Police cars filled the street as armed agents rappelled through the night sky from helicopters positioned overhead. Federal officers went room by room, kicking down doors and throwing flash-bang grenades. The scene could have come out of a movie, but the setting was an ordinary apartment building in South Chicago, 7500 S. South Shore Drive.

Aggressive Tactics

The nighttime raid, staged in the wee hours of Tuesday, September 30, was a multi-agency immigration raid, which targeted the apartment building because it was “known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua [TdA] members and their associates,” explained the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Indeed, the raid resulted in 37 arrests, primarily of illegal immigrants from Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, and Nigeria. Authorities considered the raid so successful that DHS produced a video montage with a dramatic musical soundtrack, which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted to X. “Chicago, we’re here for you,” she wrote.

Yet residents may have interpreted a double meaning in the cryptic statement: did Noem mean, “here to protect you” or “here to arrest you”? Real life is often more complicated than a movie script, and the nighttime raid was no exception.

Eyewitnesses claimed that the immigration raid detained everyone in the building, surprising sleeping residents, taking them outside, and keeping them there for hours. “It was scary, because I had never had a gun in my face,” said building resident Pertissue Fisher. “They asked my name and my date of birth and asked me, ‘Did I have any warrants?’ And I told them, ‘No, I didn’t.’”

Resident Eboni Watson testified that kids were crying and that she saw the federal officers bring down children “zip-tied to each other.”

It’s unclear how many children were roused, detained, or zip-tied. According to DHS, they took into custody four children who were U.S. citizens, but whose parents were illegal immigrants, including one child allegedly found with a TdA member. An undercelebrated aspect of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations is its work locating 22,000 unaccompanied minors lost by the Biden administration, including hundreds placed with dangerous sponsors.

Reports about the nighttime immigration raid, which only picked up steam after Noem posted about it, leave plenty of unanswered questions, including factual ones. Had TdA taken over this apartment building as they had done to others? Were residents crying out for relief from the oppression of the foreign cartel? Did federal authorities search every apartment in the building? Did they detain every resident? Did they have the authority to do so? How many children were detained? How long did authorities detain residents whom they ultimately released?

Depending on the answers to these questions, the incident also raises more important questions about police tactics and the conduct of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. For instance, why was it necessary to descend on the apartment complex at night? If they had a warrant to search every apartment and detain every resident, how and why did they obtain such a warrant? Does the Trump administration see such law enforcement conduct as normal, or were there special circumstances that made this case exceptional?

These are serious questions that demand a more robust justification than the mere observation that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers (ICE) have faced opposition in Chicago while doing their jobs. Every administrative action sets a precedent that can (and likely will) be used by successive administrations. If the Trump administration sets a precedent of using platitudes to justify heavy-handed raids, how might that be used by a Kamala Harris, a Joe Biden, or another Democrat of like ilk?

Unfortunately, Americans need not look far for an answer. The Biden administration already weaponized law enforcement in this manner against pro-life protestors, whistleblowers against gender malpractice, dissident journalists, and President Trump himself. “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12).

Aggressive law enforcement is most often considered in political terms, with the administration touting its energy in protecting Americans, while its opponents prefer to sift for alleged rights violations with which to embarrass the administration. Both perspectives largely overlook the experience of law-abiding bystanders, who are nevertheless caught in the net.

Being detained can be a traumatic experience for any law-abiding citizen, especially when one is roused from sleep by a flashbang and required to answer the questions of heavily-armed intruders, however lawful their presence might be. On a Monday night, most law-abiding citizens are focused on getting a good night’s sleep, so that they can get their kids to school and then go to work in the morning (especially for blue-collar workers whose physically demanding jobs may start early).

If the experience is traumatic for adults, it is doubly so for children. Children who fear imaginary closet monsters and cry over disordered blankets will certainly fear the strange man with a gun who enters their apartment at night with a loud bang. Children who thrive on both routine and sleep can experience the after-effects of such a raid for years. NAACP President Derrick Johnson hit on this point, “As a father, I cannot help but think about what it means for a child to be torn from their bed in the middle of the night, detained for no reason other than a show of force. The trauma inflicted on these young people and their families is unconscionable.”

As a political opponent of the Trump administration, Johnson assumes too much in pursuit of scoring a hit. Public reports provide scant evidence that children were “detained for no reason.” But he correctly points out that it should take a very good reason to justify conduct so disruptive to the lives of law-abiding citizens.

Aggressively Attacked

Yet not all the aggression on the streets of Chicago emanates from federal immigration officers. Immigration officers continue to face harassment, threats, and open violence simply for doing their jobs. Whatever one thinks of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, such anti-government vigilantism is dangerous and un-American.

The most dramatic incident came on Saturday morning, when a convoy of approximately 10 civilian vehicles pursued a Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) vehicle for around nine miles before hitting it, blocking it, and attempting to run down the driver. The vehicle was a security vehicle, providing backup to other immigration officers in the area, but when the driver saw they were being followed he intentionally led the pursuers in another direction.

“According to BPA [Border Patrol Agent] 3, many of the civilian vehicles drove aggressively and erratically towards the CBP Vehicle,” attested FBI special agent Caitlin Malone, “including by driving within inches of the CBP Vehicle, pulling up alongside both the passenger’s and driver’s side of the CBP Vehicle, and disobeying traffic laws, including running red lights and stop signs, driving in the wrong lane, and driving the wrong way down one-way streets in order to pursue the CBP Vehicles.”

Eventually, the convoy cornered the car in a straight stretch of Kedzie Avenue between a railyard and “La Gloria Super Mercado.” A pick-up truck cut off the officers in front, another pinned it in from behind, and two cars on either side drove their cars into it. One driver, shouting slurs at the officers, sideswiped the driver side, while the other struck the rear passenger side, “leading to a temporary loss of control of the CBP Vehicle,” said Malone.

When the three occupants exited the border patrol vehicle, one of the vehicles, driven by Marimar Martinez, accelerated straight at him. DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin later revealed that Martinez was already known to CBP intelligence “for doxing agents and posting online ‘Hey to all my gang let’s f*** those mother f****** up, don’t let them take anyone.’” The agent fired approximately five shots, several of which struck Martinez, who drove off. Both drivers who struck the border patrol vehicle were arrested later that day.

Somehow, the situation grew even more tense after the amateurish “Fast & Furious” chase. The remaining vehicles in the convoy encircled the three Border Patrol agents, and a large crowd of protestors began to form. Fortunately, no one else was injured.

It is unclear how this situation was resolved, although reports suggest that Chicago police were conspicuously absent, even as other federal officers arrived on the scene. McLaughlin complained publicly that “Chicago Police Department [CPD] is leaving the shooting scene and refuses to assist us in securing the area.” This accusation drew a direct response from the police department, which insisted that “CPD officers did in fact respond to the shooting scene involving federal authorities on Saturday to maintain public safety and traffic control. CPD also responded to the scene to document the shooting.”

Records indicate that a dispatcher did direct officers to the scene, saying that “about 30 armed Border Patrol agents, ICE” were “being surrounded by a large crowd of people, requesting CPD.” However, the police were ordered to stop several blocks short of the scene. “Just to confirm, they were saying that they were being surrounded by that large crowd and they were requesting the police and we’re not sending?” asked the dispatcher. “Again, those are the orders we’re being given,” a supervisor answered.

At around 11:30 a.m., approximately one hour after the collision, CPD radio ordered, “Per the chief of patrol: Clear everybody out, we’re not responding over there.”

While leaving room for the fact that “details are still emerging,” the National Fraternal Order of Police strongly condemned the apparent abandonment of fellow officers in peril.

Vehicular attacks on immigration agents appear to be a Chicago specialty, as Saturday’s attack was neither the first nor the last. Last Wednesday, an illegal immigrant twice rammed his vehicle into ICE agents before fleeing on foot. Also last Wednesday, another illegal immigrant rammed his car into an ICE vehicle before crashing.

On that occasion, Chicago police responded slowly, then not at all. For the first 30 minutes, dispatchers had a backlog of calls for police (a disturbing reality of Chicago life in its own right). When a supervisor finally showed up, he reportedly said, “the [crashed] car can sit in the middle of the street. As long as we’re not over there, it’s all that matters.”

Federal vehicles were hit twice more on Saturday in hit-and-run crashes. In one incident, an SUV repeatedly rammed a Border Patrol pickup truck, driving it into a curb. When the driver exited the vehicle, the SUV driver attempted to run him down before the SUV was struck and disabled by a second Border Patrol vehicle.

These vehicular attacks present a troubling new twist on ICE enforcement operations in Chicago. ICE agents have already faced doxing, threats, and physical assault this year, as well as several incidents of lethal ambushes. Those attacking federal officers while they carry out their duty to enforce federal law have no excuse for their lawless violence. Their actions only provide an excuse for federal authorities to respond with their own aggressive tactics. And, while it’s fair to question whether those federal actions are warranted, it’s clear to see the opposition that prompted them.

When aggression follows aggression, it only leads America down a path towards further violence, less freedom, and an erosion of the ordered liberty that has made America unique and successful. When administrations set concerning new precedents, they must answer the question, what is the justification, and what is the cost?