U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Sunday that it has launched coordinated "targeted operations" in Chicago, in partnership with several federal agencies, to enforce immigration laws and "preserve public safety and national security."
Newsweek has reached out to the Chicago mayor's communications director, ICE, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment via email on Sunday. Newsweek also filed out an online media form with the U.S. Justice Department.
Why It Matters
President Donald Trump ran his presidential campaign on a promise of mass deportations and stricter border policies. Trump's border czar Tom Homan promised an increase in ICE activity as soon as the president returned to the White House.
In regard to mass deportations, a New York Times/Ipsos poll, carried out from January 2 to 10, found 55 percent of voters strongly or somewhat supported such plans. Eighty-eight percent supported "Deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have criminal records." Large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans agreed that the immigration system is broken.
Almost a week since Trump's return to office, ICE has been granted expanded authority as the administration reversed a long-standing policy that barred agents from conducting raids at sensitive locations, including churches, hospitals, and schools.
What To Know
ICE raids have been confirmed in multiple states across the country since Trump took office, including in Minnesota, California, Colorado, and most recently, Illinois.
On Saturday night, at a rally in Las Vegas, Trump provided an update on ICE activities, saying: "Throughout this week, the heroes of ICE have been hunting down and arresting hundreds of illegal alien criminals. And its immediate expulsion, including those with charges of convictions for rape, child sexual assault, terrorism, and even murder."
In a statement Sunday, ICE said an interdepartmental collaboration involving the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Marshals Service had commenced "enhanced targeted operations today in Chicago to enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities."
The interagency collaboration comes three days after acting-DHS Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a directive to grant officials in those department the "authority to investigate and apprehend illegal aliens," per the DHS website.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove and Homan are in Chicago today to oversee the immigration enforcement operations.
"We will support everyone at the federal, state, and local levels who joins this critical mission to take back our communities," Bove said in a statement to the Associated Press. "We will use all available tools to address obstruction and other unlawful impediments to our efforts to protect the homeland. Most importantly, we will not rest until the work is done," he said.
It is not known how many people were taken into ICE custody on Sunday.
Also in Trump's first few days of office, the president signed an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. However, a federal judge has temporarily blocked the order.
Birthright citizenship is the legal right of individuals born in a country to acquire citizenship regardless of their parents' nationality or legal status.
The Constitution states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil, a principle affirmed by the Supreme Court in the landmark 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark. In this ruling, the Court established that a man born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was entitled to U.S. citizenship, creating a precedent that has influenced immigration law ever since.
What People Are Saying
Vice President JD Vance said during a CBS News Face the Nation appearance on Sunday: "We're going to enforce immigration law, we're going to protect the American people, Donald Trump promised to do that."
He added, regarding the updated order allowing ICE to enter sensitive spaces, "We empowered law enforcement to enforce the law...I desperately hope it has a chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming into our country."
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said on an appearance on CNN's State of the Union Sunday: "If that's who [violent criminals] they're picking up, we're all for it...[but] They're going after people who are law-abiding, who are holding down jobs, who have families here, who may have been here for a decade or two decades. Why are we going after them? These are not people who are causing problems in our country."
The Lincoln Project, a conservative group that criticizes Trump, wrote in a Saturday post on X, formerly Twitter: "Trump ordered MAGA in Congress to kill the border bill because he never wanted to solve the immigration crisis, he wanted a spectacle. ICE raids and mass deportations send a very clear and hateful message he concocted from the start."
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson wrote in a Friday statement: "We understand that many are rightfully feeling scared at the moment. Chicago remains a Welcoming City, dedicated to protecting every resident."
What Happens Next
Various immigration raids are expected to take place across the country over the next few weeks.
The Washington Post reported that ICE officials have been "directed by Trump officials to aggressively ramp up the number of people they arrest, from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500."
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