US Border Patrol boats dock along Chicago Harbor Lock as part of immigration blitz

Talia Soglin, Olivia Olander and Rebecca Johnson, Chicago Tribune on Sep 25, 2025

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CHICAGO — U.S. Customs and Border Protection boats docked near the Chicago Harbor Lock Thursday as part of a plan to stage marine vessels and vehicles at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility near Navy Pier, according to government communications reviewed by the Tribune.

Four CBP boats were spotted traveling east on the Chicago River before they were docked just south of Navy Pier midday Thursday. Federal officials on the boats appeared to be armed.

The Harbor Lock, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, separates Lake Michigan from the Chicago River and is the mechanism by which boats travel between the two in Chicago.

The Harbor Lock is one of the busiest locks in the country for both commercial and recreational boat traffic, according to a press release issued by the Army Corps last year.

Representatives for CBP, the Army Corps and the U.S. Coast Guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Erin Bultje, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, directed questions to Customs and Border Protection.

On Thursday morning, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks posted on social media that he had arrived in Chicago, as part of the performative announcements Homeland Security officials have been making over the past few weeks to trumpet their presence in Chicago. It was not immediately clear if his visit was related to any CBP activity at the Harbor Lock.

It was also not clear how long CBP officials planned to dock at the Army Corps facility, or what their purposes in doing so may be. Lake Michigan is located entirely within the United States and is the only Great Lake without a foreign border.

CBP has an air and marine unit that operates 300 marine vessels throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the agency’s website. The agency said that during the last fiscal year, enforcement actions by the unit led to the arrest of just over 1,000 people it claimed were in the country illegally.

The move at the Harbor Lock comes in the midst of what President Donald Trump’s ICE is calling its “Operation Midway Blitz,” which has sown fear throughout immigrant communities in Chicago and its suburbs. Officials escalated a promised surge in immigration enforcement in the area over the last two weeks, with arrests reported and federal agents sighted near local schools, courthouses and workplaces. ICE claimed last week it had made 550 arrests during the first two weeks of the mission.

As the Border Patrol arrived Thursday, advocates and community members said arrests continued.

ICE agents detained street vendor Laura Murillo early Thursday as she sold tamales near a Home Depot in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, said Jaime Pérez, a neighborhood resident who identified himself as her boyfriend.

Murillo video-called Pérez as she was being detained, he said, and he heard her tell federal agents that they were hurting her.

An agent asked Pérez if he wanted Murillo’s keys, he said.

“No,” he recalled responding. “I want her.”

Pérez said Thursday afternoon he believed his girlfriend was being held at the Broadview facility.

Immigrant rights advocates said they saw concentrated activity in Back of the Yards on Thursday, though Lawrence Benito, the executive director at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, could not give a total number of arrests in the neighborhood for the day.

Benito said at an early-morning Thursday news conference that a caravan of about 20 agents in “full tactical gear” showed up at a Home Depot in the Southwest Side community around 7:30 a.m.

Benito said rapid response teams immediately began recording and documenting what he described as “aggressive ICE tactics.” It’s unclear whether any arrests were made, but the enforcement activity comes after advocates reported last week that agents had seemingly begun targeting day laborers at home improvement stores in the Chicago area.

“We are telling the community, if possible, limit your travel to only necessary travel only, and to ensure your documents are in a safe place,” Benito said.

Home Depot spokesperson George Lane has said that the company isn’t “notified that ICE activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations.”

The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller mentioned targeting Home Depot, and the day laborers that wait for work outside its stores, for immigration enforcement. The administration contends it is detaining the “worst of the worst” in its latest campaign.

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