Federal agents dived into Black Hawk Helicopter apartments in the recent attack. Hundreds of people masked on the truck arrived.
Immigration attack Net 37 Arrested on Chicago Southside Tren de Aragua
Federal agents carried out an immigration raid on Chicago early Tuesday, detaining at least 37 undocumented immigrants in areas known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua gang members.
Fox-32 Chicago
Chicago – Federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter. We arrived at a moving truck, a hidden face behind the mask. In total, 300 officers stormed the buildings of their apartments on the south side, and Homeland Security officials say the port had criminals.
An agency spokesman said the early September 30th raid was intended to capture members of Tren de Aragua, which Venezuelan gangster Donald Trump, designated as a terrorist organization. Hundreds of agents flocked to apartments in multi-storey buildings, detaining several Americans, including children, for hours, detaining a total of 37 arrests. The outcome of these arrests remains unknown.
The extraordinary attack came almost a month to crack down on White House immigration enforcement in the Chicago area known as Operation Midway Blitz. Federal officials said they have won more than 800 arrests since September 8th.
“Continued target enforcement in Chicago shows that criminals have nowhere to hide,” US Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks said in the X-Post. “It’s not our borders, it’s not our city.”
Overnight apartment building raid
The Trump administration has pledged a flood city run by federal agents and Democrats as part of a nationwide crackdown on immigration. Federal officials are targeting so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions that restrict cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Chicago’s Sun Times and News Nations were one of the first to report on the attack in the city’s South Shore area. Historically, black regions have gained a significant Venezuelan population after Texas Governor Greg Abbott made tens of thousands of immigrants buses from the border to the democratic city in 2023.
Video of the attack, shared online by the Department of Homeland Security, shows Border Patrol agents depicting guns approaching the building late at night. The agent led the shirtless man out.
Photos shared with USA Today show that dozens of people were arrested in the attack, leaving the building in a hellish setting. Two “Tren de Aragua members” have been captured, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
“Federal law enforcement officials can’t wait for and will not allow criminal activity to flourish in our American neighborhoods,” Homeland Security said in a statement. According to the agency, the ones who were captured in particular were “suspecting” Tren de Aragua members. Six people with criminal records ranging from worsening batteries to possession of marijuana. And the two were “suspected of being involved in the shooting investigation.”
The children of four U.S. citizens with local arrest warrants and immigrants were also caught up in the attack, Homeland Security reported. The children were detained to “care for a safe guardian or state,” the agency said.
The Sun Times in Chicago reported that people were taken outside naked. News Nation was reported by a Black Hawk helicopter on the scene.
Video from the scene, filmed around 2am and shared with USA Today, shows Masked Agents, arriving behind the budget, with U-Haul’s mobile van carrying military-style rifles.
The detained migrant was detained in a parking lot, and a crying woman across the street was shown screaming in broken Spanish, “I love you all the time.”
Federal law enforcement agencies, including DHS, ICE, customs and border security, will not say whether the Blackhawks used in the attack are from the U.S. Army, National Guard or non-military sector.
Arrests create widespread fear
It is unclear whether there are actually criminal convictions or pending charges against more than 800 people arrested last month for Illinois businesses who have no criminal history, including children.
The October 1 DHS news release included mugshots of more than 12 immigrants from Eastern Europe and Latin America who were arrested for previous criminal convictions.
One Venezuelan woman was listed as Tren de Aragua’s only gang member. The Trump administration has focused on Venezuelan gangs despite little evidence of widespread existence in Chicago or the United States.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said federal agents have failed to focus on violent criminals. Instead, he said in an October 3 social media post that the business scared residents, violated due process rights and caused panic by detaining citizens.
“Illinois is not a photo opportunity or a Warzone,” he said. “It’s a sovereign nation where our people deserve rights, respect and answers.”
Other large ice attacks
In other large businesses, federal agents primarily detain people with no criminal history.
A highly publicized attack in Southern California in June showed that most people arrested had no criminal history. Immigration and customs enforcement data showed that more than 2,000 people arrested that month, two-thirds of more than two people were not criminally convicted, and more than half were never charged with the crime, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A July attack on a cannabis farm in Camarillo, California found that only four of the 361 people arrested had been found to have been pre-existing criminal convictions, as discovered by a Ventura County star, part of the USA Today network.
In September, federal officials led a massive workplace raid at a modern battery factory under construction in Georgia. The agents arrested about 475 people, including more than 300 Koreans. Many of them were many Koreans on the visa to train American workers.
About 71.5% of the nearly 60,000 people currently in ice custody have not been criminally convicted, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University.
(This story has been updated with new information.)
