Federal immigration enforcement cost Cook County $1.26 billion
Summary
Posted: Sep 8, 2026 / 05:49 PM CDT
Updated: Sep 8, 2026 / 06:00 PM CDT
CHICAGO (WGN) – It’s been one year since Operation Midway Blitz was announced and a new report suggests the hundreds of arrests made took an economic toll on Cook County, with the total loss in revenue surpassing $1 billion.
The images of arrests are still clear in the minds of Chicagoans.
On city streets and in suburban neighborhoods, videos of the aggressive encounters marked a push by the Trump administration to tackle illegal immigration.
Hundreds of armed agents from Homeland Security to Border Patrol led the effort.
After a six-month investigation, the Illinois Accountability Commission eventually said the operation included unlawful and unconstitutional acts of violence, intimidation, arrests and unjustified shootings.
Such actions led to protests that put Chicago at the center of a national story.
While the scale of the images have dropped, the fear and impact remain.
On Tuesday, a group of political and educational leaders put the spotlight back on what the last year has been like, discussing anything from emotions to economics.
“Parents being picked up after they drop off their children at daycare centers on the way out. We experienced that at Metropolitan Family Services three times,” Ric Estrada with Metropolitan Family Services said.
“$1.26 billion that they basically stole from us,” Arne Duncan with nonprofit Chicago CRED added.
That $1.26 billion is part of a new report by UIC’s Great Cities Institute titled “Hunkering Down: The Hidden Economic Cost of Federal Immigration Enforcement in Cook County, IL.”
It’s the amount their research shows was lost in revenue in a year, from the start of the Trump administration and into Operation Midway Blitz.
“We don’t think that there’s likely been a rebound,” Dr. Matthew Wilson with Great Cities Institute said. “And I don’t think things are different in 2026.”
They say the loss wasn’t necessarily in Latino dominant communities, but in areas outside of these neighborhoods as immigrants were less likely to venture out.
It may be a long road to economic recovery.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has said all along the operation was a way to keep Americans safe, targeting those in the country illegally who had a criminal background.
Months into the operation, however, data revealed less than 20% of the ICE detainees had a criminal conviction.
It’s something critics point to today as they work to move beyond the last year.
“When you are just snatching up people who are taking their kids to daycare, how can you argue that it was about making our communities safer?” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said.
“My day job is I deal with gang violence every day; ICE was the largest, the most lawless, the best-armed gang I’ve ever seen in my life. What I saw them along 26th Street and other places do, they are forever edged in my mind,” Duncan added.
According to their data, the loss in revenue to businesses also led the county to lose out on an estimated $107 million in sales tax revenue.