Judge signals hundreds of people detained in Chicago immigration
crackdown could be released on bond
[November 13, 2025]
By SOPHIA TAREEN
CHICAGO (AP) — Hundreds of people who have been arrested and detained in
the Chicago area during the Trump administration's immigration crackdown
could soon be released on bond while they await immigration hearings, a
federal judge signaled Wednesday.
During a hearing in Chicago, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings said
he would order the full release of 13 detained individuals based on a
2022 consent decree outlining how U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement can make so-called warrantless arrests.
He also gave government attorneys a Friday deadline to comb through a
list of 615 people detained at county jails and federal facilities
nationwide to see if they qualify for alternatives to detention under
the decree, such as using an ankle monitor, while their immigration
cases proceed. The judge said he'd issue an order for their release next
week, and in the meantime would temporarily pause any deportation
proceedings for people who might qualify for bond under the decree.
Attorneys for the detainees hailed Cummings' move as a win and said they
plan to bring more cases.
“All of the tactics of ICE have been unlawful in the vast majority of
arrests,” said Mark Fleming, a lawyer with the Chicago-based National
Immigrant Justice Center.
Attorneys said they were racing against the clock, as many of the more
than 3,300 people suspected of immigration violations who have been
arrested in Chicago and its suburbs since “Operation Midway Blitz” began
in September have already been deported or left of their own accord.
“We’re concerned they have no access to counsel and no understanding of
what their situation is,” Fleming told the judge.
Will Weiland, a Justice Department attorney, told Cummings that at least
12 people on the list of 615 were “high risk” and shouldn’t be released
into communities.
“Nothing has been easy with this case your honor,” he said.
Cummings previously determined that ICE had violated the consent decree
which, among other things, requires the agency to show documentation for
each arrest it makes for people besides those being specifically
targeted in an operation.
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A police guards the designated protest area as protesters gather
outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of
Broadview, Ill., Friday, Oct. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
During Wednesday's hearing, Cummings listed instances since the
crackdown started in which immigration agents have arrested people
while they were at work, out walking or pulling through the
drive-thru lane at a fast-food restaurant.
“It also seems highly unlikely to me that any of these foreign
nationals … fall into the category of what ICE has called the ‘worst
of the worst,’” he said.
The Trump administration has touted its federal intervention efforts
as effective at fighting crime and applauded agents' aggressive
tactics that have been challenged in court. But leaders in Illinois
say violent crime had already been trending downward in the Chicago
area and that federal agents only inflamed tensions.
While the consent decree covers arrests by ICE, it doesn't include
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which has been behind the most
controversial tactics used during the immigration operation,
including the liberal use of chemical agents.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees both agencies,
hasn't offered details about its arrests, only highlighting a
handful of people living in the country without legal permission who
also had criminal histories.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin deemed Cummings an
“activist judge,” a common Trump administration label for judges
who've down struck parts of the Republican's agenda.
In a Wednesday statement, McLaughlin claimed that an order to
release the detainees put “the lives of Americans directly at risk.”
The consent decree, which expired earlier this year, was extended
until February. Although its policy on ICE's warrantless arrests
applies nationwide, remedies for individual cases have been focused
in six states covered by the ICE field office in Chicago, where the
original lawsuit over immigration sweeps was filed. Those states are
Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Wisconsin.
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