Border Patrol agents deployed to Chicago carried out a late-night raid this week, rappelling from helicopters onto rooftops and breaking down apartment doors in an operation authorities said targeted gang members but which also left U.S. citizens and families reeling.
The show of force underscored President Donald Trump’s unprecedented use of Border Patrol agents as a surge force in major cities, diverting personnel typically assigned to patrol the nation’s borders with Mexico and Canada.
Naudelys, a 19-year-old Venezuelan woman, said agents burst into her apartment early Tuesday while she was with her 4-year-old son and another couple with a baby. Agents ordered them to raise their hands at gunpoint, she said.
Naudelys, whose husband was detained by immigration authorities three months ago, said she tried to record the scene but an agent knocked away her phone. She said Spanish-speaking agents told them to “go back to your country” and made a sexual remark about Venezuelan women. One agent struck a man in front of her son, she said.
“My son was traumatized,” said Naudelys, who asked that her last name not be published. She said authorities accused her friend’s partner of belonging to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua; a claim she disputes.
Nobody from the DHS has responded to requests for comments on Naudelys’s recounting of events.
Residents and local reports said several U.S. citizens were temporarily detained during the raid and that children were pulled from their beds. Two days later, debris still littered the building’s hallways.
Authorities said the operation, which took place in the city’s South Side, resulted in dozens of arrests and was one of the largest immigration actions in Chicago since the Trump administration launched “Operation Midway Blitz” last month. Hundreds of agents, including some rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters, surrounded the apartment complex, according to NewsNation.
A DHS spokesperson confirmed the raid, saying it targeted alleged members of Tren de Aragua and involved coordination with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
At least 37 people, most of them Venezuelan, were arrested on immigration violations, the spokesperson said. Two of those taken into custody were identified as alleged members of Tren de Aragua. Six others had prior criminal records, including charges ranging from battery to marijuana possession, and two were suspected of involvement in a shooting.
Trump, a Republican, has vowed to ramp up immigration enforcement in Democratic-led cities like Chicago that limit cooperation with federal authorities. With border crossings at historic lows, the roughly 19,000-member Border Patrol has increasingly taken on new urban operations under the direction of Gregory Bovino, the agency’s commander-at-large.
