CHICAGO — Republican President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the Chicago area may have ebbed in recent weeks, but U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood cautioned Monday against assuming the effort is over after she was granted special access to the federal government’s controversial immigration processing center in west suburban Broadview.

Opponents of Operation Midway Blitz, the chaotic and at times violent joint deportation mission carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, were heartened by this month’s departure of controversial Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino. But Underwood, the top Democrat on the congressional subcommittee that oversees the budgets for ICE, Border Patrol and other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters the officials she spoke with Monday “have not received any instruction around an end date.”

In fact, Underwood said, ICE is looking to “probably triple” the size of the staff at its Broadview processing center and Chicago field office “by January.” The agency also is “pursuing contracts for temporary office space,” she said.

Pointing to $150 billion allocated to ICE in the spending package Trump muscled through Congress over the summer, Underwood said that even if another government shutdown occurs early next year when the current funding deal runs out, the agency would “be able to hire and bring in these temporary structures to continue to grow immigration enforcement across our community.”

Underwood’s tour of the Broadview processing facility, which has been the epicenter of local protests over the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies and the subject of an ongoing federal lawsuit over the conditions inside, came after months of similar access requests from Democratic members of Illinois’ congressional delegation were denied. The four-term lawmaker from Naperville said she was the first member of Congress in “several years” to get a look inside the facility.

A class-action lawsuit filed in federal court last month described the two-story brick building on an industrial side street as a “black box,” where those taken into custody have been cut off from most outside contact and kept in dirty and unsafe conditions. After a judge earlier this month ordered Homeland Security to improve conditions, the number of people being held there dropped substantially, the Tribune reported last week.

By the time Underwood arrived late Monday morning, no one was being held at the facility, with only a small contingent of security guards and the three ICE officials who conducted the tour present, she said. Underwood was told that the last person processed at the facility was overnight before she arrived, she said.

The congresswoman said she was told the facility was nearly empty because “they were updating their security systems and installing new security cameras.”

ICE did not respond Monday to questions about Underwood’s visit or her description of the agency’s future plans.

Trying to conduct proper oversight with little staff present and no one being held at the facility was “challenging,” Underwood said.

Nevertheless, Underwood said she saw only three showers and eight cots available in a facility that at times has held more than 100 people. The facility has no vendor providing food service, with meals purchased from sandwich shops and big-box retailers, she said, and there likewise is no one under contract to provide medical care.

“They had one package of Huggies, they had some sanitary pads for menstruating women, and they had foot powder,” Underwood said.

The Monday tour, led by Sam Olson, outgoing director of ICE’s Chicago field office, was arranged through Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s office, Underwood said.

While the congresswoman intends to return to Broadview and has requested a tour of all other Homeland Security facilities in Illinois, the department only committed to Monday’s visit, she said.

“The way that immigrants and U.S. citizens have been treated here is unacceptable, and it doesn’t make us more safe,” Underwood said.

Despite her position on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Underwood said Monday that she did not know what Operation Midway Blitz has cost taxpayers to date.

Underwood’s visit came on the same day new data was released detailing the federal government’s immigration enforcement actions nationwide over the past two months, the first update since before the record 43-day shutdown that ended Nov. 13.

As of Nov. 16, ICE was detaining 65,135 people, an increase of nearly 5,400 from Sept. 21, the last day of available data prior to the shutdown, according to an analysis from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC. Among that net increase in detainees, 97% had no criminal conviction, not even a minor traffic offense, indicating that “during the government shutdown, increasingly ICE targeted individuals with no criminal history,” according to the analysis.

In addition, “despite the enormous increase in the resources and government personnel devoted” to immigrant removal operations, there has been only a 7% increase in deportations since Trump took office compared with the last full year of President Joe Biden’s administration, the analysis showed.

“The Trump administration continues to conceal most concrete details about its immigration enforcement activities — both on the level of resources the government is devoting to this effort as well as who it is targeting and has actually removed,” TRAC said in a report released Monday.

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