Border Patrol announced it is launching an immigration operation in the Chicago area a week after ICE began operations, with President Trump saying Tuesday he will send the National Guard to the city.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commander-At-Large Gregory Bovino posted a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday morning.
“Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived!” Bovino said in the post.
Bovino said the U.S. Border Patrol has launched “Operation At Large” in Chicago.
The operation is to continue the mission that Border Patrol started in Los Angeles “to make the city safer by targeting and arresting criminal illegal aliens,” Bovino said.
The 27-second video showed Border Patrol vehicles and agents on the way to Chicago.
The video features the song “End of Beginning” by the band Djo.
Bovino was the official who oversaw the immigration enforcement operation in Los Angeles where thousands of arrests were made earlier this summer.
The operation by the Border Patrol comes amid ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” which was announced early last week, and that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said is “already successfully removing the worst of the worst—including pedophiles, rapists, and other violent thugs.”
“In just the last few days in Chicago, ICE has arrested pedophiles, rapists, abusers, armed robbers, and other violent thugs. These are the criminal illegal aliens Governor Pritzker, Mayor Johnson, and their fellow sanctuary politicians protect over the law-abiding American citizens,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said last week.
“These criminal illegal aliens flocked to Illinois because sanctuary policies allow them to roam free and terrorize innocent Americans without consequence. President Trump and Secretary Noem have a clear message: no city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens. If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return,” McLaughlin said.
Hundreds of ICE agents are operating out of Naval Station Great Lakes in Lake County for the operation.
Also on Tuesday morning, U.S. President Donald Trump said while on the White House lawn that he plans to send the National Guard to Chicago, calling it a “death trap.”
“So I’m going to go to Chicago early, against Pritzker, Pritzker is nothing,” Trump said. “If Pritzker was smart, he’d say ‘please come in.'”
Trump, over the past several weeks, has repeatedly mentioned sending troops to Chicago.
The president on Friday reversed course and said he would be deploying the National Guard to Memphis, not Chicago.
Trump said at that time that he would have preferred to send the National Guard to Chicago and again called out Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for opposing his plan.
The governor has called the president’s remarks about sending the National Guard to Chicago as “unhinged,” saying he would not call the president and ask for troops to be deployed.
Pritzker said Chicago does not want troops on the streets.
“I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump again. What I want are the federal dollars that have been promised to Illinois and Chicago for violence prevention programs,” Pritzker said.