A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent waits in a vehicle during a multi-agency targeted enforcement operation in Chicago, Illinois, on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025. Credit – Christopher Dilts—Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Trump Administration has launched immigration enforcement operations in Massachusetts and Chicago as the White House border czar signals plans for a wider federal crackdown on sanctuary cities across the country this week.
“You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country,” border czar Tom Homan said in an interview on CNN over the weekend.
The ramped up enforcement efforts mark the latest escalation in President Donald Trump’s ongoing battle with sanctuary cities, where laws restrict local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities, as he seeks to carry out an aggressive mass deportation agenda.
Trump’s previous salvos against sanctuary cities across his two Administrations have faced setbacks, as courts have blocked the President from withholding federal funding from the cities and upheld the legality of their policies.
The new crackdown, meanwhile, is already meeting with resistance from local leaders.
Here’s what to know.
Chicago
DHS announced on Monday that it was launching an immigration enforcement effort in Chicago targeting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, which it is calling Operation Midway Blitz.
“This ICE operation will target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets,” the agency said in a statement.
“This operation will target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Chicago,” ICE Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said, in support of the operation.
There had not been reports of mass arrests as of Monday morning, according to local officials.
Trump has previously indicated plans to crack down on crime and immigration in Chicago, and over the weekend appeared to threaten the city with the newly renamed Department of War.
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning …,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.”
Trump has since walked back his comments amid backlash.
“We’re not going to war, we’re going to clean up our cities,” the President said when asked about the post on Monday. “We’re going to clean them up so they don’t kill five people every weekend. That’s not war. That’s common sense.”
Chicago officials and residents have prepared to push back against a federal crackdown in recent days. The city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, last weekend signed an order directing Chicago law enforcement and officials not to cooperate with federal agents and established an initiative intended to protect residents’ rights. After the operation was announced on Monday, the city of Evanston, an urban suburb of Chicago, issued a statement warned its residents of impending raids by ICE agents and urged them to report sightings of law enforcement.
Massachusetts
The Department of Homeland Security over the weekend announced its plans for an operation called Patriot 2.0 in Massachusetts, intended to increase the number of deportations in the state.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, nowhere is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens. If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return,” said a DHS spokesperson in a statement over the weekend.
DHS went on to criticize Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, stating that “sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but also place these public safety threats above the interests of law-abiding American citizens.”
Few details were released about the scale of the new operation. The department says it follows “the success of Operation Patriot in May,” a previous enforcement campaign that led to roughly 1,500 arrests, according to the acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons.
Wu, in response, has stood by her city’s policies and vowed to challenge any enforcement efforts that cross legal lines.
“As ordered in the Boston Trust Act, no Boston police or local resources will be co-opted into federal immigration enforcement and their mass deportation agenda,” she said in a statement. “For months, ICE has refused to provide any information about their activities in Boston and refuses to issue warrants, while we hear reports of ICE agents taking parents as they are dropping their kids off at school. That does not make our community safer. We expect that federal law enforcement will abide by the constitution and laws of this City, Commonwealth, and country, and we are prepared to take legal action at any evidence to the contrary.”
The Boston Trust Act, which was first adopted in 2014 and amended five years later, restricts local law enforcement from collaborating with ICE on civil immigration enforcement while allowing cooperation on matters of “significant public safety, such as human trafficking, child exploitation, drug and weapons trafficking, and cybercrimes.”
Earlier this month, the Justice Department sued Boston over the policy, arguing that “cities cannot obstruct the Federal Government from enforcing immigration laws.”
“The City of Boston and its mayor have been among the worst sanctuary offenders in America — they explicitly enforce policies designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice. If Boston won’t protect its citizens from illegal alien crime, this Department of Justice will,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement.
Wu vowed when the lawsuit was filed that the city would defend its laws. “We will not yield,” she said.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
