Immigration agents have reportedly left naval station: ‘A sigh of relief’

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security closed its command center Friday afternoon at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, ending a two-month-plus stay in conducting immigration enforcement operations in the Chicago area as part of Operation Midway Blitz.

Gregory Jackson, the chief of staff to North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr., said he learned from an official at the naval base that DHS was leaving the building it has used as its command center since Sept. 5.

It was not immediately clear what the closing of the naval station command center means to the future of federal immigration enforcement operations in Lake County and the rest of the Chicago area.

Rockingham said everyone in Lake County can rest a little easier with DHS, the U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents leaving North Chicago.

“The departing of DHS (and) ICE operations from Naval Station Great Lakes provides our residents, especially our Latino community, with a sigh of relief, but I am certain it does the same for Lake County,” he said.

For more than two months, federal immigration enforcement agents have apprehended hundreds of allegedly illegal residents in the Chicago area — some of whom were actually U.S. citizens — and, according to local officials, spread fear in the community.

“Nothing positive can come from fear, and that is what has been prevalent in many communities throughout the greater Chicagoland area,” Rockingham said.

Waukegan Mayor Sam Cunningham, whose city was the target of numerous raids by Border Patrol and ICE agents, said in an email Friday afternoon that his city’s values are unchanged, even as the immigration enforcement agents appear to be leaving Lake County.

“We will keep investing in the needs of all our residents, regardless of their immigration status,” Cunningham said. “Waukegan is, and will continue to be, a community that welcomes and supports immigrants. That commitment is unchanged.”

Dulce Ortiz, the executive director of Mano a Mano Family Services and a Waukegan Township trustee, has overseen rapid response teams that have been monitoring agents as they have arrested people around the county.

Ortiz said in an email that the departure of the Border Patrol agents led by Gregory Bovino may be welcome, but she anticipates ICE will continue to detain people whether they are in the country legally or not.

“Bovino left town with many of his agents after having brutalized and abducted so many of our neighbors and community members — violating their rights in the process,” Ortiz wrote in the email. “Even with him gone, ICE continues to have a major presence in Illinois.”