(Washington) A US federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release on bail of hundreds of people arrested by immigration police since September in the state of Illinois, particularly in the Chicago area.
In September, the Trump administration launched a federal immigration enforcement (ICE) operation, dubbed “Midway blitz,” targeting “criminal illegal immigrants who are terrorizing Americans” in Illinois and its main city Chicago, run by Democrats.
The Department of Homeland Security, on which ICE depends, boasted on Wednesday of having, thanks to this operation, “caused a historic drop in crime in the Chicago of JB Pritzker and Brandon Johnson”, in reference to the governor of Illinois and the mayor of the city. In a press release, the department highlights falling figures in the categories of homicides, shootings and even burglaries.
On Wednesday, however, a federal judge in Chicago ruled in favor of the lawyers of some 600 people challenging the legality of their arrest.
He concluded that these arrests had been carried out without reasonable cause or warrant, report several media, including the Chicago Tribune.
As a result, he announced that he would order the release on $1,500 bail and control measures, such as electronic bracelets, of any detainee who does not pose a security risk.
The Department of Homeland Security denounced this decision on X: “Now an activist judge is directly endangering the lives of Americans by ordering that 615 illegal aliens be released from custody.”
This is a new legal setback for the Trump administration in Illinois, where a court and then a federal appeals court suspended in October the deployment of National Guard soldiers in Chicago and its region.
Since June, Donald Trump has deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles, Washington and Memphis, each time against the advice of local Democratic authorities.
The American president has made the fight against illegal immigration a top priority, speaking of an “invasion” of the United States by “criminals from abroad” and communicating extensively on expulsions of immigrants.
