Operation Midway Blitz and the dangers of belligerence

Midway Airport is home to a special plane.

It’s unlike any other you might see shuttling passengers to and from Chicago’s southwest side, in part because it’s the only one hanging from the rafters.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley unveiled the plane’s installation in 2004. “This airplane is much more than a museum piece or a historical curiosity,” he said. “It is a symbol of American values, a tribute to the courage and skill of our armed forces, and a reminder of just how much we owe to the men and women who made up what has rightly been called ‘the greatest generation.’”

Dredged up from the depths of Lake Michigan after it was abandoned on a training flight in 1944, the plane is a Douglas SBD Dauntless, a World War II-era naval dive bomber made famous for its role in winning the Battle of Midway, the airport’s namesake.

As the federal immigration enforcement surge known as Operation Midway Blitz enters its fifth week in Chicago, the Battle of Midway offers key lessons that Chicagoans should expect their elected leaders, at every level, to learn.

The Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway, fought in June 1942, turned the tide of the Pacific War through the virtue of composure.

Six months after Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy had only three working aircraft carriers to Japan’s four. Leading the American fleet was the understated Admiral Chester Nimitz, a stoic man who rarely raised his voice. In a Pearl Harbor basement, American codebreakers learned that “AF” in Japanese radio traffic meant Midway Island. When the US naval base on the island sent a false report of a broken water plant and the Japanese confirmed that “AF is short of water,” Nimitz knew exactly where to wait. He placed calm men in charge of terrible machines. One of them, Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance—nicknamed “Electric Brain” for his composure under pressure—launched his aircraft earlier than doctrine prescribed and then, when victory was in reach, resisted the urge to chase a fleeing enemy into the dark.

Their adversary embodied the opposite mentality. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, brilliant and vain, designed the Midway assault to erase the humiliation of the Doolittle Raid, which had sent American bombers over Tokyo two months before. Stung by pride, he overcomplicated his plan, splitting his forces across thousands of miles and enforcing radio silence so strict that his own subordinates fought blind. His desire for revenge guided his fleet into an ambush from which it never recovered.

Four Japanese carriers burned. The Pacific’s momentum shifted forever.

Today, Operation Midway Blitz is not a war between opposing countries. It is an operation of the U.S. federal government in an American city. And to be clear, this piece is not meant to draw comparisons between specific military figures and contemporary political leaders. But the Battle of Midway is worth highlighting for a simple reason: It was, in the fullest sense, a victory of intelligence, patience and humility over impulse, passion, and pride. And it’s proof that in moments of crisis, restraint matters.

Politics of belligerence

Throughout Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, residents have seen a politics of belligerence, where political actors too often lack discretion and escalate tensions, rather than solve problems.¹ This belligerence is dangerous.

Before getting into specific examples, here are a few points to keep in mind from the most comprehensive study of American views on deportations, as of March 2025:

• Fewer than one-third (32%) of Americans say all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally should be deported, with 10% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans holding this view.

• A smaller fraction of Americans (16%) say no immigrants living in the U.S. illegally should be deported.

• Among the majority of Americans who think some immigrants living in the U.S. illegally should be deported:

  • Virtually all (97%) agree that those who have committed violent crimes should be deported.

  • Just 15% believe those who have a job should be deported.

  • Just 14% believe those who are parents of children born in the U.S. should be deported.

  • Just 9% believe those who came to the U.S. as children should be deported.

• More than 60% of all Americans do not think law enforcement officers should arrest immigrants living in the U.S. illegally at places of worship, schools, or hospitals.²

Let’s start at the federal level.

Federal belligerence

Errors of commission and omission in federal communications are reducing trust and inciting fear across Chicago. Examples include but are not limited to:

• The Department of Homeland Security claiming 900 people have been arrested in the Chicago region as part of the operation, but not telling the public who those people are. When WGN Investigates filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get a list of names, criminal histories and charges of those arrested, ICE said the information existed on its enforcement and removal operations website. But figures on that site haven’t been updated since December 2024.

• Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino falsely claiming a man detained by his agents was a rapist.

• President Donald Trump writing in a social media post that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker should be in jail.

Beyond this, Chicagoans have also witnessed belligerence in the operation’s on-the-ground execution. Examples include but are not limited to:

• Attempting to federalize hundreds of members of the Texas National Guard in order to deploy them to Chicago. This effort was blocked by U.S. District Judge April Perry, who issued a temporary restraining order after finding the administration had not presented sufficient evidence to justify operating under exceptions outlined in the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of federalized military forces for domestic law enforcement without explicit congressional authorization, and raised constitutional concerns under the Tenth Amendment about infringing on state sovereignty over the National Guard. A federal appeals court later partially modified that order, allowing the troops to remain under federal control but continuing to block their deployment onto the streets of Chicago pending further litigation..

  • “I worry about someday a Democrat president sending troops or National Guard from New York, California, Oregon, Washington state to North Carolina. I think it’s bad precedent,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said in response. “If you look at this particular issue, I don’t see how you can argue that this comports with any sort of conservative view of states’ rights.”

• A large group of Border Patrol agents, while patrolling downtown Chicago, running after a man on an electric bike after he yelled at the agents, failing to apprehend him.

• Federal agents detaining working people and children who do not appear to pose a public safety threat, without a criminal warrant. Examples include a mother and her two children enjoying Millennium Park, a woman walking down a leafy street in Kenilworth, a group of 12 rideshare drivers at O’Hare Airport, a tamale vendor, and a middle-school special education teacher who is a U.S. citizen.

Even the most ardent supporters of Operation Midway Blitz and aggressive immigration enforcement generally should take these problems seriously. They obfuscate any progress toward a politically popular ambition of deporting violent offenders who are in the country illegally. Trump himself has spoken openly about the fact that not respecting due process and targeting sympathetic people in immigration enforcement can turn public sentiment against him. And as Chicagoan Stu Loren pointed out, federal belligerence also “risks throwing a political lifeline” to the local leaders least deserving of it.

Local belligerence

Federal belligerence, in part, feeds on belligerence from local political leaders. And vice versa. Examples include but are not limited to:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson signing an executive order declaring Chicago an “ICE Free Zone” and that federal agents violating this order would be committing a criminal offense. One reporter asked an obvious question in response: How would this be enforced? And by whom? Johnson’s answer made it clear that he had not given serious thought to these questions.

• Johnson describing law enforcement as “a sickness.”

• The Chicago Teachers Union praising a domestic terrorist at a time when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is referring to conflicts with ICE agents in Chicago as “domestic terrorism.” The CTU’s post praising Assata Shakur earned nationwide, bipartisan backlash, with Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy calling it “shameful and depraved.” When asked about the CTU’s post, Johnson doubled down.

• CTU President Stacy Davis Gates saying “chaos is a ladder” in this moment and the union has to “go back to the mattresses,” a euphemism for a mafia crew going to war.

• A CTU organizer openly calling for Chicagoans to block ICE agents with their vehicles and to “make their lives a living hell.”

• Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker calling the president “demented” and saying earlier this year that “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.” Notably, he has stopped using the latter phrase in the months since.

In contrast, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling put on a display of de-escalation in his press conference last week.³ It was a rare moment of professional clarity amid a storm of political rhetoric.

Let me make this clear. Federal agents—ICE, HSI— are officers. They are agents of law enforcement. If you box them in with vehicles, it is reasonable for them to believe they are being ambushed and that this could end in a deadly situation. And it’s reasonable for them to use force based on those conditions. Do not box in any law enforcement officers. You are breaking the law when you do that. And you are putting yourself in danger.

If you ram any vehicle, especially one that contains law enforcement agents … and you do this intentionally, this is considered deadly force. Deadly force is anything that can cause great bodily harm or death. When you plow into a vehicle that contains law enforcement agents you are using deadly force and they can use deadly force in response to stop you.

We need to be clear about these laws. We cannot become a society where we just decide to take everything in our own hands and start to commit crimes against law enforcement. It is a crime. I understand there’s a lot of emotions out there but that does not mean you get to commit a crime. Especially one that could lead to deadly force. We need to keep everyone safe.

Our responsibilities when it comes to federal agents: we do not interfere with the duties and responsibilities of federal agents. We don’t have to agree with it. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to agree with it. We do not interfere with their orders. And when they go out to carry out their orders, they will do that the way they’re trained to do it and their understanding of what it is they have to do.

Another one: CPD will not arrest and cannot arrest federal agents because someone deems what they’re doing is illegal or unlawful. Their rules of engagement are different from CPD’s and other local law enforcement agents’. We need to be clear about this. If we’re not clear about this, we will see another event like we saw Saturday. We cannot move like this, in this city. If we want to keep the peace in this city, we need to be smart about how we do things. And attacking law enforcement under any circumstances is not safe for anyone.

Because as I’ve said before, a member of law enforcement who cannot protect himself or herself cannot protect anyone else. We have a responsibility to protect ourselves and each other so that we can protect everyone else in this city. If for any reason a crime is being committed, if it involves law enforcement, we are going to show up. And whatever’s going on there we’re going to stop it, put an end to it, calm the situation down, and if we need to stay there to continue to keep the situation calm, we will do exactly that.

So I want to be clear about the things that we’re going to do now… when we show up to a scene and a crowd gathers, CPD is going to step out there. We’re going to make sure that we maintain that scene and we keep people calm. This is our city and we’re going to make sure we bring some type of calm and resolution to whatever’s going on at that scene.

Local, state, and federal leaders could learn from Snelling’s example.

They could do more to be an Admiral Nimitz. To be a Rear Admiral Spruance. To be the “electric brain” that stays composed under fire.

They could do more to learn from the Battle of Midway.

In the news

For more of my thoughts on Operation Midway Blitz, I recommend listening to the last two weeks of the Mincing Rascals podcast on WGN here and here. My “green light” recommendations: the Keralan restaurant Thattu in Avondale, and the 1997 movie Cure, which is playing at the Music Box Theater on Friday. Oct. 31.

1. It is beyond the scope of this piece to engage in the broader debate on American immigration policy or to assign moral culpability for how we arrived here. Still, three points are worth stating for clarity. First, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States grew sharply from 2021 to 2023. This led to significant, predictable social unrest and political backlash. Second, any effort to deport millions of people en masse—whatever one’s moral or constitutional view—carries significant trade-offs and unintended consequences. This is due in part to the prevalence of “mixed status” households—70% of households with at least one unauthorized immigrant also have someone in the country legally, according to Pew Research Center estimates. I spoke more about this topic in the Oct. 1 episode of the Mincing Rascals Podcast here. Third, I personally favor significant expansion of lawful immigration on the grounds that a confident, growing nation should welcome both labor and ambition.

2. Also noteworthy: An August poll by M3 Strategies found 70% of Chicagoans opposed sending in the Army an 65% opposed sending in the National Guard.

3. Notably, Chicago police officers were allegedly ordered to not respond to a shooting involving federal agents on Saturday, Oct. 4. But according to ABC 7 Chicago, “Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino said he spoke with Snelling, and he does not expect any issues in the future.” Snelling owned up to any potential miscommunication in his press conference, and there is no evidence of his direct or indirect involvement in dispatching that order.