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Top Trump administration officials, including “border czar” Tom Homan and the acting deputy attorney general, visited Chicago on Sunday to witness the start of ramped-up immigration enforcement in the nation’s third-largest city as federal agencies touted arrests around the country.
Few details of the operation were immediately made public, including the number of arrests. But the sheer number of federal agencies involved showed President Donald Trump’s willingness to use federal law enforcement beyond the Department of Homeland Security to carry out his long-promised mass deportations.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it made 956 arrests nationwide on Sunday and 286 on Saturday. While some of the operations may not have been unusual, ICE averaged 311 daily arrests in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said he observed immigration agents from the DHS along with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He didn’t offer details on the operation, which came days after DHS expanded immigration authority to agencies in the Department of Justice, including the DEA and ATF.
“We will support everyone at the federal, state, and local levels who joins this critical mission to take back our communities,” Bove said in a statement. “We will use all available tools to address obstruction and other unlawful impediments to our efforts to protect the homeland. Most importantly, we will not rest until the work is done.”
“Dr. Phil” McGraw, a daytime television psychologist, interviewed Homan and livestreamed the Chicago operation on his multiplatform TV network MERIT TV, and several other reporters were also invited to Sunday’s operation. The Associated Press plans to observe operations this week.
The DEA’s Chicago office posted pictures on X showing Bove and Homan with agents from ATF and Customs and Border Protection.
Since Trump took office, similar immigration enforcement operations have been publicized around the country, which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says are ongoing. Social media posts from other DEA and Homeland Security offices noted additional weekend operations in at least Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska and Texas.
Operation targets members of Venezuelan gang in Colorado
The DEA posted pictures Sunday on social media of an operation at a location in the Denver area, where roughly 50 people were taken into custody.
Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge for the DEA Rocky Mountain field division, said the Colorado operation targeted drug trafficking by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.
He said about 100 agents and officers, including from the DEA, ICE, ATF and Homeland Security Investigations, carried out a federal search warrant for drug trafficking around 5 a.m. Sunday at a location where Tren de Aragua members were having a party.
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