Hundreds detained as part of federal immigration ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ ordered released on bond, judge says

CHICAGO (WLS) — A federal judge says he will be ordering the release on bond of up to 615 migrants arrested in the Chicago area under the Department of Homeland Security’s “Operation Midway Blitz” by Nov. 19.

Judge Jeffrey Cummings sided with attorneys representing detainees who said DHS violated a consent decree that limits the ability of federal agents to conduct warrantless arrests. The judge has ordered the Trump administration to provide information about how many of the 615 migrants represented in the lawsuit are still in the country or have criminal records.

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Migrants who have criminal records and pose a risk to the public would not be eligible for release. Those who are eligible for release could be monitored through alternative means like ankle monitors.

An American Civil Liberties Union spokesperson told ABC News that a judge ordered the release of an additional 13 migrants within the next two days who would not be placed in ankle monitors.

The consent decree is in effect until February 2026 and covers Illinois and five other neighboring states. Generally speaking (with some exceptions), under the agreement, federal immigration officials are restricted from conducting warrantless arrests unless they have reason to believe a person has committed an offense and would be likely to flee before they’re able to be detained.

In a social media post, DHS said the judge’s order puts Americans at risk.

“At every turn activist judges, sanctuary politicians, and violent rioters have actively tried to prevent our law enforcement officers from arresting and removing the worst of the worst. Now an ACTIVIST JUDGE is putting the lives of Americans directly at risk by ordering 615 illegal aliens be released into the community,” DHS said.

Last month, Judge Cummings ruled agents had violated a previously agreed-upon consent decree over warrantless arrests in the Chicago area known as the 2022 Castañon Nava settlement.

Since that ruling, attorneys on both sides of the case have been working to identify how many people arrested by immigration agents this year violated the previously agreed-upon consent decree.

Mark Fleming of the National Immigrant Justice Center believes cases like these are happening daily.

“As we’re digging into it, we are very concerned that many, if not most [of ICE arrests], are violations of our consent decree,” Fleming told the I-Team.

Fleming said so far, the list of people arrested in violation of the consent decree has grown to more than 3,000 people.

“Our initial analysis is that it’s over 3,000 arrests,” Fleming told the I-Team. “We’ve started to dig into the case file that they produced to us, and the vast majority are violations. If they did not have a prior order of removal, in almost all circumstances, they’ve been uniformly violating the consent decree.”

So far, Fleming said that ICE has produced a list of 3,800 people, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol has given a list of 1,200 people, but he stressed that there may be duplicate entries on both lists, so his team does not have a solid total figure yet. Also, those lists were only through the beginning of October, and do not include arrests in the last month.

Attorneys representing the Department of Homeland Security have argued that Congress stripped federal courts of their authority to grant parole to large groups of immigrants in ICE custody.

In their filings, government attorneys argue, “Congress has vested the authority to grant parole solely with the Secretary of Homeland Security… Federal courts cannot order the Department of Homeland Security to release any aliens on parole because Congress has stripped them of that authority.”

In their review of people arrested by agents potentially in violation of the consent decree, Fleming said more than 1,000 people are no longer in the U.S., meaning they may have been deported already after signing voluntary removal orders.

“A lot of these folks have never had any interaction with law enforcement before, nor been subject to detention, and so it’s horrifying,” Fleming explained.

Fleming continued, “What we’ve raised to the court is if you don’t provide this interim relief, there will be no one left. At the end of this, we may find thousands of violations, but there may be no one left.”

ABC News contributed to this report.