ICE And Other Federal Agencies Rappel From Black Hawks In Overkill ICE Raid On Chicago Apartment Building

Early Tuesday morning, some 300 officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies descended on a residential building in Chicago’s Southside neighborhood, launching a sweeping immigration enforcement operation that supposedly targeted dangerous gang members. And when I say “descended,” I mean that quite literally. Many of these agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter onto the rooftops of the apartment building as if they were re-enacting the intro cut scenes on their favorite Call of Duty games.

With all of those agents executing wartime military tactics, they must have arrested dozens upon dozens — maybe hundreds of dangerous, violent criminals who were in the country illegally to wreak havoc on the people of Chicago.

Or — you know — they scooped up a few suspected gang members, but mostly rounded up regular-degular civilians who may not have had their paperwork in order.

Officially, we don’t know what percentage of the 37 people DHS officials say were arrested that morning were actually criminals, but the language those officials have used in their statements won’t leave you with much confidence that 300 ICE agents arrested 37 bloodlusted terrorists, as opposed to day laborers and other civilians who are just living their lives and trying to take care of their families.

In fact, according to Fox 32 Chicago, a Border Patrol official said they were seeking six high-priority targets, including suspected members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization.

Wait, I’m sorry, six?

300 ICE agents were out here executing Mission Impossible stunts, resulting in 37 arrests, so they could find six gang-affiliated people?

Nah, that can’t be right. What does the Department of Homeland Security say?

“In the early morning hours of September 30, 2025, allied federal law enforcement agencies with CBP, FBI, and ATF, executed an enforcement operation in Chicago’s South Shore area, a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates,” DHS officials said in a statement, according to ABC 7. “Some of the targeted subjects are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes, and immigration violators.”

OK, OK — “some.” Now, we’re (not really) getting somewhere. I mean, “some” is still a pretty ambiguous non-number, especially for an operation that required officers from three different federal law enforcement agencies besides ICE. I gotta say, though, “some” sounds suspiciously like, well, maybe six.

Let’s see what else we can find

The FBI confirmed in a statement to FOX 32 that their agency assisted U.S. Border Patrol in conducting a “targeted immigration enforcement operation.” U.S. Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino told Newsweek the operation went “very smoothly” and that federal officers and agents spent several days training for the raid, which was apparently called “Midway Blitz.”

“Midway Blitz was launched to remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens—including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists—from Chicago communities,” A DHS spokesperson told Newsweek.

So, the DHS is generally using the same language the Trump administration has been using to justify President Donald Trump’s Gestapo-like immigration crackdown, despite the glaring fact that ICE’s own data has shown approximately 72% of ICE detainees had no criminal records at all.

Maybe we’re just asking the wrong people. After all, the feds have every incentive in the world to be as cryptic as possible in making their raid sound as noble and heroic as possible without giving us any information as to who they snatched up besides the six or so alleged criminals they arrested, and what impact that raid had on other residents in the building.

Actually, that’s exactly who we should be hearing from. What do the residents have to say about this raid?

From ABC 7:

Residents and neighbors are speaking out at what they call a traumatic event.

“My building is shaking. So, I’m like, ‘What is that?’ Then I look out the window, it’s a Blackhawk helicopter,” said witness Dr. Alii Muhammad.

ABC7 spoke to Pertissue Fisher, a woman who lives in the building. She said ICE agents took everyone in the building, including her, and asked questions later.

“They just treated us like we were nothing,” Fisher said.

Fisher said she came out to the hallway of her apartment complex on the corner of 75th and South Shore Drive in her nightgown around 10 p.m. Monday only to find armed ICE agents yelling “police.”

“It was scary, because I had never had a gun in my face,” Fisher said. “They asked my name and my date of birth and asked me, did I have any warrants? And I told them, ‘No,’ I didn’t.”

Fisher said she was handcuffed before being released around 3 a.m., and she was told that if anyone had any kind of warrant out for them, even if it was unrelated to immigration, they would not be released.

“They, like, piling us all up in the back on the other side, and it wasn’t no room to move nowhere,” Fisher said.

“As I got to my unit to stick my key in the door, I was grabbed by an officer. And, I said, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’ He never actually told me. He said I was being detained.,” said Alicia Brooks.

Neighbors like Eboni Watson say they ducked for cover as they heard several flash bangs.

“They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other,” Watson said. “That’s all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where’s the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, ‘f*** them kids.'”

Watson said trucks and military-style vans were used to separate parents from their children. Other neighbors said agents destroyed property to get in the building.

“They had a big, 15-inch chainsaw with round blade on it, cutting this fence down,” said witness Darrell Ballard. “We’re under siege. We’re being invaded by our own military.”

Marlee Sanders’ boyfriend was detained, Sanders said.

“They had the Black people in one van, and the immigrants in another van,” Sanders said.

Residents told Fox 32 much of the same, saying they were awakened by loud noises and saw federal agents dressed in military-style uniforms had surrounded the building.

“Honestly, I have a lot of mixed emotions about this. You know, I’ve just moved over here about a year ago, and just seeing it happen in person, it’s kind of sad. You hear people screaming, you hear loud bangs and pops,” one neighbor said.

So, just to recap: Hundreds of federal agents descended from helicopters onto a five-story apartment building to arrest 37 people, six or maybe more of whom were allegedly gang members, and the Chicago residents they claim to be saving from a violent, criminal, illegal immigrant scourge felt terrorized, not by Tren de Aragua gang members, but by the feds themselves.

It’s no wonder that Chicago and Illinois’ leaders have vehemently rejected Trump’s agenda to deploy the National Guard and other military personnel to the city. Trump said  during his and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ridiculous meeting with senior military officials that Chicago should be used as “training grounds for our military.” Obviously, he wasn’t joking, and he wasn’t only talking about the actual military.

If his administration wasn’t pretty much exclusively targeting Black and brown people, America might find this terrifying.

Talk about overkill.

SEE ALSO:

ICE In Chicago: What Is Operation Midway Blitz?

‘Operation Midway Blitz’: ICE Begins Targeting Immigrants In Chicago