On Friday, November 7, the mayor of Chicago invited a group of independent UN human rights experts to investigate what he called the federal government’s “brutal immigration raids” in the third-largest city in the United States.
Addressing members of the UN Human Rights Council, Brandon Johnson accused the Trump administration and federal immigration authorities of violating “the dignity of all Chicago residents” through violent raids. He urged the council to convene a special session to discuss the “worsening human rights crisis in the United States.”
“I call on this council to hold the U.S. government to the same standard of accountability you demand of other countries around the world,” Johnson said. “No state should stand above international law. Human rights are universal—or they mean nothing at all.”
According to city officials, since early September, when the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Midway Blitz in the Chicago area, ICE agents have carried out workplace raids, dragged people through the streets, and used tear gas against protesters—tactics a federal judge has described as “shocking to the conscience.”
On Wednesday, immigration officers detained a teacher after chasing her onto the grounds of a private preschool. It was one of the first arrests during Trump’s second term to take place on school property, which had previously been treated as off-limits. The Department of Homeland Security said the woman was apprehended not inside a classroom, but in “the lobby.”
Johnson called such incidents a sign of the Trump administration’s “moral failure.” The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment, but DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said federal officers are increasingly coming under attack and are using tougher measures to carry out the president’s deportation agenda.
The operation is part of a broader crackdown on so-called “sanctuary cities,” a longstanding irritant for Trump. In these jurisdictions, local authorities limit cooperation with federal agencies on deportations. According to DHS, roughly 3,000 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in Illinois and northern Indiana as part of Operation Midway Blitz.
Johnson said the deportation campaign has destabilized city life and inflicted damage far beyond immigrant communities. “In South Shore—a proud, predominantly Black neighborhood of Chicago—federal agents staged a raid that looked like a military operation designed for a splashy social media reel,” he said. According to him, the department later posted footage of the operation online, set to cinematic music.
“Helicopters circled overhead. Doors were kicked in. Homes were torn apart. Immigrants were loaded into one van, and Black families, including children, into another,” the mayor added.

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Federal authorities claimed the raid was targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Yet of the 37 people detained, only two turned out to be members of the group, and dozens of the apartments belonged to U.S. citizens.
On the city’s West Side, Johnson said, agents put a Black man in a chokehold right at the entrance of the Westside Justice Center. Earlier this week, he added, agents rammed the car of Dayanna Figueroa before arresting her “without any cause.”
“These incidents are not isolated,” Johnson said. “They are a reminder that the fate of our communities—Black, Latino, immigrant—is inseparable. An assault on one of us is an assault on all of us. And in Chicago, we will stand together to defend our dignity, our safety, and our freedom.”