Trump administration says ICE operations will be in ‘full force’ on Halloween

Chicago leaders and community members have for months decried the federal presence in their city, pointing to incidents of violent interactions.

Chicagoans will not see a reduction in federal law enforcement presence on Halloween, despite Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker requesting that the Trump administration pause its ICE operations to allow children to trick-or-treat on the holiday without fear of interactions with federal officers.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration’s operation will be in “full force” on Halloween.

“We’re going to be out on the streets in full force and increase our activities to make sure kids are safe,” Noem told Fox News. “Every day in Chicago, we’re arresting murderers, child pedophiles, those who have perpetuated assault and pornography against children.”

The Homeland Security secretary said that federal agents would ensure that Chicagoans can “enjoy” a “safe” Halloween, so that they “don’t have to be the victim of a crime because of these illegal aliens that are in our country victimizing them.”

But Chicago leaders and community members have for months decried the federal presence in their city, pointing to incidents of violent interactions amid ongoing protests against the Trump administration’s routine immigration raids. While the White House continues to claim that they are targeting violent criminals, residents on the ground say their communities are being terrorized.

During an apartment raid in Chicago’s South Side earlier this month, a majority of Black residents were awakened in the middle of the night. Women and children were notably zip-tied and detained by law enforcement, despite being U.S. citizens and not committing any crime.

Most recently, protesters were tear-gassed despite a federal court in Illinois forbidding the use of riot-control weapons. Earlier this month, children were left terrified after federal agents deployed tear gas outside of an elementary school.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blasted the Trump administration’s ongoing tactics in his city, calling the operations “racist” and dehumanizing.

“Dehumanizing is dangerous, and it is nasty and it is racist. What we cannot allow as a country, but broadly as humanity, we cannot allow people to be dehumanized. Because what it does is it opens up viciosuness,” Johnson said at a news conference on Tuesday. He continued, “Because if they’re not seen as human beings, then whatever you do against them can be justified. And no one is going to convince me that what the Trump administration is doing against Black people and brown people can ever be justified.”

“It is racist when you bombard into people’s homes in the middle of the night and you take Black babies out of their beds and zip tie them. That is sick,” the Chicago mayor added.

“When you have Black babies being thrown in the back of vans, zip tied in the middle of the night, and masked men sticking guns in the faces of Black and Brown people, that is nasty, it’s vicious…Dr. King described it as an evil. Militarization in that formation is an evil.”