Politics
Key City Panel Advances Push to Force Firms to Disclose Whether They Are Profiting from Immigration Raids
(WTTW News)
A key City Council unanimously voted to require firms that win lucrative city contracts to disclose whether they are also helping carry out President Donald Trump’s effort to implement the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history.
The City Council’s Committee on Contracting Oversight and Equity unanimously advanced the measure authored by Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st Ward) after no debate. It now heads to the City Council for a final vote Wednesday.
“Transparency leads to accountability,” said La Spata, who is running for re-election.
The measure does not ban the city from awarding contracts to companies that also do work for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“Whether we should do that is a question for another day,” La Spata said, who introduced the measure in November 2025, at the height of what the Trump administration called Operation Midway Blitz, which sent hundreds of immigration agents to Chicago to conduct aggressive raids.
The measure codifies part of an executive order signed Aug. 26 by Mayor Brandon Johnson, which gave the city’s chief procurement officer 90 days to develop new rules requiring city contractors to disclose whether they have earned more than $500,000 from governments or law enforcement agencies in the previous five years, according to the mayor’s office.
Johnson announced the order alongside the leadership of the group Not With Our Money, which is pushing local governments not to contract with the firms that are helping to carry out Trump’s deportation efforts.
The group identified $3.19 billion in Chicago contracts held by firms that also do business with ICE, including AECOM, a multinational firm that built the police and fire training academy and is leading the modernization of O’Hare Airport.
In June, AECOM announced it had been selected to continue providing architecture and engineering services to various U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies for “critical infrastructure modernization initiatives,” including the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
That contract does not include work for ICE, an AECOM spokesperson told WTTW News.
Border Patrol officials, under the command of former chief Gregory Bovino, led many of the most aggressive and violent immigration enforcement raids in Chicago during the fall of 2025.
Johnson signed the order amid growing calls for politicians to reject campaign contributions from firms that profit from Trump’s deportation push.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
