Most of those arrested were swiftly shuttled to a sprawling array of detention centers in 13 states, many with reports of troubling conditions.
By Geoff Hing and Jill Castellano
The Marshal Project
https://www.themarshallproject.org/
As federal agents descend on Chicago this week for a renewed round of immigration raids, a Marshall Project analysis shows what happened to around 1,600 people arrested in a similar operation this fall. Our reporting reveals how federal agencies moved them through the Trump administration’s expanded network of detention facilities — many rife with complaints of inhumane conditions.
The analysis of recently released Immigration and Customs Enforcement data found that Illinois saw the sharpest increase in ICE arrests of any U.S. state in the first five weeks after the blitz began. And those who were arrested were quickly shuttled to a sprawling array of detention facilities that cut a wide swath down the middle of the country.
When federal agents launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in September, they arrested thousands of people, at times near schools or child care centers, and used chemical agents like tear gas on protesters. In response to the often chaotic and high-profile raids, city residents blew whistles to alert neighbors of approaching agents and organized “magic school buses” to accompany children to school.
The Marshall Project analyzed ICE data that includes arrests and detentions through the middle of October, the most current detailed records publicly available. People who ICE arrested during that time were later detained in 13 states, at county jails, privately run detention centers and a rapidly constructed facility on a military base, the data shows.
“Without that infrastructure, without mass detention, you can’t carry out mass raids or mass deportation,” said Stacy Suh, program director at Detention Watch Network, a coalition of grassroots organizations that seeks to end immigration detention.
The ICE data, obtained by the Deportation Data Project, allowed The Marshall Project to trace individuals as they were transferred between facilities, and in some cases, deported.
President Donald Trump has rapidly ramped up immigration arrests in an attempt to deport 1 million people in his first year back in office. At the same time, a new Department of Homeland Security policy denies detainees the right to bond hearings in immigration court, leading the number of people in detention to reach record-highs.
Arrests in Illinois grew more sharply than in any other state
From the start of “Operation Midway Blitz” through mid-October, arrests in Illinois surged compared with a similar period preceding the surge.
This chart shows the 10 states with the largest percent increase in arrests and where more than 100 people were arrested during the period of “Operation Midway Blitz” covered by the data.
Examining the records of people who were arrested in the Chicago area, The Marshall Project found that nearly all of them were first held at a facility in Broadview, Illinois, a suburb west of the city. In November, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order compelling ICE to address conditions there.
The order cites “serious conditions” at the facility, similar to those reported at detention centers across the nation, and requires ICE to provide access to sleeping space, bedding, toiletries, medication, regularly cleaned areas, regular meals, telephone calls and clear information about paperwork the government asks detainees to sign.
The suburban facility, which has been the site of a lot of protests against the immigration raids, was the first stop for many who were arrested off the street as federal agents moved through the region. Dayanne Figueroa, a U.S. citizen who was pulled from her SUV by federal agents in a Chicago neighborhood, was detained at the Broadview facility. Figueroa, who was recovering from kidney surgeries when she was taken to Broadview, told Congress that she “begged for help” but was ignored by agents and “thrown into a filthy jail cell,” until blood in her urine prompted them to get her medical care.
From Chicago into ICE’s detention network
After ICE arrested immigrants in the Chicago area the agency transferred them to dozens of facilities around the country, including county jails, repurposed private prisons and a site on a military base.
A symbol map of the locations of ICE facilities where people arrested in the Chicago-area were transferred after being booked into detention. The facilities are represented by circles whose diameter represents the number of people detained in a facility at some point during their detention. The facilities tend to follow a path from Michigan, where North Lake Correctional Facility held the largest number of people, through Indiana where the Clay County Justice Center and the Indianapolis Hold Room held hundreds, down to Louisiana, where the Alexandria Staging Facility also held many. The map shows many facilities in Texas, with a large circle for ERO El Paso Camp East Montana, a facility on the Fort Bliss military base.
People detained
40
150
400
After being booked into ICE custody, more than 380 people arrested in the Chicago area were transported to a recently revived detention facility in the rural town of Baldwin, Michigan. The facility, North Lake Processing Center, tops the list of places where the most people were held in the first weeks of the Operation Midway Blitz raids.
North Lake, which is run by GEO Group, was previously a federal prison until the Biden administration ended Department of Justice contracts with private prison companies. It reopened in June under a new contract with the Department of Homeland Security, becoming the largest immigration detention center in the Midwest.
Nahomi Ramirez, whose father is detained there, said North Lake still looks and feels like the prison it once was.
“It’s concrete walls, it’s barbed wire fences everywhere, like for no one to escape,” Ramirez said. “I haven’t even fully processed that in my brain, to be honest.”
Fernando Ramirez was arrested in Indiana and is currently detained at North Lake Processing Center in Michigan. Courtesy of Nahomi Ramirez
Her father, Fernando Ramirez, a semitruck driver arrested in Indiana, told her he was moved to a freezing-cold, filthy ward with other people who have diabetes. The detainees in the ward were not always fed on time, which caused their blood sugar to crash, Ramirez said, and her father’s allergy to the blankets in his room has left him huddling under his jacket for warmth.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan has reported receiving similar complaints from North Lake detainees about inadequate food, lack of medical care and freezing temperatures, as well as visitation issues, lack of access to legal counsel and suicide attempts. The concerns prompted her to visit the facility.
Since Trump’s second term began, more privately run immigration facilities have opened, or reopened, around the U.S. to keep up with the pace of raids and detentions. Meanwhile, advocates have warned of inhumane conditions for detainees.
Eighteen people, more than half of them children, arrested in the Chicago area were transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, run by CoreCivic. President Joe Biden ended the practice of detaining children with their families in 2021, but Trump recently reversed that policy and resumed operations.
Families at Dilley have testified in court filings to troubling conditions, including worms and mold in food and little access to education or recreation for children. They said their children were so distressed that they had hit their own faces and soiled themselves, despite being potty-trained.
In 2021, Illinois banned local jails from supplying detention space to ICE, leaving the agency to rely on neighboring states instead.
At least 300 people from the Chicago raids went through the Clay County Justice Center in Indiana, a jail that has long relied on federal detention contracts to supplement the county budget. After a heated public debate, Clay County opened up a new, 285-bed wing last year to house immigrants. ICE book-ins at the jail nearly tripled in the first half of the year, according to the IndyStar.
