() Daniel Biss, mayor of Evanston, Illinois, said the federal immigration crackdown in his community and others throughout the state is all about intimidation.

“When you have masked, armed agents manhandling people, when you have people being grabbed off the street, when they’re deliberately being confusing and unclear on what their plans are so that enormous communities are just terrified, it’s not about immigration,” Biss said.

The Department of Homeland Security announced an immigration crackdown, dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” targeting Illinois in early September. The agency said Friday it had arrested more than 500 people so far as part of the initiative.

Biss added that there are other ways to fix the immigration system, and that the current operation does not provide a secure system to ensure communities are safe. He called it an effort to “terrorize and exert dominance.”

“There’s just no place for that in a Democratic society and a government that’s supposed to be accountable,” Biss said.

Biss, also a congressional candidate for Illinois’ 9th District in the 2026 midterm elections, was among a large group of protesters who were at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview, a suburb just outside Chicago. He said in a social media post that he and others were hit with tear gas by federal agents at a demonstration on Friday.

He told he would not stop fighting and encouraged others to speak out about what is happening with the immigration enforcement efforts.

“Our communities are being terrorized right now, and that’s critical for everyone to raise their voice as much as possible to put an end to this,” Biss said.