ICE officers, in front of a stylized background with Fox News logo on it

Molly Butler / Media Matters

How Fox News has justified and celebrated ICE’s violent immigration crackdown in Chicago

As ICE targeted immigrant communities, Fox whitewashed its abuses

October 9 marked one month of “Operation Midway Blitz,” the Trump administration’s effort to target and harass immigrant communities in Chicago with military-style raids and violent enforcement to advance its mass deportation plans. Fox News has responded by celebrating and justifying the violence Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have unleashed on Chicago residents regardless of citizenship or immigration status.   

Fox inaugurated the operation by embedding a reporter with ICE agents in a move reminiscent of the height of the global war on terror, signaling to its audience that Chicago was a battlefield that required a militarized crackdown. Over the subsequent four weeks, Fox dutifully fulfilled that expectation with coverage that painted civic resistance to ICE as proof that Trump’s authoritarian tactics were needed, while simultaneously whitewashing the agency’s worst abuses.

  • Fox News celebrates ICE’s raid on a Chicago apartment building, even as the official story falls apart

    On September 30, ICE initiated a raid on a Chicago apartment building that began with agents rappelling from a Black Hawk helicopter and ended with residents — citizens and noncitizens alike — reportedly imprisoned in unmarked vans, grouped by perceived race, ethnicity, or immigration status. Parents were separated from their children, some of whom were zip-tied to other kids, according to a witness. In at least one instance, an agent pointed their gun in the face of a grandmother who lives in the building, she said. Agents destroyed family belongings and lobbed flash-bang grenades as they ransacked the building.

    In a different context, it would have been the stuff of right-wing paranoid nightmares. But this was a building in Chicago that houses Black and immigrant families, and Fox found it worthy of praise.

    In a segment teasing coverage of the siege, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner said the security forces had zeroed in on “a Chicago apartment complex … targeting members of the brutal Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang,” adding: “Seems like a good thing."

    The ICE claim that the raid would yield TdA members, which Faulkner parroted, turned out to be wrong. According to MSNBC’s reporting, only one of the people arrested was “verified” as part of Tren de Aragua, and ICE didn’t provide evidence to back up even that assertion. (ICE has repeatedly claimed people are members of TdA, only to have its accusations fall apart under scrutiny.)

    The next evening, host Laura Ingraham repeated the false ICE talking point that the raid turned up gang members.

    “TdA gang members in Chicago got a surprise this week, an unexpected drop-in that involved a Black Hawk helicopter and hundreds of federal agents,” Ingraham said.

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    From the October 1, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

    Ingraham also falsely claimed that the building raid was proof that Trump was “fixing the criminal mess” in Chicago. 

    MSNBC found that of the 37 people arrested, only eight had criminal charges and it isn’t clear how many — if any — had been convicted. 

    Faulkner returned to the story on October 2, reiterating the false characterization of the building. 

    “The political left is also pushing against a massive federal raid on an apartment complex taken over by members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang,” she said.

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    From the October 2, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

    The storming of the apartment building wasn’t the only violent incident Fox chose to celebrate. On September 19, a federal agent in a Chicago suburb threw Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh to the ground during a protest outside an ICE facility. 

    Ingraham praised the assault. 

    “A similar situation in Chicago today where absolutely unhinged agitators worked to form a blockade — they don't have actual jobs, but that is their job — in front of an ICE facility, including a Democrat congressional candidate who was thrown to the ground by an ICE agent,” Ingraham said. “Good work.” (Abughazaleh formerly worked at Media Matters.)

  • Fox News justifies ICE's violent tactics

    Even when Fox personalities didn’t overtly celebrate ICE’s abuses, the network has justified the Trump administration’s brutal tactics. Such coverage frequently clustered around high-profile events with dramatic footage, such as the storming of the apartment building. Other notable incidents included federal agents using tear gas, pepper ball projectiles, and rubber bullets on protesters on September 19 and again on September 26.     

    • On September 19, host Laura Ingraham played a clip of Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss describing getting tear-gassed, to which Ingraham responded that his “constituents seem to be the illegal alien gang members, predators, sexual deviants, felons that they end up protecting.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle9/19/25]
    • Describing the same event, Fox host Jesse Watters said the  protesters“went loco” and “slashed tires,” adding, “Mostly peaceful protests are no bueno in the golden age. One day they’ll learn.” Watters introduced footage of ICE’s brutal tactics by mocking the protesters, saying it “didn’t work out for them.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime9/19/25]
    • Fox anchor Harris Faukner aired imagery of federal officers using chemical munitions at the September 19 demonstration, saying, “Of course they have to disperse that crowd.” Faulkner also asked over the footage: “What happened to peaceful protesting?” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus9/22/25]
    • Fox anchor John Roberts argued that ICE officers were “forced to shoot pepper bullets and tear gas to keep things under control” during a September 26 protest at an ICE facility. [Fox News, America’s Newsroom9/26/25]
    • Correspondent Mike Tobin made a similar claim that same day on The Faulkner Focus, arguing that ICE “needed to make space” for an official vehicle even while he himself suffered effects from the fumes. Tobin added: “Pardon my delivery, I’ve just — the aftermath — aftereffects of the tear gas. Also it seemed that there were a few individuals that they wanted to detain. So they cleared out the crowd. They zeroed in … on a couple of people. They put them face down and bound them on the pavement and took those individuals into custody.” He also displayed a rubber bullet the federal agents had fired at the crowd. [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus9/26/25]
    • Watters said “the Feds had to bring out the tear gas” over the weekend of September 26 because “antifa agitators have been rioting” outside their facility. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime9/29/25
    • On Special Report, Tobin adopted law enforcement’s framing of the midnight Chicago apartment raid by claiming that “criminal illegal immigrants” had “taken the place over.” Tobin: “In the dark of night, federal agents storm an old apartment building on Chicago's South Side. They had developed information that criminal illegal immigrants had taken the place over. So a joint operation with the FBI, ATF, Border Patrol, and ICE brought in federal manpower to take control of the apartment.” [Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier9/30/25]

    In two notable cases, Fox appeared to justify federal agents shooting two people, killing one of them, by repeating government claims that were soon undercut by local reporting.

  • Fox News repeats government claims justifying federal agents shooting two people, one fatally

    On September 12, an ICE officer in a northern suburb of Chicago shot and killed Silverio Villegas González following a traffic stop. A Department of Homeland Security statement claimed the officer had been “seriously injured,” which was later contradicted by police body camera footage in which the officer is heard saying his injuries were “nothing major.” A witness also told the Sun Times that they “didn’t see Villegas González dragging one of the agents behind his car,” and NBC News reported, “No videos show the actual shooting or the ICE agent being dragged and injured, making it difficult to corroborate DHS’s account of what happened.” 

    Fox framed the fatal shooting by repeating the unsubstantiated government claims. 

    As the news broke, Fox anchor Martha MacCallum presented DHS’ version of events without qualifications.

    “An ICE officer severely injured during a traffic stop in Illinois," MacCallum said. “ICE says that the suspect dragged the officer as he tried to get away.”

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    From the September 12, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

    Weekend anchor Jon Scott said González “tried to flee the scene in a car, dragging the agent by his bumper,” adopting DHS’s initial characterization. “The agent wound up shooting and killing that alien.”

    Then on September 28, Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy repeated the characterization, saying, “We saw an ICE agent dragged with his vehicle.”

    Two Fox hosts had a similar approach to an October 4 incident in which a Border Patrol agent shot Chicago woman Marimar Martinez five times. According to her attorney, footage apparently contradicts initial government allegations that Martinez had rammed her car into the agent’s vehicle — which the government then moved more than 1,000 miles away, despite its likely role as key evidence in the case. Several of the government's claims appear to be undercut by the criminal complaint against Martinez.    

    Jesse Watters repeated the government’s unverified version of the event. 

    “So you’re saying she didn’t ram the ICE officer’s vehicle with her car and trap it?” Watters asked co-host Jessica Tarlov. She had referenced press coverage that undercut the government’s version of events, to which Watters replied: “We don’t have that — I’m just not going to take your word for it.”

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    From the October 7, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

    Ingraham claimed officers had been “nearly run over” and called it a “coordinated ambush of federal officers.”

    Beyond the Chicago area, the Trump administration has surged — or threatened to surge — federal immigration and police forces, the National Guard, and the military into Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Portland, Memphis, Baltimore, New Orleans, San Francisco, and New York City. Many of those cities have already resisted Trump’s onslaughts. Wherever he sends his forces next, Fox is sure to follow, cheering his administration along the way.