Inside Trump’s immigration arrests in Chicago: Dr. Phil, lawsuits and ‘frightened’ communities
A top Department of Justice official — and former criminal defense attorney for Donald Trump — joined federal law enforcement agents and administration officials on the ground in Chicago this weekend to carry out a series of immigration arrests after weeks of heightened tensions among immigrant communities bracing for threats.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan was joined by acting deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove, along with officials from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies after the Department of Homeland Security broadly expanded immigration enforcement authorities across federal law enforcement.
The groups were also joined by Phil McGraw, aka television personality Dr. Phil, who joined agents for ride-alongs and used the raids and arrests as content for his newly launched Merit TV platform.
“We will support everyone at the federal, state and local levels who joins this critical mission to take back our communities,” said Bove, who was selected for the third-highest role at the Justice Department after representing Trump during his so-called hush money trial.
“We will use all available tools to address obstruction and other unlawful impediments to our efforts to protect the homeland,” he added. “Most importantly, we will not rest until the work is done.”
A statement from Immigration and Customs Enforcement labeled the actions “enhanced targeted operations” designed to “enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security by keeping potentially dangerous criminal aliens out of our communities.”
The agency reported the arrests of 286 people on Saturday and 956 people on Sunday in operations across the country.
Chicago-area residents started to see ICE agents and unmarked black trucks appear in their neighborhoods early on Sunday morning.
Melissa’s parents hid in their attic after they saw ICE agents arrive outside their home on Sunday morning. “They took our neighbor’s dad,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “My parents were crying. We are terrified.”
She told the newspaper that her family had been in the country for more than two decades. She said her parents do not have a criminal record.
Another woman, a volunteer with a nonprofit group that runs a food pantry, told the newspaper she had received a threatening phone call days before the raids telling her “if there were a lot of migrants at the pantry, you better hope ICE doesn’t show up.”
She hung up the phone immediately.
“The community is very frightened,” Nubia Willman, chief programs officer with Chicago’s Latinos Progresando, told The Independent.
Families are pulling children out of school, even in families with lawful status, over a climate of “heightened anxiety and fear,” she said
