JUST FOR SHOW

ICE Barbie’s Midnight SWAT Raid Spectacle Resulted in Zero Criminal Charges

Federal agents stormed a Chicago tower from a helicopter, arresting dozens in a televised immigration raid.

A Black Hawk helicopter, flash-bang grenades, and TV cameras turned a Chicago immigration raid into a Trump-era spectacle aimed at showing how the Department of Homeland Security was detaining and deporting the “worst of the worst.”

As about 300 armed agents from Border Patrol, the FBI, and other federal units descended on the South Shore apartment block, terrified families had their doors smashed in and homes ransacked, as children were dragged out of bed and some—including U.S. senior citizens—were zip-tied and hauled into rental vans and driven away.

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The federal show of force had been ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as the centerpiece of her aggressive immigration crackdown in Illinois, dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Afterward, Noem boasted that the raid had been a huge success, with her lead Border Patrol commander, Gregory Bovino, claiming the operation had smashed a Venezuelan “terrorist” stronghold while catching members of the notorious Tren de Aragua gang.

Yet more than a month on from the Sept. 30 midnight raid, a new ProPublica investigation finds that prosecutors have failed to bring a single criminal case against anyone seized in the operation—or reveal any evidence that two “confirmed” Tren de Aragua members are in the gang at all.

For 18 of the 21 Venezuelans whom ProPublica was able to identify among the 37 immigrants arrested in the raid, the site found no U.S. criminal convictions. Three others had been charged with offenses such as drug possession and battery, but those cases were dropped. Separate court records show a handful of other suspects with prior convictions for domestic battery, shoplifting, and marijuana possession. DHS officials have refused to name the other 16 it detained or say whether children were among them.

One of the men singled out as a supposed gang member, Ludwing Jeanpier Parra Pérez, 24, was tracked down in an Indiana jail. He told ProPublica he had never belonged to Tren de Aragua. Chicago police once charged him with drug possession and driving without a license, but both were dismissed. There is no sign of other criminal cases in his name, the outlet reported.

Another detainee, Jhonny Manuel Caicedo Fereira, 28, said his only previous brush with law enforcement was a traffic citation two weeks earlier for driving without a license or insurance. On the night of the raid, he was zip-tied, marched outside, and pressed against a wall in front of a TV crew as Border Patrol agents grilled a neighbor about his alleged links to Tren de Aragua.

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Records reviewed by reporters found no prior arrests, no warrants, and no indication of gang ties. Caicedo told the outlet he had a pending asylum claim, a steady job at a taco restaurant, and a girlfriend whose daughter attended elementary school across the street from the building.

After the terror of the raid, he was simply deported back to Venezuela: “I lost everything.”

Residents told ProPublica that people were so frightened during the operation that they hid anywhere they could—under beds, in elevator shafts, with some even leaping from windows to get away.

Several Venezuelan men said agents punched or kicked them. A Nigerian tenant said a police dog mauled him, leaving blood smeared across his apartment floor, a scene captured on cellphone video.

Chicago-born tenant Nathan Howard—the only U.S. citizen arrested that night, on an outstanding warrant—said a flash-bang left him temporarily blinded before he was zip-tied and placed in a school lot. Others, including mothers carrying small children in diapers, were held for hours and released without charges.

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Law enforcement veterans questioned why such extreme tactics were used at all. Former and current SWAT personnel told ProPublica the rappelling operation resembled techniques usually reserved for hostage rescues and that the helicopter had posed unnecessary risks to agents and the public.

In the raid’s aftermath, DHS used footage in a high-octane promotional video touting more than 900 arrests under Midway Blitz. It did not mention U.S. citizens and children hd been among those detained, and civil-rights advocates blasted the “propaganda” clip for erasing the trauma felt by families.

With Bovino’s so-called “Green Army” reportedly heading out of Illinois as winter draws in, the social media account for the Chicago mayor’s press office rattled off 20 alleged abuses by ICE and Border Patrol since agents have been in the city. They included the fatal shooting of an unarmed U.S. citizen father of two, tear gas deployed on Chicago police officers, and chemical agents fired at a children’s Halloween parade.

DHS declined to answer ProPublica’s detailed questions about the raid, saying only that it was conducted “in full compliance of the law” and that two individuals tied to a designated terrorist group had been arrested at a building they were known to frequent.

“The safety and protection of sources is more important than your story,” said spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

The Daily Beast approached DHS for comment. A spokesperson said one of the arrested “Tren de Aragua members” had been “a positive match on the Terror Screening Watchlist.”

Denying that any children had been handcuffed or restrained, the spokesperson said those found with those arrested had been taken into custody “until they could be put in the care of a safe guardian or the state.”

The spokesperson added: “Conducting operations in buildings is dangerous. People often act erratically during police operations and jeopardize the safety of all involved. Securing non-targets decreases the likelihood of that danger and protects all involved.”

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Tom LatchemLead Global Correspondent

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