Operation Midway Blitz

Latest official immigration arrest data offers new window into ICE strategy

May 1, 2026

What can new federal immigration arrest data tell us about federal immigration strategy during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago? Our earlier analysis based on official data through mid-October 2025 found that federal immigration strategy was to expand immigration enforcement by target unauthorized immigrants with no criminal convictions using sweeps throughout Chicago area neighborhoods. Does that finding hold once full official record of government immigration arrests is public? The answer is an unqualified yes.

In April 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released official data on federal immigration arrests that covers ICE activity in the greater Chicago area for the entire period of Midway Blitz (September through December 2025). The data was acquired by Deportation Data Project through Freedom of Information Act requests.

What makes this new data a remarkable window into ICE strategy is not simply that it is official or complete, but its expanded classification of arrests that goes beyond the previously reported criminal status of each arrested immigrant. The latest official release reveals with even greater precision the nature of the immigrants swept up in Midway Blitz, including: whether the arrest took place in the community; whether the arrested immigrant was the intended target or "collateral"; and, most revealing, whether the immigrant was deemed by ICE a threat to the community.

The bottom-line: ICE's own data covering the entirety of Operation Midway Blitz resoundingly undermines the official claim that arrests focused on the "worst of the worst." Far from it. In this addendum to our March 2026 report on Operation Midway Blitz, we show that:

• ICE's tactics during OMB concentrated on neighborhood arrests of targets of convenience without prior criminal conviction;
• this pattern appears specific to immigration arrest surges, diverging significantly from patterns leading up to and following the operation; and
• the focus on communities and targets of convenience help explain why protests so frequently erupted at enforcement sites in addition to the daily planned protests at the Chicago-area ICE detention facility.

Consistent with previous findings, the vast majority of the 4,000 arrested are not the “worst of the worst” as DHS claimed.  The new data from ICE, presented in the chart below, shows that ICE made roughly 4,000 immigration arrests during Midway Blitz, with arrests climbing sharply in early September and dropping just as sharply to pre-September levels in mid-November.

The official ICE data is a window into how ICE tactics (“at large” arrests in communities) are core to its strategy.  Switching through the various official categories of immigrant arrests in the figure, it is clear that non-criminal, non-dangerous “collateral” arrests are not only unavoidable but critical to meeting the demands of the current mass deportation campaign.

Comparing patterns in arrests before, during, and after Midway Blitz reveals four major tactical choices that help explain why Chicagoans experienced Midway Blitz akin to military occupation.

First, 82% of arrests during Midway Blitz were classified by ICE as “non-custodial” arrests, meaning that the arrests took place in communities rather than making arrests at jails or other places where the immigrants targeted for arrest are already secured. This “at large” enforcement in Chicago neighborhoods is intrusive and visible to the public.

Second, more than half of arrests (53%) were classified by ICE as “collateral,” indicating the arrested immigrant was not the intended enforcement target but was swept up in an operation to arrest someone else. The number of arrests coded as “collateral” were near-zero both before and after Midway Blitz, but during Midway Blitz they made up approximately half of all arrests.

Third, ICE classified 59% of those arrested during Midway Blitz as having no active or pending criminal convictions. Before Midway Blitz, approximately one-third of federal immigration arrests (between 25% and 46%) involved immigrants whose only crime was being in the country illegally (“Other Immigration Violator”). During Midway Blitz, however, immigrants without active or pending criminal convictions comprised the largest category of arrests (anywhere between 54% and 68%).

Fourth, ICE classified over 80% of immigrants arrested during Midway Blitz as “not a threat” to their communities, while the number of people arrested who were a threat remained largely consistent before, during, and after Midway Blitz by comparison.

The combination of these four differences: operating in communities, arresting non-criminal individuals, and an increase in “collateral”, helps explain why protest numbers spiked so significantly during Operation Midway Blitz.

Comparing CPOST’s data on anti-ICE protests with official ICE data on immigration arrests confirms that anti-ICE protests ebbed and flowed with the intensity of federal immigration arrests and detentions. The chart below shows (1) ICE’s weekly count of arrests by the ICE Chicago Field Office that occurred inside of Illinois and (2) the weekly number of protests that occurred in the Chicagoland area during the same period.

Not only did Midway Blitz mobilized near daily protest at the ICE detention facility in Broadview, but also spontaneous protests at enforcement sites at which federal agents frequently escalated to using chemical munitions to disperse crowds.

Indeed, while the frequency of planned protests remained constant throughout Midway Blitz, spontaneous protests in Chicago neighborhoods surged during the most intense and visible period of federal immigration activity—a period associated with deployment of over 200 Custom and Border Protection agents under the command of Gregory Bovino.

It is noteworthy that no spontaneous protests were reported in the greater Chicago area on any day Bovino was not present in the region, though he was not personally present at every enforcement event that resulted in a spontaneous protest.  Spontaneous protests begin on September 16, the same day Gregory Bovino arrived in Chicago but stop completely after Bovino and CBP very publicly leave the city in mid-November.

When Bovino and CBP returned to Chicago for a two-day enforcement blitz in mid-December, their enforcement actions in the city were met by four spontaneous protests across the city’s west and north, culminating in a very public confrontation between Bovino and Evanston mayor David Biss at a Mobil gas station.

Like spontaneous protests, planned protests also occurred in reaction to ICE activity. Planned protests at the Broadview ICE facility, which comprise most of all planned protests during this period, happened during or immediately after a spike in weekly prisoner intake at that facility. When the weekly intake dropped, the protests largely stopped.

Overall, this addendum to CPOST’s Midway Blitz report provides additional detail about ICE’s operational practices and shows how those practices are correlated with protest activity, both spontaneously in response to community-based enforcement activity and planned protests outside of ICE’s Broadview processing facility.