Feds secure Naval Station Great Lakes for Chicago immigration blitz: sources

The Department of Defense has secured Naval Station Great Lakes for an immigration blitz in Chicago starting next week, two sources familiar with base operations confirmed to the Sun-Times on Saturday night.

Base staff were told the facility would be providing “support” in the form of office space for a command center as well as parking space and portable laundry units, one source told the Sun-Times. However, the agents won’t be staying at the base.

The initial plan detailed in an email obtained by the Sun-Times would bring federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to the Navy’s largest training station and the largest military installation in the state near North Chicago.

Per the plan in the previously reported email to base leadership, federal agents would be given control of Building 617, which houses the Navy College Learning Center and the Morale, Welfare and Recreation Library. The operation would last Sept. 2-30.

The three federal agencies, the White House and the Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment and questions about where agents would be staying.

It comes the same day as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order aiming to protect the Chicago Police Department from being federalized, another know-your rights initiative centered around federal agents and the National Guard and suggestions for federal agents to follow municipal code around policing — under threat of lawsuit from Johnson.

President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, on Thursday confirmed a ramped-up post-Labor Day deportation campaign was in the works for Chicago with a “large contingent” of agents, though Homan didn’t specify how many.

“Operations are ramping up across the country. But you can see a ramp-up across the operations in Chicago, absolutely,” Homan told reporters outside the White House on Thursday about plans for the campaign after the holiday.