CHICAGO (AP) — The music begins low and ominous, and the video shows searchlights grazing by. chicago apartment building Heavily armed immigration officials then stormed inside. A gun is depicted. Unmarked cars fill the streets. Agents rappel from a Blackhawk helicopter.
But the soundtrack soon became more evocative, with a video released by the Department of Homeland Security in the days after the Sept. 30 raid, edited into a series of dramatic shots, showing officers leading away shirtless men with their hands tied behind their backs in zip ties.
Authorities say they are targeting Venezuelan gangs Torren de AraguaBut he also said that of the 27 immigrants arrested, only two were gang members. They provided few details about the arrest.
But residents said an apartment complex housing dozens of Americans was targeted and at least six Americans were detained for several hours.
A huge display of power was signaled. rapid escalation The White House’s immigration crackdown has further heightened tensions in a city already on the brink.
“To all criminals and illegal aliens: the darkness is no longer your friend.” homeland security The video has been viewed more than 6.4 million times. “We’ll find you.”
But third-floor resident Tony Wilson, who was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, sees nothing but horror at what happened.
“It felt like we were being attacked,” Wilson said days after the attack, looking through the hole where the doorknob had been. The agent used a grinder to cut out the deadbolt, but he was still unable to properly close the door, much less lock it. So he blocked the door with furniture and barricaded himself inside.
“I didn’t hear them knocking or anything,” said Wilson, 58, a disabled U.S. citizen.
dreams and decline
The attack was carried out in the heart of the South Shore. The South Shore is a predominantly black region on the shores of Lake Michigan that has long been a complex web of middle-class dreams, urban decline, and gentrification.
This is where a team of drug dealers ransack the outside of a luxurious lakeside apartment building looking for customers. Not only is it home to some of the city’s best vegan restaurants, but it’s also home to a takeout joint where you can order catfish fillets behind bulletproof glass.
While it has highly paid professors from the University of Chicago, it is also a region where one-third of households live on less than $25,000 a year.
The apartment complex where the attack occurred has been plagued with problems for many years. The five-story building was built in the 1950s, but residents say it is often littered with trash, the elevators rarely work, and crime is a constant concern. Residents say the situation has become even more chaotic after the arrival of dozens of Venezuelan migrants in recent years. No residents said they felt threatened by the migrants, but they said there was an increase in noise and trash in hallways.
The building, owned by an out-of-state investor, has not passed inspection for three years, with problems ranging from missing smoke detectors to the smell of urine to unclean staircases. Wisconsin resident Trinity Flood, the lead investor in the limited liability company that owns the building, did not respond to repeated calls. Attempts to contact agents through real estate agents and lawyers were also unsuccessful.
Fears of crime spiked in June when a Venezuelan man was shot in the head in an “execution style”, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. Another Venezuelan was also charged with the death penalty.
In the days after the attack, the doors of dozens of the building’s 130 apartments were left open. Almost all of those apartments were ransacked. Windows were broken, doors were destroyed, and clothes and diapers were scattered on the floor. In one apartment, a white tuxedo jacket hung in a closet next to a room knee-deep in broken furniture, piles of clothing and plastic bags. In another case, water dripped from the ceiling and formed a puddle next to a refrigerator that was lying on its side. Some kitchens were infested with bugs.
Wilson said three men wearing bulletproof vests tied his hands with zip ties and forced him outside with dozens of other people, mostly Latino. After being detained for two hours, they were told they could leave.
“It was terrible, dude,” he said. He had barely left his apartment for days.
A city under siege?
The White House says Chicago is under siege.
The president announces that American gang members and illegal immigrants are flocking to the city and crime is rampant. Donald Trump claims that. The National Guard is needed to protect government facilities from violent left-wing protesters.
“Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the world,” he posted on Truth Social.
The reality is not so dramatic. Although violence at protests is rare, angry clashes are becoming increasingly common. Especially outside of federal immigration centers. in suburban Broadview. While crime remains a serious problem, the city’s homicide rate has fallen by about half since the 1990s.
Even with these realities, the Trump administration will not stop.
It’s part of a so-called crackdown that began in early September when several people were arrested in Latino neighborhoods. “Operation Midway Blitz” It spiked across Chicago. Patrols by masked armed operatives are increasing. detention of US citizens and immigrants with legal status. deadly gunfire; Outside the Broadview facility, a protesting pastor shot himself in the head with a pepper ball and raised his arms in supplication.
By early October, authorities said more than 1,000 migrants had been arrested across the region.
In the attack, I trembled Chicago.
“We have a reckless, reckless group of heavily armed, masked people roaming our streets.” Mayor Brandon Johnson Speaking after the attack on September 30th. “The Trump administration is trying to destabilize our city and promote chaos.”
For Trump’s critics, the crackdown is a calculated effort to stoke anger in the cities and states run by his most powerful people. Outspoken opponent of the Democratic Party. They say uncontrolled protests will embarrass Johnson and Illinois while reinforcing President Trump’s tough-on-crime image. Governor JB Pritzker, He is seen as a possible Democratic presidential candidate.
As a result, the South Shore attack, which was staged for social media and included displays of military equipment and operatives armed for combat, was seen as grossly disproportionate.
“This was a crazy military response they had set up for a reality TV show,” said Lavonte Stewart, who runs a South Shore sports show aimed at keeping young people away from violence. “It’s not like we have a roving band of Venezuelan teenagers.”
Officials insist it was not a reality show.
The operation was led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and was based on months of intelligence gathering, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The official added that the building’s landlord told authorities that Venezuelans were illegally occupying the approximately 30 units and were threatening other tenants, making the use of force necessary due to the size of the building. The Immigration Bureau declined further comment.
Even before the Midway Raid, Trump’s election shocked Chicago’s Latino community.
Stewart said Venezuelan children have started disappearing from his program for months, but it’s often unclear whether they have emigrated, returned to Venezuela or are just staying at home.
“I had 35 kids from Venezuela participate in my program,” he said. “There’s nothing right now.”
wave of new immigrants
The attack reverberated across the South Shore, triggering a pinball of memories of the drug war, economic disparity and explosion of violence in the 1990s. sometimes unpleasant relationship between black residents and a wave of more than 50,000 immigrants, mostly Latinos, who began arriving in 2022. I often take the bus From the southern border states.
Chicago spent more than $300 million on housing and other services for immigrants, stirring widespread resentment on the South Shore and other black neighborhoods where the newcomers settled.
“They felt that the new arrivals were being treated better than those who were already part of the community,” said Kenneth Phelps, pastor of Concord Missionary Baptist Church in Woodlawn, a predominantly black neighborhood.
It didn’t matter that many immigrants were crammed into small apartments, most just wanted to work. The message to residents is that newcomers are more important than themselves, he said.
Phelps tried to combat that perception by creating a program to support newcomers and inviting them into the church. But it sparked further anger, including among his own congregation.
“There have been times when I have had people leave the church,” he said.
On the South Shore, the remaining immigrants in the neighborhood are largely invisible, yet bitter voices are easy to hear.
“They took everyone’s jobs!” said Rita Lopez, a manager at a nearby apartment complex who recently visited the scene of the attack.
“The government gave them all the money. It didn’t give it to Chicagoans,” she says.
Demographic changes and a generation of suspicion
For more than a century, Irish, Jews, and blacks flocked to the South Shore for its lakefront locations, affordable bungalows, and early 20th-century apartment buildings.
Each wave viewed the next with suspicion, and in many ways mirrored how black South Shore residents viewed the influx of immigrants.
Former first lady Michelle Obama’s parents moved to the South Shore when it was still mostly white and watched the area change. An area that was 96% white in 1950 became 96% black in 1980.
“We were doing everything we were supposed to do, and more. But when we moved in, white families moved out,” she said in 2019.
But in the 1990s, many housing projects began to close, raising suspicions among the South Shore’s black middle class, which nervously watched the influx of poorer residents.
“This has always been a complex community,” Stewart said of those days.
“I live on a block here that’s very clean and has really nice houses, and you go a block away and there’s broken glass, trash everywhere, and there’s a shooting incident,” he said. “This is the strangest thing, and it’s been like this for 30 years.”
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Aisha I. Jefferson in Chicago, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
