The Justice Department announced Sunday it has launched a multi-agency immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, as the Trump administration seeks to show it is quickly fulfilling a campaign promise to ramp up arrests and deportations.
Officials said numerous law enforcement agencies will conduct such operations in the coming days. The Justice Department announced that Acting Deputy Attorney General Emile Bove has traveled to Chicago to oversee efforts to address what he called a “national emergency.”
The Trump administration has enlisted various law enforcement agencies within the Justice Department — the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals Service — to assist with the operation in Chicago and elsewhere.
The scale of Sunday’s arrests in Chicago and elsewhere was unclear. Local officials in Chicago said they were not involved in the operation. In some communities, residents said there was concern but also confusion about how the announced immigration operations would proceed.
Boff said in a written statement that he witnessed agents from the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security deployed in lockstep “to address a national emergency stemming from four years of failed immigration policy.” He added that the Justice Department was working to “secure the border, stop this intrusion and make America safe again.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that the federal agency has begun “increased targeted operations” in Chicago to “enforce U.S. immigration laws and safeguard U.S. immigration laws by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.” Public safety and national security.
Mr. Boff urged local officials to assist in the effort, warning that those who did not could face consequences.
“We will support everyone involved at the federal, state and local levels in this important mission to take back our communities,” he said. “We will use every tool at our disposal to address obstruction and other illegal actions that impede our efforts to protect our homeland. obstacle.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the state will work with federal authorities to deport undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime or are awaiting deportation orders. But he stressed that state law enforcement will not engage in targeted raids or investigate people in the state who may be undocumented.
Pritzker also said there was no new legal basis for a memo Beauvais issued last week indicating the department may investigate and prosecute officials in any jurisdiction that refuses to assist in the fight against deportations. “They’re just releasing this information because they want to threaten everyone,” he said.
Officials with the governor’s office said Pritzker’s office received no advance notice of the arrest. A Chicago Police Department spokesman reiterated Sunday that in compliance with municipal regulations, the department does not record immigration status or share information with federal immigration authorities.
Chicago officials confirmed that field offices of the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration assisted in the operation.
Georgia Hampton, a 31-year-old podcast producer, said Sunday as she sat at New Wave Coffee Shop in the Logan Square neighborhood on the city’s Northwest Side as news reports about the federal action showed up, residents seemed nervous. “It feels like everyone is waiting for some message to get out,” Ms. Hampton said. “Everyone is holding their breath.”
Juan Sanchez, a 35-year-old electrician born in Chicago, said the streets in Little Village on the Southwest Side seemed particularly quiet. Even residents with legal status appeared nervous, he said.
“I can tell you, even for those of us who are citizens or have green cards, there is fear,” he said. “I’m scared myself – not that I’m going to be deported, because I was born here, but I’m worried that I might be mass-arrested.”
Immigration enforcement is a daily function of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees agencies including ICE. But the Trump administration has vowed to dedicate more Justice Department personnel to these efforts and take more aggressive action.
Several immigration advocacy groups in Illinois filed a lawsuit against ICE last week seeking to bar the agency from conducting certain immigration operations in Chicago. The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration has restricted free speech through threats of deportation and targeted Chicago over its “sanctuary city” status.
Boff was a member of Trump’s defense team in the Manhattan criminal case and now oversees much of the department’s day-to-day activities while the Senate works toward a confirmation vote on Trump’s attorney nominee, Pam Bondi. . A vote on her nomination is expected this week.
Hamid Alaiaziz, Robert Chiarito and Kim Minho Contributed reporting.
