The veil has finally been lifted on the full extent of the federal immigration enforcement efforts in the Chicago area, revealing a striking narrative. For the first time, the public is privy to comprehensive data on the number of individuals apprehended by federal immigration agents during last fall’s enforcement surge.
This revelation comes courtesy of government data released through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The data highlights a significant number of individuals who were swiftly taken into custody and deported, including a child as young as two years old. The figures paint a stark picture of the intense period when the enforcement surge was underway.
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Rewind to last fall, when Chicago streets were bustling not just with daily life, but also with federal officers. This heightened enforcement operation, dramatically dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” sent ripples of anxiety through communities across the city and its suburbs. The actions of agents working under the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) umbrella resulted in hundreds of arrests, a fact now brought to light by the investigative efforts of the ABC7 I-Team.
During the outset of President Donald Trump’s second term, immigration arrests in Illinois were relatively steady, tallying between 150 to 300 each month. However, the landscape shifted dramatically with the onset of Operation Midway Blitz in September. Apprehensions surged to a staggering 760 individuals in that month alone. The numbers peaked further in October, reaching 2,074, before seeing a reduction to 811 in November.
The data not only chronicles a tumultuous chapter in Chicago’s recent history but also underscores the profound impact of federal immigration policies on local communities. As the full scope of these actions comes into focus, the conversation surrounding immigration enforcement continues to evolve, marked by the human stories and statistics now emerging into the public eye.
But when Operation Midway Blitz started in September, apprehensions climbed to more than 760 people in September, then 2,074 people in October and dropping to 811 people in November.
While the number of federal agents deployed in the Chicago region dropped after November, hundreds of arrests have still occurred each month into 2026.
The I-Team’s analysis found there were more immigration apprehensions in Illinois during Midway Blitz than in the years 2023 and 2024 combined, with more than 90 percent of those detained concentrated in and around Chicago.
The government data analyzed by the I-Team was provided to a group of researchers calling themselves the Deportation Data Project after the group filed a lawsuit over an ignored FOIA request submitted to ICE.
President Trump and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) repeatedly told the public these enforcement operations were to find and remove the “worst of the worst.”
According to the newly released data, 58% of those apprehended last fall had no criminal history whatsoever, while 23% had pending misdemeanor or felony charges, and 18% had prior misdemeanor or felony convictions.
The data shows more than half of the people detained by federal immigration agents have already been deported.
Last week, the I-Team shared the story of one man named Victor who was arrested and deported to Honduras, who is now back home in Chicago after filing a petition in federal court seeking due process.
“It was a terrible feeling,” Victor said, not knowing whether he would see his wife or American-born children again. “It was very anguishing.”
Victor is among the few who’ve come back, but more than 2,400 people have already been deported. More than half of those people had no criminal history, the data shows.
The I-Team is also learning for the first time how many children were apprehended by agents during this time frame: 162 people under the age of 18 were arrested in Illinois since the Blitz began.
The youngest was two years old, and “voluntarily left” the country, according to the ICE records.
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