Block Club Chicago covered Midway Blitz as it unfolded in Chicago, writing more than 230 stories during the immigration operation. We kept the focus on the Chicagoans most affected as federal agents flooded the area, arresting thousands of people while tear-gassing communities, brutalizing civilians and killing a man.
Our reporters were present for protests and courtroom hearings when advocates challenged the Trump administration. They sat in the living rooms of families whose loved ones were abruptly taken away. They reported from the streets as agents tear-gassed neighbors.
We prioritized breaking news stories on immigration arrests and other need-to-know information from the ground. We developed know-your-rights guides, investigated false claims and explained court orders and legal proceedings.
Early on, we found federal officials’ version of events did not match Chicagoans’ experiences, in ways big and small. We went beyond daily headlines to provide big-picture analysis of what Chicagoans faced.
Our investigations showed agents were overwhelmingly arresting people without criminal histories, despite officials’ claims of going after “the worst of the worst”; authorities were increasingly using the courts to punish and intimidate protesters; and local companies were profiting from the operation.
Our work culminated in “Chicago Under Siege,” a project that highlights 16 events that rocked the city during the operation. It documents the fear people lived with and the ways they organized and resisted.
To investigate these events, our reporters interviewed more than 60 people — on top of the hundreds they’d interviewed for prior coverage. They reconnected with eyewitnesses from their original stories. They reviewed hundreds of pages of records and court documents. They analyzed more than 50 hours of video.
While offering day-to-day, hour-to-hour coverage, Block Club provided its audience with larger perspectives, as with “Chicago Under Siege.”
Along the way, federal agents tear-gassed and shot four of our reporters with pepper-spray bullets as they covered protests, leading our newsroom to sue the federal government over agents’ use of force to protect our First Amendment rights and fight for transparency. Block Club was the only newsroom to join this lawsuit as a plaintiff. A federal judge then granted a temporary order and preliminary injunction barring federal agents from using chemical weapons and other force against journalists, protecting reporters across northern Illinois during a critical six-week period.
Authorities ignored our requests for immigration arrest records. In May, Block Club sued the Department of Homeland Security for failing to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Our lawsuit produced information that informed investigative stories, including the first detailed look at how many people were arrested immediately after President Trump’s inauguration.
