Federal immigration ‘blitz’ causes flood in hotlines calls

Immigration rights defense groups have experienced a massive peak in hotline calls for legal aid and other while federal internal security officials launched this week of application of the highly anticipated immigration law in the Chicago region, groups announced on Thursday.

“Trump’s expulsion machine is out of control, and it is our communities and our families that are torn,” said Lawrence Benito, executive director of Illinois Coalition for immigrant and refugee Rights on Thursday during a press conference in Brighton Park, a highly Latin district of the Southwest.

Benito said that the group’s family support hotline had only received 500 calls on Tuesday on Tuesday, the highest volume since January, with the “vast majority” reporting observations from American immigration and customs agents. Before the Trump administration starts, the hotline at 855-435-7693 received around 100 calls per month, he said.

Benito awarded the sharp increase in hotline calls this week to a greater prevalence of federal officers, but also to community awareness of ice activity.

“This is why Ice finds it difficult to round people in the figures they want-that they are trying to change their tactics according to their conditions on the ground. And we have a very informed community who know their rights,” he said.

Trump’s internal security ministry announced on Monday that the wave of application of the immigration law nicknamed “Midway Blitz operation” because it has also apparently fell to a previous threat to send the national guard to the city to repress the crime.

Although activists and the administration have reported the activity of the ice this week, the exact scale compared to previous swings since Trump took office in January in January is not clear on Thursday.

While Trump focused on Chicago for crime and immigration, activists said that children who attend school may have been affected.

Preliminary figures show that Chicago public schools this school year experienced a drop in registrations of 12,000 students, said Yesenia Lopez, a member of the board of directors, at the same press conference, “mainly learners in English”.

Lopez said that she did not know if this fall was directly attributable to the fears of the application of immigration. The school district registered more than 325,300 students during the school year which started in 2024, according to the CPS website.

The ICIRR had no estimate for the number of people detained this week. But the group’s leaders said that more people are arrested than, initially reported by the Trump administration, because the activists knew different people who were arrested than those that the administration has published publicly, said ICIRR spokesperson Brandon Lee.

Throughout the week, the Trump administration has published several shots on the head and names of the individuals who, according to them, were arrested in the strong increase, which, according to the administration, is the “worst of the worst” and were both found guilty of crimes and lacking in legal status.

A spokesperson for ICE said that the agency had “arrested some of the worst offenders in Chicago, including gang members, murderers, children’s rapists and drug traffickers, who wreaked havoc on the community”.

While federal efforts have increased, the agents have received limited logistical support from the large lakes of the naval station. On Thursday, the American senses Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, and the American representative Brad Schneider of Highland Park met the American secretary of the Navy John Phelan, where the elected officials declared that they had discussed the need for greater transparency on federal operations.

Last week, the three Democratic legislators went to the naval base of North Chicago where they met naval officials but were refused offices used by internal security.

“While the president and the officials of the DHS dodge responsibility and literally prevent us from buildings to avoid our surveillance, I appreciate that the Phelan secretary has accepted our invitation to speak of guaranteeing that the great lakes of the naval station are not trained in the political theater of the president,” said Durbin in a statement.

Duckworth added that it was “deeply concerned about the little transparency that the Trump administration provides when it comes to deploying federal agents and our troops in our cities to intimidate the Americans in their own communities”.

A large part of the application of immigration in the Chicago region this week seemed concentrated in Cicero and in the districts on the southwest side, notably Brighton Park and Little Village, said Lee d’Icirr. But calls come from the whole city and the suburbs, militants said.

The Immigration justice resurrection project has also increased this week in legal services requests for persons detained by immigration police, said Tovia Siegel, organization and leadership director.

And the activists said they were continuing to monitor all application measures linked to Mexican independence day celebrations, including a parade on Sunday in Little Village, Benito said.

The peaceful soldiers of the volunteers formed will be present along the parade road, said Benito; Jennifer Aguilar, executive director of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce, previously said that the parade will have private security, immigration lawyers and a quick response team for immigration rights.

The parade of the Mexican independence day in Pilsen last weekend experienced a lower participation rate than in previous years, but continued as expected, also with a voluntary presence.