The Timing When ICE Will Ramp Up Deportation Operations in Chicago Is Perfect

President Trump said that federal resources will be coming to Chicago to restore law and order. The National Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will be deployed at some point, but didn’t say when. We knew it wasn’t going to be a long wait. The increased deportation operations under ICE are set to start on Saturday, when the city will be hosting a series of events commemorating Mexican Independence Day (via ABC7 Chicago):

Also the timing might be turn little spicy as multiple large Mexican Independence Day parades are scheduled around the city too 👀
— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) September 4, 2025

The countdown is on to a surge in immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
The impact of hundreds of federal immigration agents arriving Chicago is reaching far beyond the city.
"When there is a high level of ICE activity, people stop going to work," Mano A Mano executive director Dulce Ortiz said. "People stop sending their children to school. We don't want that to happen. At the same time, we understand there is fear."
Ortiz the executive director of Mano A Mano and Board President of Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights laying out how many in Lake County are feeling right now just days before reported immigrant enforcement operations are set to begin.
"Yes, there may be hundreds of agents deployed in our area, but there are thousands of people working to make sure our community members our protected," Ortiz said.

Some neighborhoods have already canceled their celebrations out of fear they’d be targeted. Right now, we have some increased ICE activity at local courthouses (via WGNTV):

The lingering threat of federal ICE raids continues to strike fear in several Chicago neighborhoods, amid word of at least two arrests outside an area courthouse.
Wednesday night, The Network, a non-profit group advocating against domestic violence, lashed out, arguing that ICE agents had the discretion to choose a better location to make their arrests than at the Cook County Domestic Violence Courthouse located at 555 W. Harrison.
“This decision to conduct ICE raids at a courthouse filled with vulnerable domestic violence survivors and their families seeking justice and safety from the legal system is deplorable,” said Maralea Negron, with The Network.