U.S. Customs and Border Protection boats have docked near the Chicago Harbor Lock on Thursday as part of a plan to stage marine vessels and vehicles at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility near Navy Pier, according to government communications reviewed by the Tribune.
Four CBP boats were spotted traveling east on the Chicago River before they were docked just south of Navy Pier midday Thursday. Federal officials on the boats appeared to be armed.
The Harbor Lock, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, separates Lake Michigan from the Chicago River and is the mechanism by which boats travel between the two in Chicago.
The Harbor Lock is one of the busiest locks in the country for both commercial and recreational boat traffic, according to a press release issued by the Army Corps last year.
Representatives for CBP, the Army Corps and the U.S. Coast Guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Erin Bultje, a spokesperson for ICE, directed questions to Customs and Border Protection.
On Thursday morning, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks posted on social media that he had arrived in Chicago, as part of the performative announcements Homeland Security officials have been making over the past few weeks to trumpet their presence in Chicago. It was not immediately clear if his visit was related to any CBP activity at the Harbor Lock.
It was also not clear how long DHS officials planned to dock at the Army Corps facility, nor what their purposes in doing so may be. Lake Michigan is located entirely within the United States and is the only Great Lake without a foreign border.
CBP has an air and marine unit that operates 300 marine vessels throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the agency’s web site. The agency said that during the last fiscal year, enforcement actions by the unit led to the arrest of just over 1,000 people it claimed were in the country illegally.
The move at the Harbor Lock comes in the midst of what President Donald Trump’s ICE is calling its “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has sown fear throughout immigrant communities in Chicago and its suburbs. Officials escalated a promised surge in immigration enforcement in the area over the last two weeks, with arrests reported and federal agents sighted near local schools, courthouses and workplaces. ICE claimed last week it had made 550 arrests during the first two weeks of the mission.
Two weeks ago, ICE agents fatally shot 38-year-old Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez during a traffic stop in suburban Franklin Park. Officials have also deployed chemical agents against protesters outside the ICE processing center in Broadview.