Plan: Immigration Raids Begin Next Week in Chicago

ICE asks for volunteers to fulfill Trump's mass deportation promise
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 18, 2025 5:05 PM CST
ICE Plans to Start Raids on Tuesday in Chicago
Kenneth Genalo, director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's New York City field office, speaks during an interview in December in the Bronx borough of New York.   (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

The incoming administration plans to launch immigration raids in Chicago next week, part of President-elect Trump's promise to mount the nation's largest mass deportation ever. Correspondence shows that although the dates aren't finalized, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is gearing up to begin rounding up people living in the US without permission on Tuesday, Trump's first full day in office, the New York Times reports. ICE intends to send about 150 agents to Chicago to carry out "Operation Safeguard." Hundreds of agents were asked to volunteer for the job.

Asked on Fox News whether a major raid would take place in Chicago on Tuesday, Trump's pick to run the deportations, Tom Homan, said: "There's going to be a big raid all across the country. Chicago is just one of many places." ICE officials there put out their own request for agents, per CBS News, which caught ICE bosses in Washington by surprise. Parents who are in the country illegally but have US-born children will be among those deported, Homan has said. He's said deportation efforts will focus on "New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the major cities in this country are still sanctuary cities." (More mass deportations stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X