ArcaMax

They’re gone? Really gone?

With the abrupt end of President Trump’s invasion of Chicago with U.S. Border Patrol agents, can this be the end of the crime crisis that President Donald Trump endlessly insists has the city in its grip?

Here’s a bit of advice from a long-time political observer: If Trump or his minions at the Department of Homeland security claim success at anything, check it out.

News of the Border Patrol's departure broke in much the same way as its arrival, without much further explanation or justification. But Border Patrol officer Gregory Bovino and the roughly 200 agents he commanded in the operation known as Operation Midway Blitz are gone, although some sources say they may return in spring.

The general response in Chicago is “good riddance,” but the Border Patrol is merely taking its dangerously aggressive raids to other unfortunate cities as part of Trump’s crusade to deport undocumented immigrants. Left behind in Chicago are agents of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, which runs a detention facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview and maintains a field office downtown.

Chicagoans can take a lot of pride in the help-your-neighbor spirit with which they stood up to Operation Midway Blitz. They weren't going to stand by as masked federal agents snatched children and families as they made their way to work, school or shopping, or just tried to live their lives. Citizens formed protective patrols, they protested at the ICE detention facility and at courts downtown. In the city and suburbs and small towns where Border Patrol showed up, they stood up and turned out in numbers, sending the message to Trump that subduing Chicago wouldn't be a layup.

Volunteers flocked to grab whistles and signal when and where Border Patrol or ICE might be in a particular area. Others organized into round-the-clock shifts, offered residents advice on their rights, and otherwise learned peaceful means of protest.

Parents organized to guard school entrances, to carpool students to class and work with business owners to protect their customers.

You can hear some of that spirit echoing in places like Charlotte, North Carolina, in reports that residents there have adopted many of the protest tactics. Good!

And yet ... the Border Patrol and ICE got away with shocking violence in Chicago and its suburbs. They shot and killed a father as he fled arrest. They dragged a preschool teacher out of a classroom in front of horrified toddlers. They rammed cars, smashed faces into the ground, shot nonlethal rounds at the heads of protesters, including a clergyman. Bovino himself was caught on video casually hurling a tear gas canister into a crowd of protesters. He lied and said it was because somebody threw a rock at him.

Another lie: The Department of Homeland Security claimed that Operation Midway Blitz was meant to target the "worst of the worst": murderers, rapists and other violent offenders. However, the Chicago Tribune found that of 614 people arrested whose identities were made available, only 16 had criminal histories that would present a "high public safety risk."

More than 3,300 have been arrested so far in Midway Blitz, many of them indiscriminately as Border Patrol got involved later in the operation. We may see, as more names get released, whether a higher proportion of violent criminals were netted, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Yet that has not stopped Trump and Co. from crowing about how the surge of federal agents has curbed crime in Chicago.

“Crime way down in Chicago thanks to President Trump and Secretary (Kristi) Noem’s leadership,” Bovino boasted in a social media post.

But Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker pushed back with data showing crime in Chicago has been dropping significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic began to wane in 2022.

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 8, the month before Operation Midway Blitz began, the number of homicides had dropped by more than 30% and shootings were down 39%, as compared with the same period a year ago, according to city data.

And all violent crimes dropped nearly 22% during the first eight months of the year, according to the data.

Trump has “shifted from fear-mongering about Chicago to attempting to take credit for our work driving down crime and violence,” Johnson tweeted. “He cannot have it both ways.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker used stronger language. “Trump is a liar,” said the governor in a tweet. “He cannot steal credit from our violence prevention and law enforcement efforts that have reduced crime for four years straight — long before his masked agents showed up.”

At least the whole controversy seems to have had a remarkably unifying effect on many Chicagoans. Many residents have rallied across lines of ethnicity and citizenship status, showing a unified desire to help their neighbors.

It’s too bad President Trump seems to show less interest in helping the city’s residents solve their local problems than in creating new ones.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at clarence47page@gmail.com.)

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