Federal Agents Blitz Chicago

Nov 10, 2025

Since “Operation Midway Blitz” began in September, masked federal agents have terrorized immigrants and citizens alike across Chicago and its suburbs. Agents have smashed car windows, beaten up protestors or people just recording, pointed guns at unarmed people on the streets or in their cars, and tear-gassed hundreds of people, including cops and a priest shot in the head with a pepper ball from close range.

This “Operation” has been justified by one lie after another.

Homeland Security boss Kristi Noem claimed no U.S. citizens have been detained during the operation. That’s an outright lie—dozens have been arrested, beaten up, interrogated on the streets.

Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino was caught lying about getting hit in the head by a rock before tossing a tear gas canister into a protesting crowd.

The biggest lie of all is the claim that this operation targets “the worst of the worst.” Far from targeting criminals, they’ve grabbed street vendors, workers at Home Depot, families in parks, a daycare worker in her place of work. They broke through a fence to arrest workers doing repairs. In other words, they are targeting ordinary working class people.

In fact, much of this Operation is a show, made for right-wing social media. Homeland Security has released video after video, with lying captions and voice-overs about who they’re targeting, all celebrating these agents’ brutality.

On the other side, the Democrats who run Chicago have been putting on their own show. The mayor and governor have given many tasty sound bites calling out the Trump administration. The Democrats have called for probes into agents’ tactics. A few city council members have gotten into highly visible confrontations. And Democrats have sued to restrict what these agents can do, though to little effect even when they win, since these agents just ignore court orders.

But the state forces that the Democrats actually control have been cooperating with and even protecting this operation.

Chicago and suburban police, state police, Cook County sheriffs—all are controlled by Democrats. Yet not one ICE or Border Patrol agent has been arrested for the numerous and obvious cases of assault or property damage.

ICE agents have been videotaped driving with no license plates—none have been pulled over or ticketed.

State police and county sheriffs guard the ICE processing facility where detainees are taken and housed, often for many days, in filthy conditions with no beds and no hot food. When a ring of suburban women protestors blocked the entrance to this facility, Cook County sheriffs arrested them.

But while the Democrats’ opposition has amounted to little more than a show, that doesn’t mean these operations are being carried out with impunity. Increasingly, wherever agents have appeared in the city or the suburbs, people have followed them, honking horns, blowing whistles, alerting anyone without papers to stay away. Crowds surround agents almost wherever they appear, shouting at them, sometimes throwing things at them. One woman reported that while she was in their vehicle after agents grabbed her off the street, the agents complained that they couldn’t find anywhere to go where they wouldn’t be followed and shouted at.

This operation is designed to divide the working class, to set those born here against immigrants. But workers can draw a different lesson. For all its power, the state apparatus can be confronted, not by the Democrats, but by the mobilized population itself.