ICE agents have intensified arrests on Chicago’s Southwest Side, sparking criticism from Ald. Ray Lopez (15th), who says city leaders are ignoring public safety
“I think what we know is this,” he said. “The mayor, the governor and the president still are not talking. ICE agents have begun their operations in the City of Chicago, apparently targeting the southwest side, because I have not seen them in any other locations as prevalent as what we’ve seen here.”
Tension between Lopez’s continuing advocacy for some form of cooperation with federal authorities to decrease the arrest of persons not intended as targets, along with more support for Chicago police, versus the city’s staunch support for immigrant rights via a non-cooperation strategy, still exists.
Lopez said that while the federal government continues their focus on “dangerous criminals,” non-criminal people are taken as well, noting federal Border Czar Tom Homan warned a lack of cooperation from the city would result in collateral captures.
Because the city bars cooperation with the federal government, convicted individuals are released and returned to city neighborhoods before ICE is aware they were held, making lodged ICE detainers for the transfer of custody useless, he added.
“Local authorities release these individuals and tell the federal government if you want them, go find them,” Lopez said. “What happens next is that immigration enforcement authorities come knocking at the last known residence address of the individual, find some 80-year-old grandmother who’s not a citizen and take her instead. This also keeps the intended target loose and on the run.”
A Jan. 2025 vote to amend Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance by Lopez and Alderman Silvana Tabares (23rd) to include language stating that persons who were arrested or convicted of a crime by a competent court in four categories, including drug and gang related crimes, prostitution, human trafficking and sex crimes involving minors, would be handed over to ICE, failed to pass, 39 to 11.
The existing ordinance Chapter 2-173 continues to protect the rights of undocumented persons by limiting communication and enforcement between the city and federal government.
When asked if there have been ICE removals from the 15th ward, the alderman responded by saying “I’m not going to jinx myself.”
A Southwest News Herald review of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s ICE arrest tool in Chicago’s Cook County from Oct. through Dec. 2024 (Last quarter, FY 2025) reveals persons who have criminal convictions, pending criminal charges and other immigration violators total 2,011 people (993, 558, 460 respectively).
The majority of persons arrested were from Central America with the largest number, 863, from Mexico.
The data is current as of January, 2025 and is meant to be updated quarterly but DHS database numbers have not changed since then.
A Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ analysis from ICE via the Deportation Data Project found that 537 more ICE arrests, a 59% increase, occurred between Jan. 21 and July 31, 2025 and detentions increased 185% totaling 3,185 people at its Broadview and downtown Chicago facilities from the same time in 2024, according to a Sept. 12 WBEZ story by Lauren FitzPatrick.
On Sept. 12, ABC 7 Chicago reported that President Trump decided to send the National Guard to Memphis, TN instead of Chicago.
Alderman Lopez is disappointed the National Guard will not be coming to Chicago noting Chicagoans will lose and criminals will win.
“The victims are going to be forgotten,” he told ABC 7 news.
ICE continues to be responsible for immigration enforcement with increased immigration arrests during Operation Midway Blitz.
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted restrictions barring ICE’s ability to effect wandering immigration-related raids, according to politico.com.
With ICE focusing on immigration enforcement, Alderman Lopez questioned whether reliance on Chicago’s police force as the sole source of citizen protection against crime is enough without a national guard deployment.
“When you have a Chicago Police department that has well over 1,500 vacant officer positions and you’re threatening to cut even more, you need all the help you can get to answer the thousands of 911 calls that every single day throughout the City of Chicago,” he said.
Lopez noted city police officer deployments to tourist sites like State Street, Buckingham Fountain and Navy Pier that, in his opinion, leaves southwest side neighborhoods without adequate protection citing the area’s 8th police district, “which is sorely undermanned.”
“That’s why we need the help from the federal government,” he said. “To catch our breath and get caught up on all of these calls and magnets of violence in our neighborhoods and for Mayor Johnson to say we don’t need it, everything is fine, only illustrates how completely clueless he is when it comes to the situation on our streets.”