Sailors have a saying: “After the storm always comes the calm.” That happened following last fall’s immigration blitzkrieg in the region.
Scouring Lake County on the lookout for undocumented residents as part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” which began in September, federal agents who once flooded the area seemed to hibernate in November after they apparently fulfilled their quotas. Especially after increasing calls for defunding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, when two people were fatally shot by agents in Minneapolis.
For a while, it appeared as if the federal agency had disappeared from the radar, considering President Donald Trump replaced several high-ranking leaders of ICE and its cousin, the U.S. Border Patrol, along with the umbrella Department of Homeland Security. That left some of the nation’s estimated 12 million undocumented breathing a temporary sigh of relief.
But like pesky flies waiting for warm weather to hatch and swarm across the land, federal agents again are on the prowl for the undocumented. The last weeks have seen reports of them riding in unmarked SUVs in Lake Bluff, North Chicago, Round Lake Beach and Waukegan, ready to snatch.
The continued aim is arresting residents not in the U.S. legally, according to a front-page account in The News-Sun of May 16, which details ICE and Department of Homeland Security agents at area restaurants and warehouse districts. Steve Sadin reported that included in the latest roundups in Waukegan was a 30-year-old Honduran national who had been charged by city police last year with drug possession after previously being deported in 2019 and 2020.
He is one of 33,500 aliens detained in the Chicago region so far this year, according to DeportationTracker, a website which monitors immigration enforcement across the U.S. Immigration service groups acknowledge it was only a matter of time before immigration crackdowns returned to Lake County.
No one argues that the Honduran with a criminal record shouldn’t have been picked up and sent to the infamous ICE holding facility in Broadview, the western suburb in Cook County, which last fall was the target of numerous protests by anti-immigration demonstrators. Those rallies led to the arrests of the so-called “Broadview 6,” whose felony conspiracy cases were dropped by federal prosecutors this month.
Criminals here illegally should be sent packing. Even Democrats like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker believe that and have said so.
Yet a Washington Post analysis of ICE data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit shows that people with no criminal record still make up the largest share of those detained for deportation. The Post determined that nationwide, ICE averaged about 7,000 arrests a week in the six weeks since nurse Alex Pretti was shot and killed Jan. 24 in Minneapolis.
That was down from 9,000 earlier in January. In all, though, 42% of those detained in the six weeks after Pretti’s death had no criminal record, the Post reported.
As of early April, about 70% of those held in ICE detention centers across the country — 42,722 out of 60,311– had no criminal conviction on record, according to national analyses. That does not square with Trump administration claims of reasons for the captures: Getting rid of the bad and criminal undocumented eggs.
Which is why many Americans have begun to tire of the sieges in their communities. While still here illegally, those without criminal records are contributing to the U.S. melting pot.
Supporters of immigration services have emphasized that, regardless of immigration status, residents still retain legal rights, including proof of agents being armed with warrants from a judge for those they are searching. The groups also maintain rapid-response units to monitor where immigration agents are operating.
A network of such groups ranges from Chicago and Cook County’s southern suburbs north to Lake County and west to DuPage and Kane counties. The rapid-response teams roam whenever reports of DHS forays are in their vicinity.
It’s one way to keep on top of the sweeps made by federal agents lurking in the county for unsuspecting undocumented residents. It also must burn ICE agents to know they are being watched as they complete their lawful tasks.
For those here illegally, they may be switching that sailing adage about the calm after the storm. They will be in the eye of the storm this summer.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. sellenews@gmail.com. X @sellenews
