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ICE Operation 'Midway Blitz' Underway as Authoritarian Trump Targets Chicago
"Donald Trump and his departments of alphabet boys and National Guard troops aren't welcome and aren't needed in Chicago," said the head of the city's teachers union.
Sep 08, 2025
After several days of US President Donald Trump threatening a militarized invasion of Chicago, his administration on Monday announced "Operation Midway Blitz," claiming it is "in honor of" a young woman allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant accused of drunk driving about 140 miles south of the Illinois city.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) unveiled the immigration operation with a nearly five-minute video featuring Michelle and Joe Abraham, whose 20-year-old daughter Katie was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Urbana in January. The alleged driver, a Guatemalan national, was arrested in Texas a few days later.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation "will target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago," even though the libertarian CATO Institute revealed in June that 65% of immigrants booked by the agency under Trump had no criminal convictions and over 93% were never convicted of violent offenses.
Like Trump has in recent days, McLaughlin took aim at Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, saying that he "and his fellow sanctuary politicians released Tren de Aragua gang members, rapists, kidnappers, and drug traffickers on Chicago's streets—putting American lives at risk and making Chicago a magnet for criminals."
While Chicagoans have made their thoughts on a federal invasion clear, carrying signs that said "No Trump! No Troops!" and "No Nazis—No Kings" during a weekend protest, McLaughlin said that Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem "have a clear message: No city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens. If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return."
Pritzker and Chicago's Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson, have forcefully pushed back against Trump's threats to launch a major anti-migrant operation in the city and possibly deploy the National Guard, as he has done in Washington, DC and Los Angeles, California.
In a New York Times opinion piece published hours before the widely anticipated DHS announcement, Johnson argued that "lowering crime rates here does not require an occupation of our city by armed members of the National Guard, as the White House continues to threaten us with. Chicagoans, including survivors of violence, have spoken out against such an extreme measure."
"If President Trump had listened to the city's leaders, he would recognize that Chicago just experienced record-low homicide numbers, making this the safest summer since the 1960s, a result of effective collaboration between communities and law enforcement," wrote the mayor, who signed an executive order ahead of the federal operation and is raising a family in Austin on the West Side, "one of the parts of our city where gun violence is most pervasive."
"My administration has managed to make progress in crime reduction with three interconnected strategies: effective and law-abiding policing, violence prevention, and addressing the root causes of crime," Johnson explained. "Our violence prevention work includes programs that employ former gang members to de-escalate conflicts as well as initiatives that connect people to jobs and resources."
"We have directed funding to neighborhoods that have suffered from chronic disinvestment to create jobs, provide mental health services, and more. We are on track to build, rehab, or preserve over 10,000 units of affordable housing," he continued. "We don't need the National Guard; we just need to invest in what works."
In a Monday statement, Chicago Teachers Union president Stacy Davis Gates acknowledged "the successful efforts of our mayor in reducing crime and investing in our community," and similarly stressed that whatever Trump is "spending on his raids is better spent on building affordable housing, reopening school libraries, and funding social workers to support children through the trauma this administration is inflicting on an entire generation who are worried every day if they will ever see their parents again."
"As a history teacher, I can tell you that history will not look kindly on Donald Trump or the individuals who are acting as his personal army," Davis Gates also said. "For weeks, the people of Chicago have made it clear that we do not need federal agents in our city, whether that is to separate immigrant families or racially profile in our Black neighborhoods."
"Chicago might have been built to keep our communities divided, but we are coming together now, like working people do against any bad boss, in radical solidarity to keep each other safe," the union leader added. "Donald Trump and his departments of alphabet boys and National Guard troops aren't welcome and aren't needed in Chicago."
Congressional Democrats who represent Illinois have also denounced the president's targeting of the country's third-largest city—including Sen. Dick Durbin, who took to the chamber's floor on Monday following the DHS announcement. Durbin accused Trump of attacking Chicago for "political theater."
While the Trump administration hasn't yet provided any update on the involvement of the National Guard, after the president moved to rename the US Department of Defense, he took to his Truth Social platform on Saturday morning with an image referencing the 1979 film Apocalypse Now and said, "Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR."
Appearing on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), said that "we don't have any indications of them getting ready to send troops into Chicago," but also that "the president of the United States essentially just declared war on a major city in his own nation. This is not normal... This is not acceptable behavior."
Responding to the recent developments in a Monday statement, Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the national advocacy group America's Voice, said that "we have gone from a supposed war on immigrants to a war on Americans."
"America's Voice has long said that immigration was merely the 'tip of the spear' for this administration to justify and lead an attack on all of us—including violating due process, constitutional rights, and core democratic norms and pillars, such as deploying the military against American communities," she noted. "Sadly, all are coming to pass."
Cárdenas continued: "Why is the American president openly threatening an American city, as he readies the deployment of American troops against those residents? It's not about immigration, just as the Washington, DC deployment wasn't about crime. Instead, it's for purposes of retribution; sowing fear and dissent; provoking violence and dividing us as a nation."
"Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court just sided with the president and his plans to target indiscriminately and racially profile with impunity, effectively making racial profiling now the law of the land," she added, citing a Monday decision from the chief justice. "Whether calling it 'authoritarianism' or something else, it's clear we are fighting not just for immigrants, but also for a different vision of America that's now imperiled."
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Chicago Preps for Trump's Looming Militarized 'Invasion'
"If the federal government wants to help they should invest, not invade," said Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Sep 05, 2025
With some federal agents already at a nearby naval station and fencing erected around the Everett McKinley Dirksen U.S. Courthouse overnight, Chicagoans and Illinois' elected officials on Friday continued to prepare for US President Donald Trump's militarized "invasion" of the country's third-largest city.
Trump has threatened to not only send immigration enforcement agents but also deploy the National Guard and even potentially active-duty military, mirroring what he has done in Los Angeles and the District of Columbia.
Anticipating imminent federal action, last Saturday, Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order targeting what he called Trump's "tyranny," and Gov. JB Pritzker, another Democrat, pledged Thursday that "we're going to immediately go to court if National Guard or other troops are deployed to the city of Chicago."
Trump has sent mixed messages this week. He said Tuesday that "we're going in" to Chicago, but "I didn't say when." The next day, he said the administration was still "making a determination" about the city and may target Louisiana, whose "great governor," Republican Jeff Landry, "wants us to straighten out a very nice section of this country that's become quite, you know, quite tough."
However, the Illinois action seems to be already underway. The New York Times reported Friday that it obtained an internal document which indicates that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials "would arrive at the Naval Station Great Lakes this week and that there would be 30 days of operations in the Chicago area."
Congressman Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and Illinois' two Democratic US senators, Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, visited the naval station on Friday seeking answers from DHS.
"They ended up saying they were unavailable and that they were locking the doors to the building that's being considered, and we wouldn't be able to enter it and see it," Durbin said. "This kind of secrecy shouldn't be part of our government."
Citing unnamed sources familiar with federal plans, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday that "230 agents, at least some of whom work for US Customs and Border Protection, are coming from Los Angeles, where an immigration blitz this summer spurred protests that pushed Trump to call in the National Guard."
Amid fears of operations targeting immigrants, volunteers are patrolling for signs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, the Chicago newspaper noted Friday. It also highlighted that deploying National Guard troops in the city could cost taxpayers nearly $1.6 million per day, according to the nonpartisan National Priorities Project.
The looming threat of stepped-up ICE action in Chicago is already having an impact: Organizers have canceled a Mexican Independence Day festival planned for September 13-14 in Grant Park, explaining that "it was a painful decision, but holding El Grito Chicago at this time puts the safety of our community at stake—and that's a risk we are unwilling to take."
Community organizers and the Little Village Chamber of Commerce announced Friday that for now, the 54th annual 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade is still scheduled for September 14—a decision that was met with cheers from residents, according to WGN. One parade organizer said, "Our existence is our resistance."
The expected federal operation in Chicago has provoked protests. As part of the national "Workers Over Billionaires" marches on Monday, which was Labor Day, Chicagoans carried signs and chanted about their opposition to the deployment of National Guard troops and immigration agents.
On Friday, "demonstrators gathered on overpasses by I-94 in Wilmette and Evanston, holding up signs and flags calling out ICE's bolstered presence in the area," ABC7 reported. Protesters also descended a facility in suburban Broadview, "demonstrating against the planned use of the location as the main processing hub for those detained by ICE as a part of their upcoming operation."
Critics of Trump's attacks on Chicago and other Democrat-led cities have also pushed back against his lies about crime rates and called out his cuts to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).
"Why did Trump cut $468 million from ATF's budget in his nasty, signature bill? Why did he cut funding for the agency responsible for getting guns off our streets by 29%? Why did he cut 1,465 positions from an agency that is so critical to reducing gun violence?" Chicago's mayor said Tuesday. "They cut funding from the agency that is actually stopping gun traffickers so that they could increase funding for ICE and Border Patrol."
Although at least eight people were killed and 50 others were wounded in Labor Day weekend shootings, data from the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation show that the city is not the "murder capital of the world," as Trump has claimed.
On Friday, the Gun Violence Prevention PAC (G-PAC) of Illinois joined with the national groups Brady, GIFFORDS, and March for Our Lives to call for federal reform and restoration of funding to address shootings in Chicago rather than the deployment of the National Guard.
"Chicago's gun violence problem is directly related to the availability of illegal guns on our streets," said Kathleen Sances, president and CEO of G-PAC. "Illinois has made significant progress in passing commonsense gun laws with the help of GIFFORDS, Brady, and March for Our Lives, and these reforms have helped prevent access to illegal weapons."
"These efforts have contributed to Chicago's reduced crime rates, with the city recently experiencing the fewest summer murders in 60 years," Sances added. "But without meaningful reform at the federal level, guns will continue to cross into our state, and violence will persist. If the White House wants to get serious about violence, it can start by supporting gun safety efforts instead of the gun lobby."
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Texas AG Paxton Files 'Baseless' Lawsuit to Unseat 13 Democratic State Lawmakers
"This seat doesn't belong to him or me—it belongs to the people," one targeted legislator defiantly declared.
Aug 08, 2025
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday sued former Congressman Beto O'Rourke and his political action committee in what critics called a "baseless" bid to oust 13 Democratic lawmakers who left the state in an effort to thwart a GOP gerrymandering scheme.
Paxton's office claimed that O'Rourke, a Democrat, and his Powered by People PAC illegally solicited donations to cover personal expenses for Democratic state legislators who fled Texas in an effort to block a Republican plan to rig the state's congressional map at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Paxton is seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction to stop O'Rourke and Powered by People from raising or distributing funds to support the more than 50 Democratic lawmakers who left Texas. The attorney general argued that 13 state legislative seats "have been vacated due to continued unlawful absences."
"Democrat runaways are likely accepting Beto Bribes to underwrite their jet-setting sideshow in far-flung places and misleadingly raising political funds to pay for personal expenses," Paxton alleged in a statement. "This out-of-state, cowardly cabal is abandoning their constitutional duties. I will not allow failed political has-beens to buy off Texas elected officials."
This, after Paxton and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-83) asked an Illinois court to enforce civil arrest warrants issued Monday in a bid to compel Democratic state legislators to return to Austin to vote on the legislation. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) also enlisted the FBI's assistance to track down and arrest the absconding Democrats.
O'Rourke said Friday that Powered by People filed a retaliatory lawsuit accusing Paxton of using "the power of the state of Texas to try and intimidate Mr. O'Rourke from challenging defendant in a free and fair election."
"The guy impeached for bribery is going after the folks trying to stop the theft of five congressional seats," O'Rourke told KVUE. "Let's stop these thugs before they steal our country."
Targeted Democratic lawmakers also waxed defiant, backed by officials in the states to which they fled including Illinois, where Gov. JB Pritzer asserted that "there literally is no federal law applicable to this situation."
Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D-50) said on social media that "Ken Paxton just filed a lawsuit to remove me from office. But this seat doesn't belong to him or me—it belongs to the people."
Advocacy groups also denounced Paxton's lawsuit, with Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, contending that the attorney general and Texas Republicans "are so desperate to pass their partisan redistricting scheme that they're launching a baseless legal assault to unseat democratically elected lawmakers."
"It's just the latest threat against lawmakers who refuse to carry out Trump's demands and rig congressional maps to bank five new Republican congressional districts," Edkins added. "The courts shouldn't entertain this undemocratic attack for even one second."
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