The situation has compounded the nervousness of communities that were already fearful of large-scale arrests or aggressive tactics used in other target cities of President Donald Trump.
Those tactics have not yet been seen in the country’s third-largest city or its surroundings, but activists report an increase in arrests in Chicago’s neighborhoods and suburbs with high concentrations of immigrants.
Immigration agents are focused on isolated traffic controls, and their presence in local courts has increased.
“We definitely feel that the intensified operations are already here,” said Lawrence Benito, director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
The Trump administration has said it would send a large number of immigration agents and National Guard troops to Chicago, despite fierce objections from local leaders and residents.
But Trump appears to have changed his mind about sending a military force to Chicago. Last week, he said he would deploy the National Guard to more cooperative locations, but on Monday, he again raised Chicago as the next possibility.
Adding to the confusion was a new Department of Homeland Security campaign announced last week that would focus on sanctuary policies around Chicago.
DHS officials have not said whether what they have called Operation Midway Blitz is part of Trump’s promised federal intervention.
The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, who has opposed any federal intervention, told reporters Monday that it was clear that immigration operations were intensifying around Chicago.
The ICE has been gathering its agents. “I think it took them longer than they expected,” he said. I suppose they now have more people on the ground and will carry out their plans to a greater extent.
Calls to the emergency line to report sightings of immigration agents have increased in the past week. On a recent day, the count exceeded 500, though calls included repeated information, erroneous reports, and anti-immigrant harassment.
Pro-immigration activists denounced more aggressive tactics, with masked and armed officers, some dressed in military-style camouflage.
Many immigrant communities were already nervous, and fears were revived last week after a federal agent shot dead a man who was allegedly evading his arrest.
Activists say most of the arrests have occurred in traffic controls carried out by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These include Mondays, when there was a strong ICE presence in the suburb of West Chicago, about 72 kilometers from Chicago.
Illinois state senator Karina Villa cited more than 15 arrests in the community of about 25,000, with a high presence of immigrants, where about half the population is Latino. Most occurred during the traffic control of a van, he said.
Other arrests took place at a grocery store, an apartment complex, and a city street.
Villa had no details on what motivated the controls or the circumstances of the arrests.
The frantic activity led Villa, a West Chicago Democrat, to follow ICE vehicles on Monday and broadcast live on Facebook.
In one video, he is seen walking through a busy intersection, while an SUV turns on police lights and another walks away.
Not in my city. “Not in my city,” he told the drivers.
Department of Homeland Security officials did not respond Monday to questions about the arrests in Chicago and referred to a press release last week on Operation Midway Blitz, which has resulted in 13 arrests.
However, at least three people were arrested outside the state in Indiana and Kentucky, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
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