The Broadview, Ill., ICE facility near Chicago last fall.
Chicago’s WBEZ public radio station has produced “Bearing Witness to the Blitz”, a “special documentary” podcast. I looked forward to listening to it, as WBEZ is “one of the nation’s … most respected public media stations” (according to WBEZ), “[a] beloved institution that exudes the texture and unique sense of place that is Chicago” (according to WBEZ), and “[a] vital, indispensable source of enterprising news and information that drives civic conversation and engages a much larger, more diverse audience than ever before” (according to WBEZ).
First, I should explain that, as psychodynamic psychotherapist Shelley Galasso Bonanno has written, “bearing witness” as used in psychology “refers to sharing our experiences with others, most notably in the communication to others of traumatic experiences”. It is “a valuable way to process an experience, to obtain empathy and support, to lighten our emotional load via sharing it with the witness, and to obtain catharsis”.
Oh, so WBEZ was looking back at the indominable spirit of Londoners who endured the trauma of “the Blitz”, as Nazi Germany’s bombing campaign against the city during World War II was called? Well, no. WBEZ was looking back on “Operation Midway Blitz” — the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) 2025 immigration law enforcement campaign in Chicagoland. WBEZ was looking back on the trauma that enforcement of our nation’s law enforcement caused to those violating our nation’s immigration laws and on “the lingering effects of the sweeping enforcement operation today”.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way this wind is going to blow in the Windy City.
The podcast was hosted by Patrick Smith, co-host of WBEZ’s “Say More” (which “tee[s] up the hot topics of the day … and ask[s] what you think” — “[s]mart, funny and unmistakably Chicago”).
Smith teed up Operation Midway Blitz by proclaiming that “[l]ast fall, it seemed like the Federal government declared war on the city of Chicago”! (Audio at 00:46) I kid you not. Enforcing federal law is the equivalent of declaring war on the city of Chicago? I wish Eliot Ness had known, daring to enforce Prohibition laws in Chicago!
Enforcing federal law is the equivalent of declaring war on the city of Chicago? I wish Eliot Ness had known, daring to enforce Prohibition laws in Chicago!
To be fair to Smith, his rhetoric was not that far off from that of Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, who proclaimed at an October 9, 2025, press conference that “We’re at a moment in which we have a federal government that has not only trampled on our Constitution, but it has declared war on American cities and particularly Chicago,” and who proclaimed at the October 18, 2025, “No Kings” demonstration in Chicago that “There are those in this country that have decided at the behest of this president to declare war on Chicago and American cities across this country.”
And Smith’s rhetoric was not that far off from that of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who labeled DHS’s “Operation Metro Surge” in Minneapolis “a physical assault”, “an armed force that’s assaulting, that’s killing my constituents, my citizens”, or of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who said that “What we have seen feels like an invasion.”
A “federal invasion” of a state — where have we heard that rhetoric before in American history? Ah, yes, Smith, Johnson, Walz, and Frey are following in the grand tradition of Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace and the implacable foes of post-Civil War Reconstruction in the defeated Confederacy.
On July 4, 1964, Governor Wallace proclaimed in his speech “The Civil Rights Movement: Fraud, Sham, and Hoax” that “we have actually witnessed the invasion of the State of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama by the armed forces of the United States and maintained in the state against the will of the people and without consent of state legislatures”. By the way, as Elizabeth Goitein and Joseph Nunn have written for the Brennan Center for Justice, in 1963, Wallace had “with an escort of state police, sought to physically block two African-American students from enrolling at the University of Alabama”. … President Kennedy invoked the Insurrection Act, federalized the Alabama National Guard, and deployed it to protect the students.”
As to Reconstruction, Coast Guard Commander Gary Felicetti and Lieutenant John Luce have written that “[N]either military rule by federal troops nor the subsequent mixed-race Republican state governments were popular with the white oligarchy that had dominated the South before the war. From their perspective, Congressional Reconstruction imposed corrupt and inept foreign governments propped up by an occupying army.”1
I wonder if Smith, Johnson, Walz, and Frey ever paused to consider how the fate of this nation would have been altered had Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson shared their repulsion at the thought of federal military forces entering communities to ensure the enforcement of federal law and thus not sent in the military to protect Black citizens from mob violence during the 1950s and 1960s.
Back to WBEZ. Patrick Smith bemoaned the fact that “It felt like every day a new person was taken” — “They grabbed fathers, tamale vendors, U.S. citizens.” (Audio at 00:50.) They grabbed tamale vendors?! For selling tamales without a license? No, for violating this nation’s immigration laws.
Smith said that “every day, a new neighborhood or suburb was clouded with tear gas. ... Federal agents shot and killed an unarmed man, they rammed into cars, pointed guns into protestors’ faces, slammed observers to the ground.” (Audio at 00:59.)
Now, as I have made clear on a number of occasions, any potentially unlawful use of force — especially deadly force — by federal law enforcement officers must be fully and fairly investigated and potentially lead to sanctions up to and including criminal prosecution. But, as to the actions of the protestors in Chicago, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito concluded that DHS “operations in and around Chicago have been the target of unprecedented sabotage and violence since June [2025]”. As Justice Alito described:
Hundreds of rioters have converged at the [DHS] facility in Broadview, Illinois. … These rioters have been organized, gathering offsite and arriving in vans, then getting picked up several hours later by vans returning with new rioters. They have arrived armed with shields, gas masks, protective padding, and other tools for physical combat. And they have blocked entry and exit at the ICE facility, physically assaulted personnel attempting to enter or leave work, significantly damaged the building, and vandalized both Government and personally owned vehicles.
Justice Alito continued that “The resulting violence has endangered the lives of federal personnel,” elaborating that:
Multiple rioters have been found with loaded guns, some of them semi-automatic. Rioters have hit, punched, and shoved officers; thrown bottles, rocks, and tear gas canisters at officers; attempted to grab officers’ firearms and munitions; pulled gas masks and tear gas canisters off the officers’ uniforms; targeted officers with bullhorns and whistles that can cause permanent hearing loss; aimed strobe lights and lasers at officers’ faces; and shot fireworks at officers. … As of early October [2025], more than 30 federal officers had suffered injuries, and multiple officers had been hospitalized.
I never heard about any of that on WBEZ’s podcast. On the podcast, Chicago Sun-Times photo desk editor Ashlee Rezin said “because the story felt so important we almost regarded ourselves as frontline infantry”. (at 20:51) Frontline infantry? Well, she did say that she was struck by two pepperballs, which “stung” and “don’t feel great”. (at 19:19) Sounds like the Bataan Death March.
In any event, Rezin went on to say that “Midway Blitz felt extraordinary and when something extraordinary happens and you want to show the world and bear witness to it you should run toward it.” (at 21:00). So that’s where WBEZ got the notion.
WBEZ City Hall reporter Mariah Woelfel said on the podcast that “So, we observed … Mayor [Johnson] trying to push back with executive order after executive order, like again and again.” (at 14:27.)
Executive orders? Well, there were some:
[T]he deployment of federal military forces and/or federal tactical units for civil immigration enforcement in Chicago exacerbates existing harms facing the City’s historically underserved residents and vulnerable populations, including Black and brown communities, unsheltered people, veterans, people who are formerly incarcerated, individuals experiencing poverty, and immigrant communities.
- September 16, 2025:
[P]rotestors in Chicago have reported that federal agents have recently engaged in efforts to chill or restrict protest activity near federal buildings.
[T]he City of Chicago has long been a center of civic action, from the labor uprisings of the Haymarket era [which I presume includes the 1886 Haymarket Square Riot, during which, according to the Library of Congress, “Someone threw a home-made bomb and there was an exchange of gunfire. In the end, seven police officers and several civilians were killed”.] to the Civil Rights Movement, to the youth-led protests for racial and economic justice in our time [which I presume refers to the Black Lives Matter riots].
- October 6, 2025:
No City-owned and controlled parking lot, vacant lot, or garage shall be used as a staging area, processing location, or operations base for civil immigration enforcement.
Chicago has long recognized that public safety is best achieved through trust and collaboration between residents and local government, not through the militarization or deputization of City resources in service of civil immigration enforcement.
Mayor Johnson’s office bestowed on the EO the moniker “the ‘ICE Free Zone’ executive order” in a press release and stated that “Mayor Johnson is taking decisive action to protect Chicago’s immigrant community and the Constitutional rights of all Chicagoans.”
Woelfel explained that:
Every time we were at a press conference where the mayor was making this new push against federal agents in Chicago, the main question I was asking was, like, how is this going to be enforced, though. You know, I was asking whether the mayor was going to get to the point where he was going to direct Chicago police officers to arrest federal agents. [at 14:32.]
Arrest federal agents?!
Woelfel did note “the very sticky territory that has all of these larger constitutional questions about authority”. (at 14:51.) Well, I’m glad she recognized that Chicago police officers arresting federal agents for carrying out their federal duties raises constitutional questions. The Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2) of the U.S. Constitution does state that “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” For those who are interested, I have explored this subject here.
Woelfel then brought up “the very obvious question of, like, is that going to lead to all-out brawls on the street between local police and federal agents”. (at 14:59.) Brawls in Chicago parking garages? That only happens when someone slips into another driver’s intended parking spot.
To be fair to Woelfel, her rhetoric was not that far off from that of Mayor Johnson. At the No Kings demonstration, he warned that “We will not allow our cities to be occupied.” (at 6:06.) On June 17, 2025, she herself reported for WBEZ that “Johnson declared … that Chicagoans ‘have to go as far as necessary’ to ‘protect our Constitution’ as the Trump administration sets its sight on the city as a target for militarized immigration enforcement.” As far as necessary? She quoted Mayor Johnson as saying that “‘Whatever is necessary. ... We should all be committed to doing just that[.] Whether it’s in the courts, whether it’s in the streets or with policy, we’re going to continue to defend and stand up for working people.”
In the streets? Well, as Mick Jagger once said, the time is right for fighting in the streets.
Mayor Frey has said that “We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another.” Literally fighting one another? That sure sounds like a civil war, of course one that would only occur if Governor Walz or Mayor Frey or Mayor Johnson were to order the Minnesota National Guard or Minneapolis police or Chicago police to attack DHS law enforcement officers. God forbid their disdain for the Supremacy Clause turns into open and bloody insurrection. Governor Walz “mused” to the Atlantic’s Isaac Stanley-Becker that “I mean, is this a Fort Sumter?” Mayor Johnson proclaimed in a stentorian voice at the No Kings demonstration that “They have clearly decided that they want a re-match of the Civil War.” I think it is neo-Confederate Brandon Johnson who would like a re-match.
Patrick Smith stated later in the podcast that “conditions [in the Broadview processing center] fueled resistance outside the … center and that outrage spread across the Chicago area. People came out of their homes to obstruct arrests and caravan through neighborhoods warning that agents were nearby grabbing people off the streets.” (at 26:36.)
While it would be more accurate to say that resistance was fueled by #Resistance, at least Smith acknowledged that protestors were obstructing federal law enforcement.
At the beginning of the podcast, Smith said “The government said it was targeting the worst of the worst, and responding to violent protestors. But what they actually did was maximize fear through their aggressive use of force and mass arrests that did not target criminals. That terror, that fear, hasn’t gone away.” (at 1:12.) At the end, he said :
That fear hasn’t gone away just because … [the] Border Patrol agents have left. And it’s changed people — they’re afraid to go to doctor’s appointments or court hearings. Sometimes, kids are kept home from school. Sometimes people miss work. And sometimes they go to work fearing they won’t make it home. That fear, more than the propaganda videos and photos, more than the number of immigrants arrested and deported, more than the U.S. citizens whose perception of their own government has forever changed. One year later, that fear is the lasting legacy of Operation Midway Blitz. [at 29:19.]
Fear that federal law will actually be enforced? The perception that a president will actually “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Art. 2, § 3 of the U.S. Constitution)?
My colleagues Jason Richwine and Stephen Camarota have recently estimated that “13.5 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. as of July 2026, down from 15.8 million when President Trump began his second term in January 2025”. They concluded that “the number of people who left the country from the interior related to some kind of enforcement act was roughly 350,000 larger in the first part of the Trump administration than in the last part of the Biden administration” and that a “large increase in interior removals also created the incentive for more illegal immigrants to leave on their own out of concern that they would run afoul of the law.” As the French would say, “tant mieux” — so much the better.
End Note
1 “The Posse Comitatus Act: Setting the Record Straight on 124 Years of Mischief and Misunderstanding Before Any More Damage Is Done”, 175 Mil. L. Rev. 86, 105-06 (2003) (footnote omitted).