CHICAGO — President Donald Trump mocked local officials last month, calling the city a “war zone” after they touted a drop in crime that brought the safest summer it had seen since 1965.
Now, his administration wants to take credit.
On Tuesday, a Department of Homeland Security official cited a drop in crime in Chicago, when asked for comments on reports that Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino was sunsetting Operation Midway Blitz, as the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge in Chicago is called.
“We aren’t leaving Chicago,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin posted on X. She then listed percentages related to a drop in murders, shootings and robberies and tied it to the arrival of immigration agents.
“It is great to hear that the Trump administration acknowledges, as we have been saying for months, that crime is significantly down in Chicago,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement Tuesday. “However, they have nothing to do with that work. While CBP agents have been here, they have tear-gassed our police officers on two separate occasions, bragged about shooting a U.S. citizen five times, and, over the weekend, they pepper-sprayed a one-year-old child.”
In August, the month before Operation Midway Blitz started, numbers were down across the board. Compared to the same month in 2024, homicides were down 24%, shootings were down 24%, robberies were down 41% and car thefts were down 28%, according to Chicago Police Department data. DHS arrived in September — after July and August, which are traditionally the months that see the highest criminal activity.
“That strains credibility to make such a claim,” Alderman Brian Hopkins said of DHS attributing a decrease in crime to its immigration operations. But Hopkins, who heads the Chicago City Council’s public safety committee and said public safety officials briefed him on the downscaling of the Chicago operation, added that the mayor shouldn’t take credit for crime dropping either, pointing instead to Chicago following a national downward trend.
“Having storm troopers come in, kicking doors down and arresting nannies and construction workers can do nothing but set back the cause of promoting support for law enforcement in general. And that’s exactly what’s happened,” Hopkins said. “So whatever the end result of this is, it nets out in a negative fashion.”
McLaughlin, who did not respond to follow-up questions about the status of the operation, on Monday was quoted in a USA Today article saying: “Thanks to DHS law enforcement, Chicago has experienced the fewest summer murders since 1965!”
The 1965 statistic McLaughlin cited was the same one that the city and state officials have repeatedly held up as they said there was no emergency situation necessitating the deployment of National Guard troops in the city. Trump is currently asking the Supreme Court to allow the deployment of those troops there.
“Why are they calling for troops in our cities? Why?” Gov. JB Pritzker said in a recent interview with NBC News. “It doesn’t make any sense. Literally, crime has gone down everywhere, seemingly, and certainly by a whole lot in Chicago, more than most places.”
The governor has repeatedly rejected the need for the National Guard and instead said he wanted more FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents to assist on targeted missions.
Hopkins added that the city isn’t opposed to having targeted federal law enforcement assist in tackling crime.
“I’ve said consistently all along, there’s some things that we could use from the federal government. I’m not adverse to having the federal government come in and help us make our streets safer. This is not how to do that.”
In Chicago, the back-and-forth between the administration and local officials has only exacerbated an already contentious relationship. And the broader discussion over taking credit for a drop in crime comes at a moment when the city has been gripped by a Saturday double murder caught on surveillance camera. The graphic scene of a father and his son lying in the street with fatal gunshot wounds as traffic goes by has been widely shared on social media. A suspect is still at large.
McLaughlin pointed to the statistics showing a decrease in crime after CBS News reported that Bovino was leaving the Chicago area. A source with knowledge of the details confirmed the report with NBC News, adding that Bovino’s departure didn’t mean all immigration agents were leaving.
A second source who is a senior DHS official confirmed reports that Bovino’s next stop may be Charlotte, North Carolina, where Border Patrol agents are expected to begin an immigration enforcement operation, a senior DHS official tells NBC News. The exact timing of the operation is still unknown, but it will come after Bovino’s exit from Chicago, which is planned for this week, the official said.
Charlotte would be the first city that Border Patrol has spearheaded an operation on its own without ICE focusing attention on the same location. ICE has been making arrests in Charlotte, but it is not currently coordinating with Border Patrol to ramp up arrests in the area, the official said.
In Chicago, which Trump called “a killing field” in late August, crime dropped by a double-digit percentage in that same month.
