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Good afternoon, Chicago,
Today, we’re debuting a piece that has been in the works for months, “Chicago Under Siege: How Operation Midway Blitz Changed Our City.”
The interactive project is part investigation, part archive and part analysis — a permanent record of what happened in Chicago when the federal government used violence on its own people.
Building on Block Club’s on-the-ground reporting during the operation, this project identifies 16 key events from the fall’s unprecedented federal immigration enforcement action in Chicago and revisits what happened.
Our reporters spoke to more than 60 people, watched and analyzed 50 hours of video and reviewed hundreds of pages of records and court documents to bring this project to light. What emerged was that the federal government’s version of events, in ways big and small, did not match Chicagoans’ experiences.
The Department of Homeland Security said federal immigration agents would “target” the “worst of the worst,” but our reporting shows most people arrested by ICE agents did not have criminal records.
Federal officials said they were coming to Chicago to keep us safe. But neighbors and organizers said it was federal agents who made them fearful as they tear-gassed residential streets, detained U.S. citizens and killed a man.
The project is a collection of stories, video and photos you can view and share below. Thank you to our subscribers and donors, who make deep dives like this possible.
Kelly Bauer
Senior Editor |
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Federal agents arrested thousands during an unprecedented immigration mission in Chicago. They also killed a man, shot a woman five times, tear-gassed a 1-year-old, separated families and brutalized people across the city, claiming it was all to make Chicago safe. Read more here. |
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Federal immigration agents fatally shot Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop shortly after he dropped his two young sons off at school. Read more. |
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Masked agents wore military fatigues, emerging from moving trucks and rappelling from helicopters onto the roof of 7500 South Shore Drive. Read more. |
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As Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) asked agents if they had a warrant for a man brought to the ER, an agent spun her around violently, pulled her arms behind her back and handcuffed her. Read more. |
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A woman allegedly chasing Border Patrol agents — 30-year-old Marimar Martinez — was shot multiple times by an agent Oct. 4. The shooting sparked an hours-long confrontation. Read more. |
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Agents deployed at least six separate canisters of tear gas over the hour they were in Little Village, according to Block Club's analysis of video from the day. Read more and see the timeline. |
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In mid-November, Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, who had become the government's face of Operation Midway Blitz, suddenly left town. He returned briefly in mid-December. Read more. |
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What Happens Next? |
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Federal agents appeared to slow down operations in mid-November, with Border Patrol units heading to North Carolina and New Orleans. But Operation Midway Blitz is not over.
Immigration agents have continued to detain immigrants throughout the Chicago area. People are still on alert, ready to mobilize if agents return to Chicago for large-scale operations.
The Department of Homeland Security said more than 4,500 people have been arrested in the Chicago area during Operation Midway Blitz.
Hundreds of detained people are still awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit filed against the government over warrantless arrests during the Chicago operation and others across the Midwest. |
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As Operation Midway Blitz unfolded across Chicago, families watched as loved ones were taken from work sites and parking lots, laundromats and grocery stores, from side streets and sidewalks poisoned with tear gas. Parents kept their kids home from school. Workers skipped shifts. Here are some of their stories. |
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Agents violently detained Ruben Torres Maldonado, a 20-year resident of Chicago with no criminal history, in October. His daughter had just returned from more than a month of cancer treatment. Read more.
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Agents followed Diana Santillana Galeano — a day care teacher known as “Ms. Diana” at Rayito de Sol — as she drove to work, then chased her inside the building and arrested her just after 7 a.m. Nov. 5. Read more.
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A, a Chicago-area woman whose brother was detained by agents, has worked tirelessly to bring home J. She is one of four undocumented siblings who came to the U.S. over 20 years ago. Read more.
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Almost two months after his detention, Rey Estrada — a father of three who’s lived in Chicago for nearly 15 years — has been granted bond and is home. His son asked Santa for his father for Christmas. Read more.
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The ICE facility in suburban Broadview became a hub for Chicago’s resistance to the immigration operation, with crowds of protesters growing larger and the federal response growing more violent in the weeks after the operation began.
Federal agents regularly shot rubber bullets and pepper-spray balls at unarmed protesters. They used tear gas and other chemical weapons to the point that Broadview leaders begged for relief, saying agents’ chemical weapons were endangering neighbors and local police officers and firefighters.
Block Club asked protesters: What sticks in your mind from Broadview? |
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Morsa Narvaez: “There was this 15- or 16-year-old kid that came to drop off the belongings of his father. ... He gives a suitcase of the belongings of his father to the agent at the door, but the agent that was on the roof shot at him with pepper balls as he's running away. That was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen."
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Levi Rolles: “I see two SUVs rolling around the side and six guys jump out. One of our friends just runs down to try to get away. It's like they jumped him out of nowhere. I turn around and see 15 guys running in military fatigues after this guy. … I’m trying to get over there, but they already got him by the time I caught up.”
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Demi Palecek: “I think of the kids coming here looking for their parents, just holding on to each other, so scared. You’d see that every night. All the time. That sticks with me, and I think about that often, because we don't know where their families are.”
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Rev. Quincy Worthington: “There’s a lot that’s still with me, but I think it was the first night they used flash bangs, tons of them. And there was smoke in chaos. It's been three months, but that’s the thing, it feels like it's been three years.”
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A’Keisha Lee: “For me, it was when [agents] were literally pressing us against the van. We’re trying to encourage each other to hold the line while we're getting pushed in. Guns are drawn. It seared into my mind, what the cost of this is, right? Because we didn't stop the van, and those folks are gone.”
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More from Broadview: On Oct. 29, the Justice Department announced it had slapped six protesters, including someone running for Congress, with federal conspiracy charges over protests outside the ICE facility in Broadview in September. Five of the six people indicted are involved in politics. Read more.
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Block Club Chicago has written more than 260 stories about Operation Midway Blitz.
For more than three months, our nonprofit newsroom prioritized breaking news stories on federal immigration arrests, tear-gassings and other need-to-know information from the ground. We developed know-your-rights guides, revealing investigations and explained how court orders affected Chicagoans. And above all, we showed readers the truth.
The events we've featured do not cover all of Midway Blitz, but we feel they are illustrative of the time: the fear people lived in, the ways they sought to organize and resist, the heartbreak they experienced.
Learn more about the project and our coverage. |
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Lead reporter Francia García Hernández came from Mexico to Chicago seeking opportunity. She explains how her experiences as an immigrant inform her coverage of Midway Blitz. Read more. |
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Join Block Club for The Impact of Immigration: A Night of Storytelling in Little Village on Jan. 20. This free event will feature a panel of speakers directly affected by immigration raids. Learn more. |
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Story by Francia García Hernández, Madison Savedra and the Block Club Chicago staff. Mina Bloom, Molly DeVore, Maxwell Evans, Patrick Filbin, Alex V. Hernandez, Mack Liederman, Melody Mercado, Ariel Parrella-Aureli and freelancer Charles Thrush contributed reporting.
Photos in this newsletter by Colin Boyle, César Cabrera/UnoTV, Daniel Delgado, Molly DeVore, Mustafa Hussain, Vincent D. Johnson, Matthew Kaplan, Audrey Richardson, Reema Saleh, Talia Sprague and Jim Vondruska. Other images in this newsletter were provided.
Editing by Kelly Bauer, Mick Dumke, Janet Rausa Fuller, Gwen Ihnat, Stephanie Lulay, Stephen Montemayor, Crystal Paul, Jen Sabella and Joe Ward.
Social media planning by Melissa España and Riley Moulton.
Newsletter by Hannah Boufford. |
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Thanks for supporting Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Click here to support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation. Subscribe here. |
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