Operation Midway Blitz fallout lingers in Latino neighborhoods
The ground shifted under Chicago last fall. What's normal in the city's majority-Latino communities today isn't what it was before Operation Midway Blitz.
The Southeast Side, long defined by steel mills and working-class communities, was one of the first places Mexicans came to Chicago more than a century ago. On the Lower West Side, Pilsen stands out for its colorful murals, rich arts and culinary scene and lively Mexican American culture. Farther southwest, Little Village, also known as La Villita, has a vibrant commercial corridor and community celebrations like the Mexican Independence Day parade that are among the oldest and largest in the Midwest.
These neighborhoods carved separate paths to becoming majority-Latino and cultural centers for Mexican communities in Chicago. But they shared a common experience last fall: the Trump administration's Operation Midway Blitz.
The immigration enforcement campaign began Sept. 16, Mexican Independence Day.
Federal officials said the operation targeted violent criminals without legal status, though this proved largely untrue. As enforcement increased, fear spread across Chicago and its suburbs. Latino and immigrant-majority neighborhoods, including Pilsen, Little Village and the Southeast Side, went on high alert.
These communities developed their Latino identities over generations, shaped by migration, labor and displacement. Trump’s targeted immigration operations created a shared moment in their histories — a moment filled with fear, uncertainty and community pride.
A Latino identity developed over more than century
Southeast Side
Chicago’s Mexican American population first took root in the early 1900s. Many arrived in 1919, when they were recruited during a national steel mill strike. These communities became part of the backbone of heavily industrial South Chicago and the East Side, creating an identity that endures today.
In 1923, the community established Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, the first Mexican American parish in the city.
As of 2023, Latinos on the East Side and South Chicago made up half of the neighborhoods’ 52,000 residents, according to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. The East Side alone is nearly 90% Latino.
Stories from South Chicago and the Southeast Side: Cecy’s Molino de Masa | Maria | Illinois National Guard member | Corina Pedraza | Olga Bautista
Pilsen
Before Pilsen became known for its Mexican and Mexican American identity — its streets lined with colorful murals, Mexican stores and restaurants — the neighborhood was home to waves of European immigrants. Named after Plzeň in what is now the Czech Republic, Pilsen began to change in the mid-20th century as Mexican and Puerto Rican families moved in, many displaced from the Near West Side by expressway construction and the expansion of the University of Illinois Chicago campus.
By the 1960s, Pilsen had become predominantly Latino, shaped by social activism, civic engagement and artistic expression. Today, Pilsen is 68% Latino and Hispanic, according to U.S. Census data. In recent years, rising housing costs and new development have raised concerns about gentrification and the displacement of longtime residents.
Stories from Pilsen and the Southwest Side: Alejandra | Latinos Progresando
Mexican students protest at the Froebel Branch of Harrison High School at 2021 W. 21st St. in Chicago, May 5, 1973. Students and families in Pilsen called for a new high school to be built that would better cater to the area’s Spanish-speaking students. This plan was met with resistance from the Chicago Board of Education.
Sun-Times file
Little Village
Located in South Lawndale, Little Village was once known as “Czech California,” reflecting its strong Czech, Slovak and other Eastern European communities and their businesses along 26th Street.
In the mid-1960s, as Black people moved to neighboring North Lawndale, the white business owners and leaders of South Lawndale began calling that area “Little Village” to highlight the European ethnic community and differentiate it from North Lawndale, according to a city report on the neighborhood’s history. But Little Village’s white residents still moved to the suburbs, leaving room for Mexican families, many of whom were pushed west from Pilsen.
By 1980, Latinos made up nearly half of Little Village’s population, with Mexicans as the dominant group. In 1990, the Mexican government donated the Little Village arch, cementing the neighborhood's identity. It reads “Bienvenidos a Little Village.”
The neighborhood was proud of its roots. Many began to call Little Village the “Mexico of the Midwest.” The latest U.S. Census data shows South Lawndale, still the area’s official name, is 81% Latino and Hispanic.
The Pilsen and Little Village corridor now has the largest concentration of Latinos in the Midwest. Little Village’s 26th Street commercial corridor generates millions in annual revenue and is the city's second highest tax-generating district, after the Magnificent Mile.
Stories from Little Village/La Villita: Viento, the running club | Moreno’s Liquors
In 1983, Rudy Lozano, a Mexican-American community activist who was instrumental in campaigning for the election of Harold Washington as mayor, was murdered in his home following Washington’s victory. The funeral service was at St. Pius Catholic Church, 1919 S. Ashland Ave., and the procession went down 26th Street in Pilsen. Washington attended the funeral.
Sun-Times file
Operation Midway Blitz’s disruption of communities
The feds’ targeting of Latino and immigrant-majority neighborhoods wasn’t surprising, but the agents’ aggression, detention of nonviolent immigrants and blatant contempt for people of color became flash points.
Early during Operation Midway Blitz, in September, Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino told a WBEZ reporter that some people are arrested based partly on “how they look.”
Toward the end of the operation, on Nov. 10, dozens of Border Patrol agents posed Downtown in front of The Bean. As they prepared to take the picture, an agent reportedly said, “Everyone say ‘Little Village!” According to media reports, the agents shouted back “Little Village!”
In between, federal agents disrupted daily life, particularly in places like Little Village, Pilsen and the Southeast Side. Immigrants and other Chicagoans feared detention while walking outside, waiting for the bus or taking children to school.
In some neighborhoods, the streets were empty. Business owners saw drastic declines in sales. Some feared having to close. Community events and parades were canceled.
Neighborhoods known for their vibrancy and close-knit community life were quiet.
Families feared separation, and parents worried about the long-term impact on their children.
Critics of the immigration operations pointed to violent tactics, performative operations and unconstitutional detentions. Supporters said the federal government was targeting violent and dangerous immigrants.
According to U.S. Department of Justice documents, 97% of those detained during Operation Midway Blitz had no criminal records.
The Trump administration continued to push the narrative that it was taking murders and rapists off the streets.
After the agents posed at The Bean, they began leaving Chicago. The federal influx of some 300 agents for Operation Midway Blitz ended. But ICE enforcement — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — continues. And while that enforcement has remained at pre-Blitz levels, the communities the feds swarmed are changed. Here’s what’s different, according to people who live there.
The aftereffects
Little Village: Viento, the running club
Before Operation Midway Blitz, the captains and runners of Viento, the Little Village run club, would message each other only to cancel a run. Now they message to check if there have been sightings of federal agents and then decide when they’ll run and their route.
“I'm usually checking in, ‘How are you all personally?’ but also, ‘What do you think about running today? What's something that we should keep an eye on?’” says Jess Vergara, 37, who was part of the group that created the club 13 years ago. “So we are prepared when things kind of pop up.”
The club has a new rule: No one can run by themselves. Vergara says runners will slow down or run back to make sure no one is too far behind.
Viento means "wind" in Spanish. The club is mostly Latino and runs three times a week, meeting at 26th Street and South Central Park Avenue, as they have for 13 years.
Residents recognize them. Business owners wave as they pass, and members often gather after runs at restaurants for coffee.
Federal immigration agents arrived in September, about a month before the Chicago Marathon. For many runners, not running wasn’t an option after weeks of training.
Vergara and the other captains wanted to keep the runners safe. They mapped out routes and water stops; they identified safe havens in case agents targeted them. Members provided emergency contacts in case any runners were detained. The club held Know Your Rights training for runners and their families.
Now, Vergara says, they are trying to keep the runners motivated, but they are also preparing, in case the feds come back.
“We are constantly checking the news, what other organizations are doing in La Villita and around Chicago,” she says. “We keep in touch with the rapid response teams and see what they're saying.”
“It's such a different feeling. It's this constant vigilance and heightened anxiety."
Little Village: Moreno’s Liquors
Sales declined sharply at Moreno’s Liquors during federal immigration operations. Customers have started to return, “but people have this uneasiness,” store owner Mike Moreno Jr. says.
They send him messages asking if he can verify the area is clear of immigration agents before they go out.
“Before immigration came in, if somebody saw a drone, no one thought anything of it," Moreno says. "If somebody saw a helicopter flying over, they thought, 'OK, it's the news checking traffic or Chicago Police Department doing something.' Now people are scared."
Moreno, 34, is a third-generation entrepreneur. He grew up in Archer Heights. His grandfather immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, and his family later moved to Little Village, where they were among the first Mexican families in the neighborhood. In 1977, his father opened Moreno’s Liquors, which became one of the first Latino-owned liquor stores in Illinois. In 2019, Moreno expanded the business with Osito’s Tap, a speakeasy next door.
With the presence of federal agents last fall, people stayed inside, Moreno says. Sales dropped 20% at first, as much as 60% at one point, and leveled off at a 40% drop for two months.
He says his business hasn’t fully recovered, and perhaps it won’t any time soon.
“It's the perfect storm. You've got inflation that's at an all-time high, you have tariffs that are exasperating that. Layoffs are happening across the board,” Moreno says. “You put all of those together, and the last thing you need is for people to be scared to even go out and shop.”
“No one should be treated like that. It’s disrespectful and inhumane,” he says.
Moreno says his family taught him the importance of civic engagement and advocacy. His father helped establish the Little Village Chamber of Commerce and worked with community leaders to build the neighborhood’s iconic arch.
Even though there was fear in the fall, Moreno says, residents came together, and the moment could unite Latinos across communities.
“To see people helping each other, bringing food to an abuelita who was afraid to go out or warning neighbors about threats, that was inspiring,” he says.
“We won’t give up,” he adds. “Todo juntos. We’re in this together.”
South Chicago: Cecy’s Molino de Masa
Since 1986, Cecilia “Cecy” Villarruel has been producing masa in South Chicago. She uses a molino, a machine that grinds up corn, water and other ingredients to make the dough used in Mexican favorites like tamales.
Instead of celebrating 40 years in business this year, Villarruel is worrying about her friends, family, employees and the neighborhood overall.
After ICE and Border Patrol began targeting South Chicago and the adjacent Southeast Side neighborhoods last fall, Villarruel noticed a change, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas, typically a busy time.
“It was slow. The people were afraid to stand in line,” she says in her native Spanish.
Her son, Saul Villarruel, who handles the finances for the business, says sales have dramatically decreased since the holidays.
Even now, “People are terrorized to go out,” Cecy Villarruel says. “I’m not afraid to go, but I’m afraid for my employees.”
Villarruel, a naturalized American citizen, says one worker didn't want to go out for three or four months, and some of her workers still are afraid to go outside and come to work.
“We would deliver food to their homes. A lot of them would send their grandkids, and we would also try to take the products to their home,” Villarruel says.
Saul Villarruel says when workers don’t show up, it’s up to other family members to pick up the slack for the small staff. “It’s still a problem,” he says.
In a community of African and Latino immigrants, he sees "people looking over their shoulder,” he says. “Some people are afraid of getting stopped for just being Latino.”
Even though he’s American-born and a citizen, Saul Villarruel worries about his own safety.
“By looking at me, nobody ever assumes that I'm Mexican. In that sense, I'm kind of protected. But I'm not. My parents are literally immigrants. A lot of people I know are from immigrants,” he says. “These are people I've worked with, people I've grown up with, people who have taken care of me. I feel an obligation, a responsibility to them.”
South Chicago: Maria
Maria, a 46-year-old mother of four, describes a feeling of panic and being trapped in her South Chicago home.
She goes to her job at a business in the surrounding area, but her family limits its other activities.
“We don’t go to events. We stopped going to the library, doctor’s appointments. It’s changed our lives 100%,” says Maria, who asked that her last name be withheld because she fears getting deported. “At nighttime, you can’t fall asleep. You’re afraid for them to knock on the door. You don’t know what time of day they are going to come. They could break your windows.”
Maria arrived five years ago from the Mexican border town Reynosa.
“It was great. We had a lot of fun. Life was good,” she says in her native Spanish.
But that’s changed. Maria says she is scared to go out for groceries and to take her children to school.
“My 13-year-old daughter is under a lot of stress right now, and her hair is falling out,” she says. "It's snowed, and we haven't been able to go play in the snow. … They have even had to miss things like football practice, boxing training and other everyday activities they were used to doing.”
Maria has to talk bluntly to her children so they are prepared for what could happen.
“We plan on staying here," she says. "If God allows us to stay here, we’ll stay here, unless they come for us and we’ll have to return to Mexico. We would have to start over, because our lives are here."
Southeast Side: Illinois National Guard member
Joining the National Guard seemed like a good idea to a 20-year-old Southeast Side resident.
While she was born in the United States, her mother and siblings are undocumented.
She says she joined the Guard hoping to ease the path for her relatives to be naturalized.
“I wanted to give them a better future,” she says, asking that she not be identified because she fears reprisals for talking to the media.
The threat of President Donald Trump sending the National Guard into Chicago’s streets has diminished since the fall, but it still hangs over Guard members who in some cases would have to patrol their own neighborhoods.
“I won't feel good with that at all,” the Southeast Side woman says. “I know if I go and I have to detain people, I will be crying because I can’t control myself. It’s people that came for a better life and better opportunities and give a better future for the kids.”
She says all her friends in the guard feel conflicted.
“Most of the people that I work with are Hispanic,” she says. “They are really sad about the things, and they see how this government is just messed up and everything, but like, there's nothing they really can do about anything.”
South Chicago: Corina Pedraza
When ICE arrived in South Chicago last year, some people were caught off guard, Corina Pedraza says.
“The feeling was that we are so secluded or far away from Little Village, from Back of the Yards, they won't come here. That all got shattered in October. They found the East Side,” says Pedraza, 51, a member of both the Southwest and Southeast Side Rapid Response teams, community groups that mobilize when residents report sightings of ICE or federal agents.
“I think the community at large was just shocked to see the level of violence and the aggressive behavior,” she says. “There were teenagers that were slammed to the ground right at the busiest corner of the East Side, 106th and Ewing. They were going after anybody and everybody who has dark skin.”
Now, Pedraza says people here are living their lives more cautiously. ICE encounters are down, but community members fear a return in March and residents are being cautious.
“People are still going onto social media and saying, ‘I saw some dark SUVs. I saw an SUV with dark tinted windows. Can someone check?’” Pedraza says. “I don't think that has gone away. I think that people are definitely keeping eyes and ears open, because we know that agents have not left the area.”
Pedraza’s family arrived in South Chicago in the 1960s. Her father taught at several local institutions before opening a small business of his own, and her mother worked long hours at Jay’s Potato Chips. Like many families there, Pedraza says, “They helped build the neighborhood brick by brick, shift by shift.”
In November 2024, to win the presidential election, Trump gained ground with Latino voters. Many, even in the Southeast Side and South Chicago area, support him and his policies, Pedraza said.
That’s causing a divide in the community, she says.
“There’s definitely people who feel like 'I'm an American citizen, I have nothing to hide. It’s not a big deal to just show them your ID,'” Pedraza says. “But there are other people who feel that it is a big deal. Why can I not walk in my neighborhood without feeling like I have to prove to someone that I am a citizen? I thought we were living in the United States.”
Southeast Side: Olga Bautista
Olga Bautista speaks proudly about the Southeast Side, her only home for all her 47 years.
“This community is families from all over the world,” she says. “Eastern European families, Mexican families, people from Latin America. Black sharecroppers from the South came up to work in the steel mills. There’s such a rich mix of cultures here.”
Nestled along Lake Michigan, the area is known for Calumet and Steelworkers parks, where families gather, children play soccer and generations have built memories. Bautista recalls walking to the lake in minutes, attending day camp and later watching her own child train as a lifeguard there.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, where she and her children were baptized, is among the oldest Mexican-American Catholic churches in the Midwest.
But the sense of safety and community has been shaken.
“We have seen a huge drop in people on the streets, shopping in the commercial corridors,” says Bautista, a member of the Chicago Board of Education. “Folks are not going to their doctor's appointments. Children are not going to school. It is definitely impacting the way that we socialize, the way that we are in community with each other. The businesses here are taking a big hit.”
The U.S. Coast Guard facility near Calumet Park had felt approachable, with Coast Guard members interacting with families, hosting Halloween trick-or-treating and sitting at picnic tables. Security and fencing increased and it became more “militarized,” Bautista says.
She and other residents believe the area has been used as a staging ground for immigration enforcement operations. Those operations have had a chilling effect across the neighborhood, she says.
“I'm still getting notices that families have been abducted just this week. They are being kidnapped," Bautista says. "They're not asking for information. They just take these folks. They pull them out of their cars, out of their houses. It's very violent. It's very traumatizing to them and to their families and this whole community — from the stories of how people are being abducted to the visual images on TV.”
Southwest Side: Latinos Progresando
Latinos Progresando, an organization that supports immigrant communities like Pilsen and Little Village, is dealing with the fallout from Operation Midway Blitz.
Community members want answers, says Luis Gutierrez, who founded the organization 28 years ago.
Many ask for help navigating the immigration system and locating family members who have been detained. Staff members spend hours trying to determine where detainees are being held. Residents come in worried about their loved one not having their medicine or any means to communicate with them.
“They come in every day looking for help,” says Gutierrez, 53, who spent the holiday season delivering groceries, essential household goods and gifts. He and his staff visited families who were too scared to leave their homes for fear of being detained or deported.
The work has taken a toll on nonprofit and advocacy workers, he says: “You’re constantly answering phone calls, emails and texts, trying to provide some sort of information.”
He says advocates sounded the alarm early last year, asking for support, especially after they saw what happened in Los Angeles in the summer, but few outside the Latino community initially responded.
“Toward the end of last year, suddenly the city woke up,” Gutierrez says. “You saw people across communities standing up and saying, ‘This isn’t right.’”
The son of Mexican immigrants, Gutierrez, who grew up in Little Village, says he knows firsthand about fear and resilience.
Possible detention by federal immigration officials has caused widespread anxiety and trauma, building a need for mental health services, he says. “Our community really has been in emergency response mode since COVID started, and we have not stopped.”
“I’m working with principals and we’re talking about kids walking to school by themselves,” Gutierrez says. “We’re talking about a lack of participation in programs and even in local school councils.”
“It’s sad,” he says. “But when I talk to community residents and see [them] navigating the system, talking to their kids, preparing their families, there’s so much strength and beauty in how they stand up during this time.”
Gutierrez says residents believe immigration agents will return, but they feel more prepared.
“Other communities are standing up and protesting, and so we are going to continue the work, and whatever comes, we're going to deal with it.”
Pilsen: Alejandra, parent
Alejandra, an immigrant mother of three, is an active parent. For years, she’s enrolled her kids in after-school activities and volunteered with a parent support group.
“My biggest hope is that all my children grow up to be good people and become upstanding members of society,” she says. “It’s up to us as parents to lead them down the right path.”
Like many immigrants from Mexico, Alejandra says she came to the United States 20 years ago looking for a better life and more opportunities for her future children. She and her husband wanted to raise their children in Pilsen.
But now, after living through the fall surge of federal immigration enforcement, she is rethinking her community involvement.
She said she’s tentatively allowed her children — one in high school and two in elementary school — to resume extracurricular activities like soccer and theater club that they had stopped doing in the fall.
But she says that may change in the coming months.
“We are still a little scared. I worry that people who agree with this administration behave badly or aggressively towards our community. I don’t want my kids to see any of that,” she says.
Alejandra says Pilsen is usually calm and close-knit, but that the sense of safety is gone.
“Our lives have changed. You can feel it, [our community has] distrust. There are people that only see the color of our skin and identify us as enemies,” she says. “They don’t know how many years we have lived here and how we have been paying taxes and not receiving any benefits. I feel people think we are taking things from them, but that’s not the case.”
Alejandra says her family knows people who have had encounters with immigration agents, including one family whose father was arrested and detained.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” she says.
She says fear has reshaped everything. “People aren’t as chatty as they used to be. You notice people are gone, like the tamale vendor who used to be on the corner.”
Despite her fear, she remains optimistic about her children’s future.
“I tell my children not to be ashamed,” she says. “Never turn your back on your community.”