Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: One year ago today, federal immigration agents landed in the Chicago area to launch Operation Midway Blitz, President Donald Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration campaign. We look back on the toll of those 10 weeks.
🗞️ Plus: Construction to begin on the former LeClaire Courts site, a local sendoff party for monarch butterflies and more news you need to know.
📝 Keeping score: The Cubs fell to the Brewers, 4-3.
⏱️: A 7-minute read
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TODAY’S WEATHER 🌤️
Partly sunny with a high near 86.
TODAY’S TOP STORY 🔎
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file
The toll of Trump’s 68-day Blitz on Chicago
Reporting by Lauren FitzPatrick and Alden Loury
The wounded city: Chicago, long home to immigrants, had never seen federal enforcement like this before. Hundreds of immigration officers streamed into Chicago starting one year ago. They came from across the country, dispatched to execute “Operation Midway Blitz.” President Donald Trump had been warning of accelerating his mass deportation campaign in Chicago, targeting cities and states with sanctuary policies protecting immigrants. The surge lasted from Sept. 8 to Nov. 14, 2025.
City under siege: The Blitz at times felt like a siege. The deportation campaign was one that residents could see, hear and feel. Helicopters hovered overhead for hours. Unmarked SUVs — sometimes without license plates — patrolled the streets, full of agents in military-style clothes. Neighbors’ whistles and family members’ screams became an unwanted daily soundtrack.
Total people detained: During the height of the fall enforcement campaign, 3,841 people were detained in total. Nearly all were immigrants, held inside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in suburban Broadview, built to process immigrants over a few hours, not to house people for days. Detainees reported crowded, unsanitary conditions behind doors closed even to clergy and members of Congress. Federal officers detained children estimated to be as young as two and senior citizens as old as 76.
Background check: The Trump administration vowed repeatedly that it was going after “the worst of the worst” criminals in the U.S. without legal status. Yet as federal officers detained record numbers of immigrants in Chicago-area detention facilities, the percentage of detainees with a prior criminal conviction fell to 15% from a high of 50% in January 2025.
Total people deported: The number of immigrants detained during the 10-week campaign who were later removed from the U.S. — either involuntarily or because they agreed to self-deport — reached a high during the blitz: 2,732.
READ MORE
BEARING THE BLITZ ✶
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file
PHOTOS: AFTER THE BLITZ ✶
Remnants of the height of Operation Midway Blitz are still visible throughout the city and suburbs, marking the ways in which some communities remain scarred and vigilant.
The Sun-Times photo staff recently captured some of these vestiges in neighborhoods.
MORE PHOTOS HERE
LET’S HEAR FROM YOU 🗣️
What is your defining memory of Operation Midway Blitz?
Reply to this question via email or tap the button below (please include your first and last name). We may run your answer in a future newsletter or story.
MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️
- Holiday weekend violence: Eight people were killed and 30 were wounded in Labor Day weekend gun violence, according to authorities. At least five teenagers were wounded in separate shootings.
- Mom faces murder charges: Corie Walsh, of Frankfort, is facing murder charges after she is alleged to have killed her 2-year-old son last week, according to Will County prosecutors, who said Walsh had recently become interested in the case of Lindsay Clancy.
- Man sentenced in bartender’s death: Keante McShan pleaded guilty to the 2022 murder and armed robbery of Diego Damis, a beloved Hyde Park bartender, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
- State sues Trump: Illinois is suing the Trump administration, along with more than 21 legal officials from states and cities nationwide, over its attempts to cut funding for youth gender affirming care.
- Triton College board chairman resigns: The embattled chairman of the Triton College board, Mark Stephens, has resigned his leadership post after pressure in response to his arrest on drug charges in July. He plans to remain a board member.
- Work to begin on vacant site: Construction is expected to start next month on a large Southwest Side tract where the LeClaire Courts housing project once stood — the first phase of a heavily subsidized complex of apartments.
ON WBEZ 91.5 FM 📻
In the Loop with Sasha-Ann Simons, 9 a.m.
- Oprah Winfrey Show turns 40: The show that launched Oprah Winfrey to stardom — and was born and produced in Chicago — was broadcast to viewers across the country on Sept. 8, 1986. A former employee of the Harpo universe and a nearby restaurateur share their memories.
- What’s That Building? We take you inside one of the Chicago area’s tiniest shops, the Little Popcorn Store in downtown Wheaton.
Say More with Mary Dixon and Patrick Smith, 10 a.m.
- Midway Blitz — one year later: Callers weigh in on immigration enforcement over the past year.
LISTEN LIVE 🎧
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏈⚾🏒
- Heeding wife’s advice: If you’ve enjoyed watching the emotion Cubs reliever Ryan Rolison has shown lately, you can thank his wife, Lauren, who told him he’s “kind of boring to watch.”
- Sox near success: The White Sox are nearing a surprising AL Central title, a result of their remodeled player acquisition process.
- Measure of success: The Bears won their 2023 trade with the Panthers — and now need to win because of it, writes Patrick Finley.
- Hawks’ future: Do the Blackhawks have a path to fourth place in the Central Division? Ben Pope considers the likelihood ahead of training camp on Sept. 17.
- High school football: Lincoln-Way East students have been accused of racial harassment at last Friday’s Homewood-Flossmoor football game.
CHICAGO MINI CROSSWORD 🌭
Today’s clue: 5D: Art ___ (style of the Carbide & Carbon building
PLAY NOW
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum throws sendoff party for monarch butterflies
Reporting by Somer Van Benton
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum hosted its annual Flutter into Fall event Saturday, celebrating monarch butterflies as they prepare for their journey south to Mexico.
Children and adults learned about the butterflies’ migration patterns, enjoyed arts and crafts, took in cultural performances and watched monarchs be released into the sky.
Organizers said the event was meant not only to educate visitors about the science of monarchs, but also about the cultural significance of the species. Monarchs span much of North America during their migration and are symbols of resilience. In Mexican culture, they are also associated with Día de los Muertos, where their arrival is sometimes viewed as representing a spiritual connection between the living and the departed.
At the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven inside the museum, a father on Saturday comforted his nervous daughter as butterflies fluttered around a room that has been transformed into a lush forest.
“These butterflies aren’t dangerous,” he explained. “They just want to spread their wings and fly.”
READ MORE
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
On Monday, we asked you: What do you think of the future Sox owner’s proposal to build a new stadium by the river?
Here’s some of what you said, edited for space and clarity.
“I think a new White Sox stadium by the river would be tremendous. The artist renderings are impressive, and it would be a decisive way for new owner Justin Ishbia to state loud and clear that the days of Jerry Reinsdorf ownership are in the past and a new future for the franchise is beginning.” — Mark Liptak
“This is stupid. The Sox have an excellent ballpark now, so there’s no reason to spend money on a new stadium. There might be a good reason to redevelop the rail yard, but it shouldn’t include a new stadium.” — Steven West
“They do not need a new stadium. Where the White Sox are currently located works great. I say, focus on the roster and development of players; stadiums don’t make great teams.” — Michael Manika
“As long as [Ishbia] puts up ALL of the money and pays off anything for Rate Field.” — Penny O’Reilly
“Rate Field is youthful compared to other Major League stadiums. Consider our own Wrigley Field and Soldier Field, the NFL’s oldest. There is the whiff of a vanity project underway.” — Jerome M. O’Connor
PICTURE CHICAGO 📸
A dog joins a man for a ride down DuSable Lake Shore Drive during the 25th Annual Bike the Drive on Sunday.
Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times
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Editor: Satchel Price