Politics
New Dashboards Track Immigration Aid Requests Around Chicago as Advocates Say Calls Have ‘Skyrocketed’
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle is pictured in Chicago in an image uploaded to social media by the agency on Sept. 8, 2025. (Credit: ICE)
Calls from local residents seeking legal aid have “skyrocketed” in recent months, Chicago immigration advocates said Thursday, as families are increasingly seeking out assistance amid ongoing federal enforcement operations.
Local immigration leaders announced the launch of new public information dashboards tracking the number of calls for legal assistance and arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in and around Chicago.
“We will not let this terror be swept under the rug,” said Erendira Rendon, vice president for immigrant justice with the Resurrection Project, which announced the dashboards Thursday at a news conference on Chicago’s Southwest Side.
The dashboards track calls made to legal hotlines run by organizations including the Resurrection Project, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Cook County Public Defender’s Office and National Immigrant Justice Center.
Data shows those agencies received 330 referrals for legal assistance in September alone — the same month the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ramped up its immigration enforcement efforts by launching “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago and Illinois. The department said it has made more than 900 arrests since that operation kicked off.
That total is more than twice as large as any other month and accounts for more than 40% of total calls received by the immigration advocacy groups thus far in 2025.
The dashboards also track ICE arrest data in Illinois, showing that of the 1,470 people arrested by the agency between January and July, only 60% had a criminal record.
“DHS officials have told reporters directly that they are using racial profiling, deciding who to target based on the color of their skin, based on how we dress, based on the language we speak, based on what cars we drive,” Rendon said, referencing comments from Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino to WBEZ last month. “This is not law enforcement, this is state terrorism.”
Andre Gordillo, director of the family support network for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said calls to his agency’s family support network hotline have “skyrocketed.”
They received more than 5,000 calls for aid and legal assistance throughout September, including more than 500 calls just on Sept. 8 — the first day of “Midway Blitz.” They’re now seeing 200-400 calls on a normal day, he said, with most of those calls coming from Chicago’s Southwest and Northwest sides, Cicero, Berwyn, Elgin and southwest suburbs.
One of the top requests made in those calls, Gordillo said, is legal help in deportation cases.
“Tips and reports to the hotline are also a way we build a case that the Trump administration is breaking the law and violating our rights,” he said.
