U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate instances where U.S. citizens detained by federal immigration agents are held in FBI facilities for hours before ultimately being released.
Duckworth called on FBI director Kash Patel to end the “secret detentions” and hand over all paperwork regarding the agency’s involvement in immigration enforcement and “Operation Midway Blitz,” according to a letter shared with the Sun-Times.
The senator is also asking for all communication requests of people seeking the location of citizens detained by immigration agents, and the cost of detaining people ultimately released without charges.
“It has become the modus operandi of Federal agents operating in Chicago to abdicate responsibility for the people they snatch and deny having custody of our citizens for hours before ultimately releasing them, often without criminal charges,” Duckworth wrote in a letter addressed to Patel.
In another letter, Duckworth called on the acting inspector general at the Justice Department, Don R. Berthiaume, to assess whether the FBI’s involvement in immigration enforcement, specifically the unaccounted for detention of citizens, was legal, evaluate current policies and provide recommendations to ensure it stops happening.
“In expanding this support to include holding U.S. citizens who have been arrested without due process and, often, are later released without explanation, FBI may now be aiding and abetting criminal activity,” she added in the letter to Berthiaume.
The Department of Justice and FBI, as well as the local FBI field office, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the cases cited was that of a teen who was taken by federal agents who tear gassed protesters and Chicago police officers Oct. 14 in the East Side neighborhood.
Attorneys from the Romanucci and Blandin law firm said in a statement later that night that the boy — who is a Black and Hispanic U.S. citizen — was released after several hours in custody. The boy was held in a federal facility’s parking garage, a building they say was unaffiliated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection, for five hours “without informing his family, stating any charges, or allowing him to call an attorney,” the statement said.
An instance where federal agents detained two 22nd Ward staff members — both of whom are U.S. citizens, one of whom is a 10th Police District councilor — were also noted in the letter.
Duckworth’s previous letters to Trump administration leaders, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have gone unanswered, a spokesperson said. Those letters have demanded federal immigration agents stop arresting people simply for filming them, not use Chicago’s waterways for “partisan ends” and provide answers on the use of Naval Station Great Lakes by federal immigration agents.