Individual immigration law enforcement officers and agents in Chicago are being targeted by “gangs” and “cartel members” with bounties of up to $10,000 on their heads, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Sunday.
Protesters in the Windy City have been clashing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol agents as they conduct sweeping immigration raids at the direction of President Donald Trump, and against the wishes of Chicago’s mayor and Illinois’s governor.
Noem has condemned protesters and claimed that DHS “intelligence” indicates many are part of organized crime groups seeking to kidnap or kill federal immigration law enforcement agents.
“We have specific officers and agents that have bounties that have been put out on their head,” Noem told Fox & Friends. “It’s been $2,000 to kidnap them, $10,000 to kill them, they’ve released their pictures, they’ve sent them between their networks, and it’s an extremely dangerous situation.”
Noem claimed “gangs,” “cartel members,” and “known terrorist organizations” are the ones behind the bounties but did not identify specific groups.
The Independent has asked the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more information.
Trump directed DHS to conduct immigration raids in Chicago as part of his campaign promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States. Federal agents have used extensive resources, including drones and helicopters, to conduct raids on apartment buildings, sometimes in the middle of the night.
Trump has specifically targeted Democratic-led Chicago for its “sanctuary city” policies that prevent local police from assisting federal immigration law enforcement with its efforts.
The administration has justified the aggressive raids by insisting many of the immigrants are violent criminals, with some belonging to cartels, though immigration advocates and lawyers dispute that and say the evidence shows otherwise.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have pushed back on Trump’s immigration raids. Protesters have taken to the streets to voice opposition to them as well.
But Noem said that those protests have led to increased violence against agents, which she in part blamed Democrats for.
The Homeland Security secretary cited an example where a group of federal immigration agents were followed and ambushed by people in a “caravan of 10 different vehicles” over the weekend. A U.S. citizen was shot on Chicago’s South Side after Border Patrol agents said they were “rammed by 10 cars” and became “boxed” in during a confrontation in the Broadview section of the city.
Noem then suggested that anti-immigration protesters were being “paid” by organized crime groups to display opposition.
“All the protesters are wearing the same gas masks, carrying the same kind of signs, many of them were printed with the same font, they look like they came from the same company,” Noem theorized.
“To be that organized and have the same equipment to push back on law and order, you know that somebody is funding them and organizing them and that they’re being paid,” Noem added.
