After weeks of vowing to deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, the Trump administration said on Monday (September 8, 2025) it had launched a deportation crackdown in Illinois targeting hardened criminals among immigrants in the U.S. without legal status.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an online statement that "Operation Midway Blitz" was being conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, but details about its scope and nature were not immediately made clear.
It remained to be seen whether President Donald Trump would send National Guard soldiers into Chicago to accompany ICE and other federal law enforcement officers, as he has in and around Los Angeles and the District of Columbia.
‘We’re going in’, says Trump on federal intervention in Chicago and Baltimore despite local opposition
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, each said their offices had received no official notice from federal authorities about the operation, which they decried as a political stunt designed to intimidate.
