The mayor of Chicago on Friday (November 7, 2025) invited a panel of independent United Nations experts to examine what he called the federal government’s “abusive immigration crackdowns” in the nation’s third-largest city.
Speaking before members of the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) accused President Donald Trump’s administration and federal immigration officials of violating the “dignity of all Chicagoans” with violent raids, and he asked the human rights council to hold a special session to discuss “the worsening human rights crisis in the United States.”
“I call on this council to hold the federal government of the United States to the same standards of accountability you apply elsewhere in the world,” Johnson said in the virtual address. “No country should be above international law. Human rights are universal – or they are meaningless.”
Since the Department of Homeland Security launched its “Operation Midway Blitz” enforcement operation in the Chicago area in early September, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have descended on worksites, dragged residents through neighborhood streets and used chemical irritants to disperse protesters – tactics that a federal judge said “shocks the conscience.”
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On Wednesday, immigration officers arrested a teacher after chasing her onto the grounds of a private preschool. The incident appears to be one of the first instances during Trump’s second administration in which immigration officers entered and made an arrest on school grounds – once considered off limits to enforcement actions. DHS disputed that the woman was arrested inside the school, saying she was detained in a “vestibule.”
In his remarks, Johnson characterized these kinds of incidents as stemming from a “moral failure” on the part of the Trump administration.
In a statement to The Washington Post, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin blasted Johnson for “demonizing ICE and CBP law enforcement,” adding that federal officers are facing increasing assaults as they use more aggressive tactics to meet Trump’s deportation goals.
“Mayor Johnson has shown time and time again he does not care about the innocent American lives taken at the hands of gang members, murderers, drug traffickers, and rapists who have no right to be in this country,” McLaughlin said. “Perhaps the United Nations should investigate the ‘human rights crisis’ that is Chicago’s crime rate.”
The White House echoed McLaughlin’s criticisms of Chicago’s crime rate in its own statement.
The enforcement operation is part of the administration’s broader crackdown on “sanctuary cities,” which have long drawn Trump’s ire. Sanctuary city policies limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
“Operation Midway Blitz” has resulted in the arrests of 3,000 undocumented immigrants throughout Illinois and northern Indiana, according to DHS.
Johnson said the deportation campaign has had a destabilizing effect on the city, and the harms extended beyond immigrant communities.
“In Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood – a proud, predominantly Black community – federal agents carried out what can only be described as a military-style raid designed for social media spectacle,” Johnson said. After the raid, DHS published to social media a video, set to cinematic music, of the operation.
“Helicopters circled overhead. Doors were kicked in. Homes were destroyed. Immigrant residents were detained in one van, while Black families – including young children – were held in another,” Johnson added.
Authorities said that they were targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Two of the 37 immigrants arrested in that raid were gang members, and dozens of U.S. citizens’ apartments were targeted.
On the city’s West Side, federal agents placed a Black man in a chokehold and forced him to the ground just steps from the doors of the legal nonprofit Westside Center for Justice, Johnson said. Earlier this week, federal agents rammed into the vehicle of Dayanne Figueroa before taking her into custody “for no apparent reason,” he added.
“These are not isolated incidents. They are reminders that the fate of our communities – Black, Brown, immigrant – is bound together,” Johnson said. “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. And in Chicago, we will stand united in defense of our shared dignity, safety and freedom.”
Johnson also sought to draw the U.N. body’s attention to the lapse in federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps. In Chicago, roughly 1 in 5 households receive food assistance, according to official state data.
“As someone with first-hand experience, I can tell you how humiliating it is when you open the refrigerator and you have nothing to eat,” Johnson said. “In the wealthiest country in the world, there is no reason why our federal government should allow hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans to go hungry.”
Friday’s address comes after the Trump administration skipped a review of its human rights record, known as the Universal Periodic Review. In February, Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council, accusing the body of not living up to its potential.
Established in 2006, the UNHRC is a 47-member body that meets in Geneva each year to discuss human rights issues and adopt resolutions compelling governments to take action. Members can also hold crisis meetings, known as “special sessions.”
In his remarks Friday, Johnson slammed the Trump administration for “fail[ing] to meet even the most basic expectations of transparency and accountability before this council.”
“By refusing to submit its Universal Periodic Review report and declining to appear for its review, this administration seeks to evade scrutiny for its violations of human rights – just as it has sought to evade accountability for its actions in cities like mine,” he said.