We now know how much it cost to round up some 4,500 undocumented immigrants in Chicagoland last year. The figure is government excess at its greatest.
According to a Chicago Tribune report, the administration of President Donald Trump spent more than $59 million, some of it on federal agents as they traversed Lake County seeking “the worst of the worst” among those here without legal documentation. That’s a lot of federal funding that could have been spent in numerous other ways to make the lives of all Americans better.
Especially considering that an estimated 60% of those snatched by Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawmen were peaceful and hard-working family folks. They were not bloodthirsty fugitives. The psychological cost over the years for families affected by the surge will surely be even higher.
That $59 million pricetag was charged to what is expected to be a blossoming and record federal debt of $38 trillion in 2026. The president has no appetite for raising taxes, instead preferring a menu of “free” money and tax breaks to buy votes in November’s mid-term elections, where control of Congress will be up for grabs.
Adding to the blooming debt was the action last weekend to bring Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro to justice for alleged narco-terrorism. Still to be revealed is the cost of operating a fleet of Black Hawk helicopters, along with keeping Navy cruisers and aircraft carriers on station for months off the South American nation.
Right after beginning his second four-year term, Trump sought to slash the federal budget and shrink the size of government through DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency), the special commission headed by Elon Musk, the richest man on the globe.
We’ve since found that no real money was saved while thousands of federal employees were furloughed. Then they were mostly rehired. After that, the entire federal system was interrupted as the government was shut down for 43 days, from Oct. 1 to Nov. 2, a record amount of time.
Yet, the administration during “Operation Midway Blitz” raids in the region beginning last fall had no qualms about dishing out that $59 million to purge the region of the 4,500 undocumented. That’s senseless spending and a poor return on investment, something one-time businessman Trump should realize.
Scratch that. It’s an awful return on investment considering most of the estimated nearly 80 Lake County residents picked up in immigration swoops paid taxes before they were plucked from work sites from Waukegan and Gurnee to Round Lake Beach and Mundelein. As did most of the 4,500 caught in the region as feds traveled willy-nilly originally from their base at Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, like roving bands of masked brigands seeking human loot.
Scouring databases and reviewing various public records, the Tribune analysis on the front page of Monday’s News-Sun, determined that equipping and deploying the posse of hundreds of federal agents readily totaled that $59 million figure. Tear gas and rubber bullets are more expensive than I thought.
Also included in the sum was the cost of housing those picked up for immigration violations at the detention center in the western Cook County suburb of Broadview. Then there’s the pricetag for transporting detainees to other federal facilities and out of the country. Don’t forget the cost to Illinois taxpayers when Gov. JB Pritzker dispatched state troopers to protect the Broadview facility.
Of course, federal folks have failed to answer the Tribune’s queries for an official accounting. Perhaps government bean counters haven’t sharpened their pencils, or maybe there are outstanding bills still to be invoiced.
We may never get the full story from government minions on the entire pricetag. Officials say the immigration blitz will continue in the new year.
They certainly haven’t shared the true cost of operations with Illinois congressmen and our two senators, who have been seeking some transparency from the Trump administration. While it’s our tax dollars at work, it seems the administration likes to operate with abandon and in the shadows.
Some of the money spent on the authoritarian immigration crackdown could have been used to fund food banks after the slight lapse in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments for people in need. Or $158 million for gun violence prevention programs and $800 million to prevent violent crime, money the administration has held in abeyance.
That is, if “Operation Midway Blitz” was actually about promising to deport millions of undocumented criminals, “the worst of the worst,” offenders in the country. Many of us didn’t believe that presumption when the 64-day mission began on Sept. 1. We still have our doubts.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
X @sellenews
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/07/charles-selle-column-immigrant-raids/
