loading . . . CHICAGO — A federal judge ruled Friday that dozens of people arrested during Operation Midway Blitz — including two men detained after a controversial South Shore raid last year — must be released because their arrests violated a 2022 consent decree governing warrantless apprehensions.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings on Friday identified at least 32 arrests that violated the Castañon Nava consent decree. That court agreement only allows immigration agents to make warrantless arrests if they have probable cause to believe someone is in the United States unlawfully and is a flight risk. Late Friday, the judge was also taking a closer look at another half dozen additional cases that he did not rule on in court earlier in the day.
Under Cummings’ order, the federal government must release the detainees affected by his ruling by noon Thursday.
“As I said many months ago, at the start of Operation Midway Blitz, that over time, we would show that hundreds, if not thousands, of arrests were violations, not only of the consent decree, but also of federal law,” said Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center, after Friday’s hearing.
Of the 32 people improperly arrested without warrants, 11 are believed to still be in detention, another 11 have left the country and 10 are believed to have been released under various conditions such as bonds or ankle monitors, according to the National Immigrant Justice Center.
In October, Cummings ruled that federal agents violated the consent decree with dozens of warrantless arrests during the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term. He also required federal officials to share records related to all foreign nationals subjected to warrantless arrests in the federal judicial jurisdiction that includes Chicago.
During a Feb. 13 hearing, Cummings ruled the consent decree, which was set to expire Feb. 2, is still effective because attorneys for the plaintiffs — including the National Immigrant Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois — have filed three motions reporting violations of the consent decree and other court orders. Cummings also concluded at that time that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s warrantless arrest policy, announced in an agency-wide memorandum last month, violates the decree.
The original 2018 lawsuit that led to what’s known as the Castañon Nava consent decree stemmed from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in the Chicago area. Of 156 arrests during the operation, more than 100 were made without a warrant. Margarito Castañon Nava filed the lawsuit after he was detained by immigration agents during a Chicago traffic stop in May 2018.
On Friday, Cummings said determining someone whether someone is a flight risk, “requires a substantial probability based on the facts related to the individual.”
Mark Fleming, associate director of the National Immigrant Justice Center’s federal litigation project, speaks in a news conference on March 17, 2025. Credit: Francia Garcia Hernandez/Block Club Chicago
The plaintiffs on Friday presented 53 allegations of violations to the court.
Cummings separated the cases into two categories: arrests in which both the plaintiffs and defendants agree there was no warrant, but disagree whether agents had cause to believe the person would escape before a warrant could be obtained; and arrests in which the parties dispute whether a warrant was obtained.
Cummings ruled that all but one of 27 warrantless arrests violated the consent decree, including two arrests made during the massive raid of a South Shore apartment building. Federal agents said the first man, who is a citizen of Mexico, presented a flight risk because he is in the U.S. illegally and had a 2006 criminal charge for soliciting prostitution. The second man, a Venezuela citizen, was deemed a flight risk solely because he did not have legal documents. Cummings said neither case presented enough evidence for probable cause that the men would flee.
In another case, agents said a man was a flight risk because he was “walking in a manner to avoid being seen.” Cummings called the reasoning “mere suspicion” and said probable cause requires more evidence.
In the one warrantless arrest Cummings did determine the subject was likely to flee, agents claimed the man tried to back up his car when approached. However, on Friday, Fleming asked the Department of Homeland Security to release body camera footage to prove their narrative. He said the National Immigrant Justice Center previously asked for body camera footage in 10 instances in which the federal government claimed it committed no violations. After department officials reviewed the body camera footage, the agency determined there was a violation in nine of the 10 arrests.
“Frankly, they can’t be trusted,” Fleming said.
Of the 21 arrests in which the presence of a warrant is disputed, Cummings ruled that only six violated the consent decree.
In December, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the use of warrants that are issued by agents in the field. Cummings said he could only rule an arrest violated the consent decree if it could be proven that there was no warrant at all.
However, Cummings noted many of the warrants were missing important details like the arrestees’ alien registration numbers and details about the arrest.
Fleming said the National Immigrant Justice Center will continue to push back against the Court of Appeals’ decision regarding field-issued administrative warrants.
Fleming’s center has a list of more than 360 people that its staff believe were arrested in violation of the consent decree and are still in detention. Fleming said its original list included about 1,800 people, but that many have elected to voluntarily leave the country.
“It becomes this game of everyone gets shipped out before we get anything,” Fleming told the court.
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