Behind The Story: Reporters Reflect On Anniversary of Operation Midway Blitz

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Sasha-Ann Simons** (0:25)
Hey Chicago, I'm Sasha-Ann Simons, and this is In the Loop.
Today marks one year since the Trump administration launched its aggressive immigration campaign in Chicago, Operation Midway Blitz. In a city long home to immigrants from around the world, the 10-week operation led to nearly 4,000 people from the Chicago area being detained. 2,700 people were deported. Where are we now? And what has changed since? We are reflecting on the year since the start of Operation Midway Blitz with the reporters who were on the ground covering it. At the table with me, Araceli Gomez Aldana, WBEZ news reporter. Mariah Woelfel, WBEZ city government and politics reporter. And Candace Dane Chambers, who is a visual journalist with the Chicago Sun-Times.
The panel started with their reflections one year later. Mariah, kick things off.

**Mariah Woelfel** (1:17)
We're still dealing with the aftermath and immigration enforcement is still going on in Chicago. I think people are constantly bracing for a ramping up of militarized immigration enforcement on the streets like we saw during Operation Midway Blitz. But deportations are happening quietly. People are still being taken from their families with questions about due process, you know? And so I think everyone is still just like clenched.
Not only fighting what's still happening, but waiting for another shoe to drop.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (1:51)
Yeah. Candace?

**Candace Dane Chambers** (1:53)
Yeah, I totally agree with Mariah. I think there's a certain amount of anxiety.
Recently, there was a detention in McKinley Park that I covered with Cindy Hernandez. And it resulted in a car crash, and there was a small protest that came out. And it didn't develop into anything explosive, but I think there was great anxiety on the side of the protesters and the reporters covering that at any moment it could re-escalate.

**Araceli Gomez Aldana** (2:18)
Yeah, that makes me just think about, Sasha, you mentioned 2,700 people deported. Think about all of the people that are affected by those deportations, the people that potentially, the family members, of course, neighbors, but also people that just witnessed things on the street, that were just driving to work and saw something, like a militarized operation of a resident being dragged out of their car, or these, maybe you were outside looking out for neighbors, and you were a person that got affected by the chemical agents that were being just discriminately, indiscriminately tossed by federal agents.
It affected so many people, children, of course, that were just going to school, and they were worried about what was going to happen when they got to school, when they came out of school. So it really affected a lot of people, and not just the people that were deported, but the whole city.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (3:11)
I think for a lot of people, life just completely has turned upside down, especially over the last year. Thinking back to September of 2025, when this kicked off, talk to us a bit more about what went down in the newsroom, Araceli, because I remember you also being one of the key folks engaging with the community.

**Araceli Gomez Aldana** (3:29)
You know, when it happened, of course, our newsroom went into the mode that we usually go to. Let's find out what's happening, who's being affected. What do people need to know? All hands on deck. People like Mariah and Candace were out on the street. They were talking to people. And one of the things that we decided also that we wanted to do was just ask residents, what are you wondering about?
What's a top question for you? Send them in, fill out the survey. Once we got those results, we would just look at the trends and say, a lot of people are asking, hey, who's in charge when a federal agent comes?
Can anything be done legally to prevent people from coming into businesses or houses? So we started just tackling those questions in a way that I would report on it, I would talk to an expert, and then I would come on during the newscasts and just tell people what they needed to do. Also on social media, because a lot of people now just watch social media videos.

**Mariah Woelfel** (4:24)
Absolutely.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (4:25)
What was it like for you being on the ground, Mariah? Did anything shock you?

**Mariah Woelfel** (4:33)
I had so much admiration for my colleagues who were out at the Broadview ice processing facility and I never reported outside of that facility. So I just have to give props to people, reporters who got out, who went out, got hit with pepper bullets, got tear gassed.