A federal judge said Wednesday that the Trump administration must release more than 600 immigrants who were arrested without warrants under the Chicago-area “Operation Midway Blitz.”
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings said during a hearing that the Department of Justice had until next week to identify which of the hundreds of immigrants hadn’t been deported and were eligible to be released on a $1,500 bond, the Chicago Tribune reported.
It was the latest legal rebuke of the Trump administration’s crackdown on unauthorized immigrants in the Chicago area. During the operation, immigration agents have used increasingly aggressive tactics to arrest immigrants and detain protesters.
The Department of Homeland Security accused Cummings, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, of putting public safety at risk through the order.
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“At every turn, activist judges, sanctuary politicians, and violent rioters have actively tried to prevent our law enforcement officers from arresting and removing the worst of the worst,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement. “Now an ACTIVIST JUDGE is putting the lives of Americans directly at risk by ordering 615 illegal aliens be released into the community.”
The judge specified the government only needed to release people without criminal history or prior removal orders, according to the Tribune.
Cummings said the administration had violated a 2022 settlement prohibiting warrantless arrests. In March, the National Immigrant Justice Center and the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU asked him to enforce the settlement that applies to immigration arrests in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky and Kansas.
The groups suing the Trump administration said that as many as 1,100 immigrants arrested in the Chicago area before Oct. 7 may have already been deported.
“Communities throughout the Chicago area have been traumatized by ICE and other federal agents’ chaotic and violent actions in our neighborhoods in recent months, and potentially hundreds of families already have been permanently separated as a result of unlawful arrests and rapid deportations without due process,” Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center, said in a statement.
While the Trump administration will continue its immigration presence in Chicago, Customs and Border Protection commander-at-large Greg Bovino is expected to leave the city and launch similar operations in Charlotte, North Carolina, and New Orleans next.
This story has been updated with a comment from the National Immigrant Justice Center.
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