Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson drew sharp criticism from the Department of Homeland Security after suggesting that a federal immigration operation under Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino disrupted what he said had been the city's safest summer in decades.
Johnson has been touting recent analysis that 2025 was Chicago's safest summer in 60 years in terms of violent crime, as the city's NPR affiliate found a total of 123 murders occurred between June and August last year.
The University of Chicago's Crime Lab found that violent crime declined across the country, including in the city throughout 2025, but it still had elevated figures versus other major cities globally.
Johnson said last week that those figures were true before DHS kicked off "Operation Midway Blitz" around the first week of September.
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Johnson said that once ICE and the Border Patrol showed up, crime increased again.
"Chicago had the safest summer since 1965 before Bovino stepped foot in our city," Johnson said. "Where ICE was most active, crime went up."
When asked for a response, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Johnson is continuing to "demonize our law enforcement, who are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them."
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"The danger and violence our law enforcement has faced in sanctuary cities like Chicago, compared to jurisdictions like Florida, is night and day," she said, after video surfaced of a woman being promptly detained and arrested after allegedly interfering in a Jacksonville immigration enforcement operation.
"He should turn down the rhetoric and work with DHS to prevent more innocent American deaths at the hands of gang members, murderers, drug traffickers, and rapists who have no right to be in this country," McLaughlin said, noting that DHS arrested more than 4,500 illegal immigrants with criminal records, many of them violent; during the Midway Blitz operation.
Johnson had countered that the statistics and timing showed his administration "reduced violence in Chicago in spite of ICE."
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Johnson pointed to the case of Mexican national Silverio Gonzalez, who was shot and killed by agents last year. An account from the Chicago Sun-Times reported that ICE determined Gonzalez had allegedly resisted arrest and drove his car toward officers, injuring one.
Rep. Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., who represents the area, later called for a federal investigation.
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Johnson himself had been responding on X to comments from Bovino, who in turn was disputing an assertion from Obama confidant David Axelrod.
"In Chicago, the trail of misrepresentations by DHS was so long, an exasperated federal judge declared 'it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything' they represent as fact. That pattern continues in Minneapolis," Axelrod wrote, citing and linking to a New York Times report of a man shot and injured by a federal agent in Minneapolis days after Renee Good's death.
In response, Bovino said that "double-digit decreases in violent crime in Chicago speak the truth you'r[e] after."
"Taking violent illegal aliens off the streets by the thousands seems to bother those who choose illegal aliens over American citizens."
That comment led Johnson to cite the 1965 versus 2025 violent crime figures.
"Abolish ICE," Johnson later wrote on Facebook, posting the contents of his prior comments.
