Crime & Law
Judge Set to Rule Next Month on Request for Special Prosecutor to Investigate ICE Crimes in Chicago
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent takes part in an early morning operation in Park Ridge, Ill., Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo / Erin Hooley)
Attorneys representing hundreds of elected officials, community organizations and a group of attorneys again argued in favor of a special prosecutor to investigate alleged crimes by federal agents last fall during the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement operations, claiming State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has abandoned her own duties to do so.
Cook County Chief Judge Erica Reddick on Friday heard arguments from petitioners who claim a special prosecutor must be appointed to investigate crimes committed during “Operation Midway Blitz” after O’Neill Burke’s office has failed to act.
“The absence of action is an abandonment of prosecutorial authority,” said Locke Bowman, an attorney representing the coalition. “This does not need to be the case.”
Reddick has not yet ruled on the coalition’s request. She scheduled a hearing to do so on May 11.
They claim that despite “overwhelming evidence” of criminal misconduct carried out by federal agents during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts known as “Operation Midway Blitz,” O’Neill Burke’s office has taken no action to investigate or prosecute those alleged crimes.
Attorneys with the law firm of Loevy and Loevy, which filed the petition, argued this represents a conflict of interest and an “abandonment” by the state’s attorney’s office of its duties.
“These are not just brutal acts,” Meg Gould, an attorney for the coalition, said during arguments Friday. “These are crimes.”
The coalition contends that O’Neill Burke has an “alliance” with federal law enforcement they claim prevents her from taking action against immigration agents.
They pointed to communications sent by O’Neill Burke just before the launch of Operation Midway Blitz last year in which she “explicitly refused to criticize” the Trump administration’s threats to send federal agents into Chicago, because she allegedly saw maintaining her own “excellent working” relationships with the feds as her “top priority” in order to combat illegal firearms.
“This is irrefutable evidence showing that the State’s Attorney herself believes that she has a conflict that will not permit her to act against federal agents — whether by criticism, investigation, or prosecution — and that actual conflict independently justifies a special prosecutor,” coalition attorneys wrote in a court filing last week.
O’Neill Burke previously said she was “horrified by the thuggish and inappropriate conduct” of federal agents during Midway Blitz.
She has repeatedly rejected calls for a special prosecutor, saying the coalition’s plan is “frivolous, contrary to centuries of legal precedent and court rulings, (and) riddled with factual errors.” In a statement earlier this month, she said the petition would only make it “more difficult” for her office to prosecute ICE agents who break the law.
But the coalition has said many of the alleged crimes carried out by ICE and Border Patrol agents were recorded on camera, while dozens of sworn declarations and hundreds of hours of video evidence have already been submitted in federal lawsuits detailing the broad allegations.
Numerous calls for criminal charges have been made after federal agents killed Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop in suburban Franklin Park and critically wounded Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park in separate incidents during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge last fall.
No agents have been charged with a crime in either case.
Yvette Loizon, the chief assistant state’s attorney of Policy and External Affairs, argued that prosecutors don’t “scour the internet” or civil court transcripts looking for crimes they can investigate. She told Reddick Friday that prosecutors should not act as the lead investigators in criminal cases, but can instead assist in a secondary role.
“Our role is to support investigations,” she said.
Loizon called the coalition’s allegations are based on nothing more than “political or professional pressure,” and that their collective “outrage” does not translate to “what the law requires to appoint a special prosecutor.”
She repeatedly pointed to a new protocol the state’s attorney’s office implemented this year that calls for the use of all available prosecutorial tools to support law enforcement investigations into the use of force by federal immigration officers.
She said that protocol acts as a roadmap for law police to investigate these types of cases, including a plan to preserve relevant evidence in case a future federal administration decides to pursue criminal charges.
Gould on Friday argued that the state’s attorney’s inaction following the 2014 police killing of Laquan McDonald — a case which was eventually tried by a special prosecutor — bears a resemblance to the Midway Blitz crime allegations.
In that case, Gould said prosecutors had video of McDonald’s killing for months, but waited until just before its public release to file criminal charges against the officer involved, Jason Van Dyke.
After a special prosecutor was appointed, Van Dyke was tried and convicted of second-degree murder and aggravated battery.
Note: Loevy and Loevy has done legal work for WTTW News.
