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Hundreds of federal agents carried out a “targeted immigration enforcement operation” early Tuesday in Chicago, Illinois, against suspected Tren de Aragua gang members.
The FBI confirmed the operation to FOX32 Chicago, noting that its agents assisted the U.S. Border Patrol in the city’s South Shore neighborhood. The operation — which involved almost 300 agents — targeted six people associated with the Venezuelan gang, according to Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin.
The development comes a day after Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is “seeking the deployment of 100 military troops to Illinois.”
The FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the DHS did not immediately respond Tuesday to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
JB PRITZKER SAYS ICE ‘HARASSING PEOPLE FOR NOT BEING WHITE’
Footage captured overnight showed agents converging on an apartment building in the area. At one point, a helicopter dropped snipers down onto the building’s roof.
Two dozen people were taken into custody.
“You hear people screaming, you hear loud bangs and pops,” a witness told FOX 32 Chicago.
No Chicago police officers took part in the operation, the station added.
CHICAGO ANTI-ICE PROTESTERS BLOCK VEHICLES, GET HIT WITH TEAR GAS AND PEPPER BALLS
“Over the weekend, we received numerous confirmed reports of federal agents from ICE and Customs and Border Patrol abusing their power, intimidating innocent civilians and waging war on our people,” Pritzker told reporters on Monday. “All of this has been aimed at causing chaos and mayhem in the hopes of creating a pretext to deploy military troops against Chicago and Broadview and other suburbs just as the president is doing right now in Oregon.”
“Moments ago, the Illinois National Guard received word that the Department of Homeland Security has sent a memo to the Department of War seeking the deployment of 100 military troops to Illinois, claiming a need for the protection of ICE personnel and facilities,” Pritzker added.
“What I have been warning of is now being realized. One thing is clear — none of what Trump is doing is making Illinois safer,” he also said.
ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz earlier this month, describing the operation as one that, “will target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.”
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