64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz
After 64 days, they celebrated.
They gathered at one of Chicago’s most beloved landmarks, in the middle of a city where they’d wrought so much fear and pain, and they celebrated. It was the second Monday in November and early in the morning, the season’s first snowfall still fresh, when they parked along Monroe Street and made their way toward Millennium Park, more than 150 strong.
Some carried weapons. Two of them led dogs on long leashes. Some wore the camouflaged fatigues of military battle and others dark green uniforms. They all displayed markings that made clear their status as agents with the U. S. Border Patrol, and they’d arrived to complete one final Chicago mission — for the moment — to pose for the camera. One last made-for-social-media moment.
At least 100 agents, including their leader, Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, would return to Chicago six weeks later to continue a mission that President Donald Trump said hadn’t “gone far enough.” They would bring their cameras again. They would post their tweets. And they would argue with residents as they patrolled city and suburban streets in the days leading up to Christmas.
“We’re here to do a legal, ethical, moral mission,” Bovino would tell the Tribune outside a Home Depot on a cold December morning as bystanders blew whistles to warn of his whereabouts. “We’re going to keep doing that.”
Bovino’s mere presence — accompanied by his previous threat to return again in the spring and detain even more people — would renew the sense of alarm in a metropolitan area that has been demonstrably changed by the 64-day federal incursion and evoke memories of the most surreal autumn in recent local history.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/chicago-immigration-operation-midway-blitz-2/?share=trh0hloiobide1yicogi