Six Chicago-area residents filed lawsuits this week targeting federal immigration agents who allegedly harmed them during Operation Midway Blitz, the deportation campaign that rocked the city and surrounding suburbs last fall.
During a news conference Thursday in Federal Plaza, their lawyers said they brought the lawsuits because Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has failed to file any criminal charges directly related to Midway Blitz.
The cases span the more than two-month immigration enforcement operation, which led to two shootings — one of them fatal — and thousands of arrests. The plaintiffs include:
- A father in Cicero who was pepper-sprayed by immigration agents while driving with his 1-year-old.
- Siblings who were chasing agents in their vehicle when agents tear-gassed them.
- A man pulled from his car by agents as he filmed them.
- A man and a legal observer gassed and pepper-sprayed after Marimar Martinez was shot by a federal agent in Back of the Yards.
Their lawyers said it’s “ridiculous” that not a single federal agent has been charged, insisting that responsibility falls to O’Neill Burke. She has successfully argued against the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate, and potentially charge, agents.
“Unfortunately, our state’s attorney will not prosecute criminally and hold these agents accountable,” Gregory E. Kulis, one of the lawyers, told reporters.
“We, as a law firm, are stepping up today to prosecute them civilly. Sadly, there are many cases like these. But many individuals who are undocumented, or who have friends and family who are undocumented, are fearful of retribution,” Kulis added.
The desire for state charges was echoed Thursday by Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th) and state Rep. Norma Hernandez (D-Melrose Park), whose district covers Franklin Park, where an agent fatally shot Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop in September.
Asked about the lack of charges tied to Midway Blitz, O’Neill Burke’s office said it helped implement a statewide framework for prosecutors to charge federal agents. Burke’s office also reiterated that a law enforcement agency must bring a case to prosecutors to consider charges, and that hasn’t happened.
The Department of Justice did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Lawsuits seek accountability
The five civil complaints, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern Illinois District, don’t name any of the federal agents accused of wrongdoing. Kulis said their identities aren’t currently known, and he intends to identify them during the discovery process.
The lawsuits seek money from the agents and government, though Kulis said the plaintiffs are also seeking “accountability” from the feds. “I don’t know if they were properly trained, and no one is calling them out,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Justice “looks the other way. [The] State’s Attorney says, ‘I can’t prosecute.’ So the only way we can move forward and stop these actions across the country is find these people accountable,” he added.
Ezequiel Magdaleno, 22, was volunteering as a “rapid responder” in October, driving with his sister and chasing immigration agents who partially blocked their car in the 4800 block of South Damen Avenue, according to his federal complaint.
An agent rolled down his window and questioned their legal status while threatening to throw a tear gas canister at them, according to the complaint. Magdaleno said they replied that they were citizens. Then, without cause or provocation, the agent tossed the canister at them, damaging the hood of their car and exposing them to gas, according to the suit.
Magdaleno told the Sun-Times that he lives in Back of the Yards and was volunteering to alert residents that there were immigration agents in the neighborhood.
“We were just trying to help them out,” he said. “There are a lot of people, especially in my neighborhood, that don’t have papers. So I felt the need to express my First Amendment right and let them know.”
Other legal action has already been taken against the federal government and those who worked during Midway Blitz.
In May, Ald, Jessie Fuentes (26th) filed a lawsuit accusing federal agents of shoving, handcuffing and nearly arresting her after she went to a hospital emergency room to check on a constituent whose leg was severely injured during the enforcement blitz.
Attorneys for 18 people caught up in the notorious raid of a South Shore apartment building also filed administrative complaints against the Department of Homeland Security that month, taking their first step toward suing the federal agencies involved in the operation.
And at the start of the year, the state of Illinois and city of Chicago sued federal immigration officials alleging an illegal occupation that’s led to “fear,” “indiscriminate violence,” and an “impermissible interference with state sovereignty.”