Dozens of federal immigration agents were seen patrolling downtown Chicago Sunday afternoon.
Social media live streams showed them in front of Tribune Tower on North Michigan Ave. and in front of Millennium Park, detaining individuals. They also showed several U.S. Customs and Border Protection boats on the Chicago River.
The video of the troops walking in clusters downtown was recorded by lawyer Berto Aguyago, advising undocumented individuals to stay away and to be aware of their rights. A crowd of roughly 20 protesters yelled “ICE go home,” at the officers as they followed them to the intersection of Clark and Oak streets.
After sightings near Millennium Park and the Riverwalk downtown, the dozens of federal immigration agents — most of them wearing camo uniforms with U.S. Border Patrol patches — made their way up on Gold Coast — a primarily white, affluent neighborhood — in the early afternoon, flanking the sidewalks of Clark Street.
Bystanders and passersby started following the officers, chanting: “ICE, go home!” The agents stopped at the intersection with Oak Street. Several got in vans that drove away. For another 15 minutes, the crowd of protesters around them grew bigger, yelling “shame.”
A shrill whistle cut through the noise repeatedly.
Some of the civilians present confronted Gregory Bovino, the Chief U.S. Border Patrol Agent, who joined his colleagues on the patrol.
When asked by the Tribune how many agents had been patrolling downtown Sunday, Bovino said, “a lot.”
Bovino declined to answer any additional questions from the Tribune. When he and the last of the agents drove away, protesters celebrated with applause and cheers.“The people, united, will never be defeated!” they intoned.
Present on Sunday was Enrique Espinoza, an attorney and member of the Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, who said the agents’ presence downtown was performative. Espinoza is an immigrant himself, hailing from Veracruz, Mexico.“Let’s be clear: This was a show. They wanted to get attention, and they got it,” he gestured toward the last remaining protesters as the crowd dispersed.
The move 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.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was closely monitoring the situation in a post on X. “While Chicagoans and visitors are enjoying another gorgeous Sunday, they are being intimidated and threatened by masked federal agents flaunting automatic weapons for no apparent reason. This is another brazen provocation from the Trump administration that does nothing to make our city safer,” Johnson said.
By mid-afternoon, the intersection was cleared, traffic was flowing and things went back to normal — much like in the Loop, where after earlier sightings and reports of a couple of arrests, tourists strolled under the sun and took photos of the city, most of them none the wiser.