immigration violators,\u201d Department of Homeland Security officials said in a statement the day after the raid.\u00a0The agency soon released a slick, heavily edited video<\/a>, claiming the building was frequented by members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.<\/p>\n Federal prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against anyone who was arrested during the South Shore raid. A ProPublica investigation found there was little to support the government\u2019s claims<\/a> \u2014\u00a0and at least one of the two men accused of being a Tren de Aragua member has no criminal record.<\/p>\n As Trump\u2019s Operation Midway Blitz swept through Chicago this fall, federal leaders and agencies issued statements and social media posts that contradicted what reporters and witnesses saw on the ground. They\u2019ve attempted to discredit journalists even after a federal judge ruled that Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, a face of the operation, lied and the federal government had deceived the public<\/a> and made false claims.<\/p>\n Experts who study propaganda and state media say the pattern goes beyond spin. In press releases and social media posts, the Department of Homeland Security has built a narrative meant to project control and valorize its agents, the experts said. At the same time, it has cast protesters and bystanders as threats or obstacles.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The agency\u2019s language mirrors tactics used by governments to justify repression at home and abroad, rewriting events as they happen to shape how the public understands and digests them, they said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re working very hard to make the American people the enemy because they disagree with them,\u201d said Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the ACLU of Illinois. \u201cAnd that should worry all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an approach that obscures what\u2019s happening in Chicago \u2014 and raises questions about how far the federal government will go to control the story.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is one of the things that I think is very dangerous,\u201d said William Nickell, a University of Chicago professor who studies propaganda and media. \u201cAt certain points, a narrative can become what people buy into, even if it\u2019s counterfactual. And once that happens, it can distort thinking and justify actions that would otherwise be unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n When The Government Uses Propaganda<\/p>\n The U.S. government has been involved with propaganda since \u201cat least World War I,\u201d said Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n It started with Woodrow Wilson when he created a government board that directed committees to run propaganda efforts in the United States to drum up support for going to war against Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n Historically, this propaganda has been directed against external enemies, Pape said.<\/p>\n But Chicago has become the target of federal propaganda, with local officials, including Gov. JB Pritzker, saying the government was \u201cinvading\u201d the city and waging a \u201cwar.\u201d<\/p>\n On social media, the Department of Homeland Security has turned immigration enforcement into a cinematic campaign, using drone footage, songs and tough-on-crime slogans that depict Chicago as a city under siege.\u00a0<\/p>\n In September, Bovino announced on X that Operation At Large \u2014\u00a0Border Patrol\u2019s counterpart to Midway Blitz \u2014 had arrived with a video featuring footage of agents driving and agents on the Chicago River<\/a>. Another video soon after showed patrol boats<\/a> circling Trump Tower as part of what the area\u2019s alderman called a \u201cphoto op.\u201d<\/p>\n A video posted by the White House<\/a> Oct. 8 declared that \u201cChicago is in chaos, and the American people are paying the price.\u201d The video includes a voice-over of President Donald Trump with flashing lights and agents in tactical gear. News service AFP, or Agence France-Presse, fact-checked<\/a> the video and found most of the footage was taken in Florida, Texas and South Carolina, not Chicago.\u00a0<\/p>\n And on Oct. 24, the Department of Homeland Security posted a movie poster-like image of Trump, Bovino, agency director Todd Lyons and department Secretary Kristi Noem with the fake title, \u201cCicero.\u201d In the post, the agency wrote that Oct. 22 had been one of the \u201cmost violent\u201d days faced by agents and that \u201crioters\u201d would not slow agents. But on that day, agents pepper-sprayed at least one person and detained several people<\/a>, including at least two U.S. citizens, in Little Village and suburban Cicero.<\/p>\n The federal government\u2019s videos and photos have been cinematic and triumphant, showing agents with weapons and people being handcuffed.<\/p>\n \u201cThey really are engaged in a rather straightforward propaganda campaign,\u201d Pape said. \u201cThey might call it an information campaign, but there\u2019s no real difference between the two. It\u2019s all about using tailored information to persuade audiences of certain points.\u201d<\/p>\n Pape, head of The Chicago Project on Security & Threats, said the federal government\u2019s social media posts mirror the strategic building of narrative often seen in extremist groups. The videos highlight \u201cheroic\u201d acts by agents, portray raids as cleanly executed and frame anyone obstructing operations as dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way the videos are produced, they took a page out of Hollywood\u2019s book,\u201d Pape said. \u201cIf you look on the DHS website, they\u2019re doing a lot to depict their ICE agents as the heroes in the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pape said that the effect goes beyond making agents look good: The curated imagery and framing can shape public perception in ways that make the public more likely to see harsher enforcement as justified. Sympathetic audiences exposed to the videos can become more accepting of the aggressive strategies, even when the operation has \u201cunseen human costs,\u201d Pape said.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security\u2019s flashy video of the raid in South Shore shows agents going through the building with their guns drawn and leading away men whose hands are zip-tied. It does not show the children who, despite them being U.S. citizens, agents detained<\/a> for hours, nor does it show how building residents returned to their units to find them ransacked and their property stolen after the raid.<\/p>\n Controlling the narrative in this way is less about persuading neutral observers than about hardening divisions, Pape said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe DHS Twitter campaign is highly unlikely to be persuasive to ordinary residents in Little Village or Pilsen,\u201d Pape said. \u201cBut it will tighten support around an already sympathetic audience, particularly people who might already back Trump, while producing defiance among those communities targeted by these operations.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has for years used social media and public appearances in this way to target Chicago, a Democratic stronghold, making false claims about its leaders and crime in an effort to justify federal intervention \u2014 like calling in the National Guard. <\/p>\n \u201cChicago is a hellhole right now,\u201d Trump said at a press conference in September, saying that the city is the \u201cmurder capital of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Chicago is not the murder capital of the world<\/a>, and violent crime rates here have been falling, according to data from the Chicago Police Department and FBI. But when Trump uses that language, which is then reemphasized on the federal government\u2019s social media pages, it\u2019s used as a message to people who are sympathetic to his own cause, Pape said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn that sense, the propaganda acts as a wedge,\u201d Pape said. \u201cIt reinforces loyalty on one side and defiance on the other.\u201d<\/p>\n When Discrediting Journalists Becomes Part Of The Strategy<\/p>\n For longtime civil liberties observers, the Trump administration\u2019s handling of the press and, by extension, the public during Operation Midway Blitz is not just unusual \u2014 it\u2019s unprecedented.<\/p>\n Department of Homeland Security spokespeople have repeatedly refused to answer basic questions about who agents have arrested. Officials have tried to ignore Freedom of Information Act requests, leading Block Club Chicago and others to sue for records<\/a>. Homeland Security and its leaders have issued statements that seemingly contradict what witnesses and reporters say happened<\/a>. A federal judge questioned and outright accused Bovino and federal officials of misrepresenting facts<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is nothing any of us have ever seen before,\u201d Yohnka said. \u201cIt reflects a disdain both for journalists and for the public. They repeatedly misrepresent facts, double down on falsehoods and seem uninterested in getting anything right.\u201d<\/p>\n Yohnka said what stands out is how quickly federal leaders\u2019 \u201cofficial version\u201d of a story collapses.<\/p>\n On Oct. 4, federal agents shot 30-year-old Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park after they were \u201crammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars,\u201d Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin and Chicago police said at the time. The agents left their cars and were \u201cforced to \u2026 fire defensive shots\u201d at Martinez, McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n Martinez was charged with assaulting, impeding and interfering with a federal law enforcement officer. But body-camera footage contradicted the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s version of events, and the charges were dropped Nov. 20.<\/a><\/p>\n During an Oct. 30 news conference, Noem said no U.S. citizens had been detained during Midway Blitz. However, dozens of U.S. citizens had been detained, including two citizens during a raid that she was there for<\/a> in suburban Elgin.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir first story always falls apart, usually within hours,\u201d Yohnka said. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to create a narrative that simply doesn\u2019t exist. They believe they can convince a broader public, especially outside Chicago, that something is happening here that isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n That narrative only holds if journalists can be discredited.<\/p>\n For the Trump administration, discrediting journalists is not a side effect of the operation, but a part of it, experts said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a broader effort to essentially criminalize immigration reporting,\u201d said Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, who lives in suburban Evanston. \u201cThey\u2019re lying constantly, and they\u2019re attacking the press constantly. Those two things feed each other.\u201d<\/p>\n But Chicago\u2019s media landscape has complicated that plan.<\/p>\n When Chicago Tribune reporter Gregory Pratt reported on where federal agents were operating, McLaughlin took to X to accuse him of interfering with their enforcement<\/a> while neighbors and other reporters supported him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t discredit community media the way you can discredit CNN,\u201d Stern said. \u201cPeople know their local reporters. They see them on the street. They rely on them. That makes it harder for the administration to control the narrative. And they know it.\u201d<\/p>\n Shades Of The Soviet Union<\/p>\n Nickell, a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages & Literature at UChicago, said the Trump administration\u2019s messaging strategy in Chicago resembles a familiar pattern from modern authoritarian systems \u2014 most notably, Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia.<\/p>\n Nickell noted that Putin consolidated control over Russian media by reorganizing the country\u2019s once-independent outlets under oligarchs loyal to the Kremlin, ensuring that nearly all political discourse flowed through state-approved channels. What emerged was a system where the government could \u201cset the terms of reality,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The United States isn\u2019t there, but the strategy feels familiar, Nickell said. In Russia, Putin\u2019s consolidation started with individual and independent outlets being pressured, bought out and steered by loyal oligarchs until only a few dissenting voices survived.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here, Trump has personally urged ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel, called for NBC to fire Seth Meyers and watched as the billionaire owners of the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times \u2014 both of whom killed planned endorsements of Kamala Harris after internal pushback<\/a> \u2014 faced accusations that their decisions were meant to avoid angering him.\u00a0CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert despite it being the top show in late night. Though the network claimed the show was canceled for financial reasons, the move came after Colbert criticized a $16 million settlement Paramount paid <\/a>Donald Trump. <\/p>\n Earlier this year, the Trump-approved sale of Paramount helped pave the way for Bari Weiss \u2014 a vocal critic of legacy outlets<\/a> \u2014 to become editor in chief of CBS News.<\/p>\n To Nickell, the tactic echoes an even earlier era of state-driven narrative control. In the Soviet Union of the \u201930s, the government\u2019s constant storytelling and ideological messaging reshaped what people accepted as true, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we saw in the \u201930s in the Soviet Union was people actually beginning to report on their neighbors,\u201d Nickell said. \u201cSoviet power became so infectious that it really distorted people\u2019s thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n Nickell sees troubling echoes of that now.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s where narrative can become really dangerous,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause once somebody, like Donald Trump in this case, is effective at instilling an idea in people\u2019s minds, the consequences can be really drastic.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought we had institutions \u2014 the courts, the press \u2014 but we see a systematic attempt to gain control of all of these. \u2026 There\u2019s more erosion of a sense of agency than I imagined I would experience in my lifetime in the United States. I\u2019m not sure we actually have the power to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n Like the media consolidation under Putin, the Trump administration\u2019s control over messaging allows it to \u201cset the terms of reality,\u201d Nickell said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe media environment we\u2019re in has created a platform, and that\u2019s why it\u2019s been so important to Trump that he has access to these platforms,\u201d Nickell said. \u201cHe\u2019s been so savvy about using social media. \u2026 He would just say whatever he wanted people to think, and he seems to understand that in this current situation, proof doesn\u2019t really matter.\u201d<\/p>\n One Final Spin For The Road<\/p>\n A few days before Bovino left town, he and dozens of his commandeers stood on the snowy steps at Millenium Park, firearms in hand, and mocked the predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood Little Village while posing for a photo in front of the city\u2019s iconic Bean.<\/a><\/p>\n Bovino posted the photo on X, with agents\u2019 faces blurred, and claimed that homicides, shootings, robberies and carjackings in Chicago were all down since Border Patrol arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n We are here for YOU Chicago! Since we\u2019ve BEAN here, crime is down:<\/p>\n \u2b07\ufe0fHomicides down 16% The United States Border Patrol is dedicated to making American cities safer, one deportation at a\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/SVJnabMDUX<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Commander Op At Large CA Gregory K. Bovino (@CMDROpAtLargeCA) November 12, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cIt\u2019s common sense,\u201d Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a news release. \u201cWhen you remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country, crime rates plummet.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/100125-7500-S-South-Shore-Raid-Colin-Boyle-3903-1024x682.jpg\")
Dan returns to his apartment unit, which was completely ransacked and had items left behind that were not his \u2014 at 7500 S. South Shore Drive in South Shore on Oct. 1, 2025. The apartment building was raided by federal agents the morning before. Credit: Colin Boyle\/Block Club Chicago<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screen-Shot-2025-12-04-at-9.42.05-AM-830x1024.png\")
A movie poster-like image shows President Donald Trump, Secretary Kristi Noem, Director Todd Lyons and Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino. Credit: Department of Homeland Security<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/102225-ICE-Little-Village-and-Cicero-Colin-Boyle-7997-1024x682.jpg\")
Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino stands at the front as dozens of neighbors confront federal agents in Cicero just outside Little Village as the agents conduct immigration raids in the area on Oct. 22, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle\/Block Club Chicago<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/092625-Broadview-ICE-Protest-Colin-Boyle-1903.jpg-1024x682.webp\")
Manifestantes se enfrentaron con la Polic\u00eda de Illinois, la Polic\u00eda de Broadview y agentes del Alguacil del Condado Cook durante una \u201cfiesta de disfraces\u201d en el centro de procesamiento de Inmigraci\u00f3n y Control de Aduanas (ICE) de Broadview el 1 de noviembre de 2025.
\n Credit: Colin Boyle\/Block Club Chicago<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/102825-BovinoExitHiRes-ArthurMaiorella-010-1024x682.jpg\")
Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino hops into a truck after exiting the Federal Building on Oct. 28, 2025. Credit: Arthur Maiorella for Block Club Chicago<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/111025-Border-Patrol-at-Millennium-Park-Colin-Boyle-0672-1024x681.jpg\")
U.S. Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino and agents gather for a photo at Millennium Park and the Cloud Gate after the winter storm overnight in Chicago on Nov. 10, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle\/Block Club Chicago<\/p>\n\n
\u2b07\ufe0fShootings down 35%
\u2b07\ufe0fRobberies down 41%
\u2b07\ufe0fCarjackings down 48%
\u2b07\ufe0fTransit Crime down 20%<\/p>\n