Federal agents recently detained at least three U.S. citizens amid President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign in Chicago, according to lawyers mounting the most significant court challenge yet to the president’s “Operation Midway Blitz.”
The arrests are detailed in a new federal court filing from the National Immigrant Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, arguing that ICE arrested 27 people without warrants or probable cause and in violation of an existing consent decree.
The filing describes how one person getting ready for work in Elgin allegedly “saw red lasers all over the kitchen and the front door” before an explosion suddenly rang out, signaling the start of a raid. Another arrest was allegedly documented in part by a 14-year-old recording from the backseat of a car.
“Together, the violations we describe in our court filing paint a picture of increasingly violent and dangerous arrests by DHS and other federal officers who show no regard for people’s safety or constitutional rights,” said Mark Fleming, an attorney with the NIJC, in a statement.
“We urgently need the court to hold the Trump administration accountable for the fear, family separation, and physical harm these arrests are causing,” Fleming continued.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings has scheduled a Friday hearing.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem recently defended ICE agents online as “heroes.”
The arrests in question happened in Chicago, Woodridge, Palatine, Arlington Heights, Naperville, Mount Prospect, Berwyn and Elgin. At least three of the arrests happened around the Home Depot in suburban Cicero.
The legal action stems from a 2022 federal court settlement that required ICE to adopt a nationwide policy on arrests of people without warrants. As part of the settlement, ICE is not allowed to make warrantless arrests in the Chicago area unless officials believe the person is in the country unlawfully and have reason to believe that the person would flee before a warrant is secured.
The settlement stems from a 2018 class-action lawsuit challenging ICE agents’ use of traffic stops and other tactics to make warrantless, unlawful arrests.
The original consent decree expired in May, and the two civil rights groups filed a motion to extend it for three years in March, noting over two dozen violations during the first weeks of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The court has yet to issue a final ruling on the motions. In the meantime, the attorneys said ICE has dropped the policy despite the court’s order that it remain in place as the motion proceeds.
U.S. citizens, caregiver arrested in Elgin
Noem touted on social media a raid Sept. 16, at an Elgin home, but the court filing alleges that, too, was an example of unlawful arrests.
Federal agents arrived at the neighborhood in armored vehicles, used flash-bang grenades and broke through the front door during the raid, according to the filing and news reports.
The seven people arrested during the raid included two U.S. citizens who were later let go. The attorneys said those taken by federal agents include a person who previously had a stroke who is severely impaired and cannot speak and his primary caregiver. The agents did not present an arrest warrant, nor did they ask about community ties or risk of flight, according to the filing.
The attorneys also said federal agents made an unlawful arrest of another U.S. citizen and middle school special education teacher in early September. The person was escorted out of his car and handcuffed, and officers said it was a “case of mistaken identity” after they confirmed his citizenship status.
Others targeted by the unlawful arrests also include a father and son near a Home Depot in their work vehicles, a young mother watching her son playing soccer at a park, parents of U.S. citizens, and a father driving his family to Sunday church, the filing said.
“My father came here to give us a future. He isn’t a bad person. Now he’s been inside an immigrant detention center for a month and a half,” said the son of a father of four U.S. citizens, who was arrested near the family’s home in Woodridge, in a statement.
The father was arrested in August on his way to a post-surgery doctor’s appointment, according to the filing. He is an asylum applicant and has a valid work permit.
The attorneys said in the filing that apart from the 27 people included, they have more than 70 additional referrals to look into for potential violations.
Fleming, the NIJC lawyer, said the groups urgently need guidance from the court regarding whether the consent agreement will be extended and enforced amid the Trump administration’s deportation ramp-up in the Chicago area.
“This escalating enforcement with incredible violence, between the Elgin raid and a number of others where we have seen agents come in with disproportionate force, both physically, but also in the types of weapons that they’re carrying, the way that they treat people in these encounters — it’s an important marker for the court to step in and reassert the rule of law,” Fleming said Friday in an interview with WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times.