Fifty-six days have passed since U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino announced on social media, “Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived!”
Since then, it’s been eight weeks of chaos and fear. Of downtown patrols and boat tours. Of tear gas and pepperballs, even while children played and pastors prayed. Of defiance and violence and a hunt for “the worst of the worst” and several use-of-force incidents that a judge said “shocks the conscience.”
Now Bovino and many of his agents are expected to leave Chicago, signaling a downshift in the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz.” That is, at least, while winter descends on the city. But the federal presence could return four-fold in the spring.
That’s all according to three law enforcement sources in contact with the Chicago Sun-Times. Two said a key command post is shutting down. One of the two said Bovino could leave town as soon as Tuesday. And the third, with Homeland Security, said 1,000 agents could come back and hit the streets in March.
That’s four times the roughly 250 who have been in town for the last few months.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin insisted on social media Tuesday that “we aren’t leaving Chicago.” During a Fox News appearance, an anchor mentioned the possibility of Bovino leaving town, and McLaughlin said, “we are here to stay.”
“The Chicago people demand it,” she said.
A Homeland Security spokesperson told the Sun-Times on Monday that “we do not comment or telegraph future operations.”
Meanwhile, Bovino and several immigration agents posed for a photo Monday in front of the snow-capped Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park known as “The Bean.” Block Club Chicago reported one agent yelled “Everyone say, ‘Little Village.’”
But the rarely press-shy commander had not been spotted in Chicago on Tuesday, despite challenging Gov. JB Pritzker on social media to “join us in Little Village.”
It’s all likely to leave wary Chicagoans wondering what to believe — and what’s next.
Immigration enforcement has been a key pillar of President Donald Trump’s second term, and the feds are unlikely to back down. The DHS source said about 100 agents will remain behind, buttressing McLaughlin’s claim.
It’s not clear how those agents will be divided among Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pritzker welcomed the feds’ potential scale-down and called Bovino “a snowflake” who couldn’t handle the colder temperatures. Speaking in Little Village, Pritzker warned, “I would not say that we’re now going to be free of these terrorized neighborhoods.”
“We’ll have to continue to protect our neighbors and our friends and our families,” the Democratic governor said, “and I will work very hard to continue to do that to keep people safe.”
Pritzker suggested Bovino’s crew would head next to New Orleans or Charlotte, North Carolina. Pritzker spoke with North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, another Democrat, last week, according to a source with the governor’s office.
Even before “Operation Midway Blitz” launched in September, criminal cases tied to immigration had begun to creep up at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. Now immigration officials have reported more than 3,000 arrests as part of the campaign, but admitted only a little more than half of them were arrested in Chicago. Of those, they’ve identified about 75 people, labeling them the “worst of the worst” offenders.
The arrests and detentions have left many Chicago families fractured. And neighborhoods are still reeling from the aggressive use of force by federal agents, including the use of tear gas, often in residential neighborhoods. Bovino and others say it was all done by the book, and deployed to fend off threats in the streets.
But U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said it “shocks the conscience.” She decried the use of tear gas, including in Old Irving Park while children were on their way to a Halloween parade.
“These kids, you can imagine, their sense of safety was shattered,” Ellis said. “… And it’s gonna take a long time for that to come back, if ever.”
Leaders in the Little Village neighborhood, also the site of several heated confrontations and tear-gas deployment, cheered Bovino’s potential departure.
“Only God has the right, sir, to destroy families,” said Pastor Julie Contreras of United Giving Hope. “Your hate and racism has no place in the United States of America.”
Trust in federal law enforcement has certainly been damaged in the last eight weeks. Ellis and U.S. District Judge April Perry found, in separate rulings, that the Trump administration lacked credibility. Perry did so while blocking Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops, a move he purportedly made to protect federal personnel and facilities.
The Trump administration is challenging both rulings in higher courts, calling Ellis an “activist judge” and arguing that Perry’s order put federal officers’ lives at risk.
Ellis handed down a sweeping order only days ago that restricts the feds’ use of force against protesters and observers. She did so in a case brought by media organizations like the Chicago Headline Club, Block Club Chicago and the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which represents journalists at the Chicago Sun-Times.
The judge also told Bovino to use a body-worn camera — a requirement Bovino might free himself of by moving to another state.
Similar litigation prompted by “Midway Blitz” will continue at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, well after Bovino’s departure. Trials for people arrested in connection with the campaign are set to begin in the coming months, with defense attorneys pressing to move quickly.
Prominent examples include a man who allegedly hit an agent’s arm during a protest outside an ICE facility, a woman shot by a Border Patrol agent in Brighton Park who allegedly sideswiped the agent’s car, and an alleged Latin King who prosecutors say put a $10,000 bounty on Bovino.
Six people charged with conspiring to impede an officer outside of ICE’s holding facility in Broadview are also set to be arraigned Wednesday.
Regular barbs will also likely continue between Pritzker and the Trump administration. Bovino’s mission here gave Pritzker yet another national spotlight, with many crediting him for leading a resistance. Pritzker has vowed to stand up for immigrants in Chicago, and he denied that Bovino and company were actually tracking down “the worst of the worst.”
Illinois’ primary is set for March 17, meaning an influx of federal agents could return just in time for Chicago residents to go vote. Referring to Trump’s ongoing threat to send in the National Guard, Pritzker has long said the president wants “troops on the ground to stop people from voting, to intimidate them from going to the voting booth.”
“So take note,” Pritzker said in August, “that is what this is all about.”
Contributing: Mitchell Armentrout, Cindy Hernandez and Tom Schuba
Neither the reporters nor editors who worked on this story — including some represented by the Newspaper Guild — have been involved in the lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis described in this article.
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