Castañon-Nava, Chicago Raids and ICE’s Evasion of Legal Accountability

What happens to due process when immigration enforcement actions persistently sidestep judicial oversight?

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Published December 17th, 2025

Written by Peyton VeDepo

In early September, the Trump administration launched a large-scale anti-immigrant campaign, dubbed Operation Midway Blitz, in Chicago, Illinois. The campaign has resulted in aggressive and unlawful tactics utilized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers against the Chicago population. Before this campaign, a previous operation dubbed Operation Safeguard similarly tore through Chicago shortly after Trump’s inauguration, spanning the days of January 26th-31st. This resulted in a March 23rd motion to extend the 2022 Castañon-Nava Consent Decree composed by 26 unlawfully detained individuals. The hearing was scheduled for June 27th, yet after the commencement of Operation Midway Blitz, the plaintiffs filed a notice of additional violations on September 26th and a supplemental notice on September 30th. On October 7th, Judge Jeffery Cummings of the United States District Court of Northern Illinois extended the decree to February 2026. The Castañon saga highlights the pressing vulnerability of fundamental rights as ICE, without meaningful accountability, continues to undermine legal and constitutional protections.

Castañon-Nava vs. The Department of Homeland Security was originally filed in 2018 under Trump’s first term amid Operation KeepSafe in Chicago. The plaintiffs successfully argued that ICE failed to comply with legal limitations placed upon their discretion to execute warrantless arrests in adherence to 8 USC 1357. A settlement was reached in February 2022, including a Broadcast Statement of Policy, which only permits warrantless arrests if officers have “probable cause that the individual is in the United States in violation of US immigration law and that the individual is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.” If ICE officers fail to comply with the decree, plaintiffs can file a motion to enforce on allegations of either “individual violations (Section V.A)  [or] repeated, material violations’ (Section V.B).” The March 23rd motion to enforce was petitioned on Section V.B claims.

The October 7th opinion found ICE had overwhelmingly violated the decree. According to Sam Olson, ICE’s Chicago Field Office Director, ICE implemented a new I-200 (arrest warrants) policy contrary to the decree. Olson stated that while issuing I-200s to people arrested in proximity to the person originally targeted (“collaterals”), they do not verify whether the person has a Notice to Appear (NTA). Statute 8 CFR 1236.1(b) ties NTAs with I-200s, asserting “at the time of issuance of the notice to appear, or at any time thereafter [until] removal proceedings are completed, the respondent may be arrested…under the authority of Form I-200.” Cummings argued that the Courts have long held that NTAs are directly tied to the issuance of I-200s. He cites the Maldonado decision, which maintained that issuing a warrant is a part of the removal process and cannot be exclusively utilized to trigger detention under Section 1226(a). Despite acknowledging the regulatory power of this statute, ICE argues that without explicit legal prohibition, there is nothing that restrains an officer’s ability to issue an I-200 upon identifying someone they believe is unlawfully residing in the US. Cummings rejects this notion, arguing that well-established administrative law allows agencies to act only within the bounds of what is authorized by governing statutes and regulations. Additionally, the plaintiffs provided the Court with recent ICE training slides stating an officer may “carry a blank form I-200 for the arrest of each collateral so an individual flight risk analysis is not needed.” This violates 8 USC 1357(a)(2) requirement that warrantless arrests may only be conducted on probable cause that a person has breached immigration law and "is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained for his arrest.” From such findings, Cummings concluded ICE’s I-200 policy violated the decree and other Court holdings.

Moreover, Cummings held that ICE routinely violated the requirements of the I-213 forms. I-213 forms are required documentation following warrantless arrests and mandate officers to state the person was arrested without a warrant; the location of the arrest and person’s connection to the area; person’s ties to the community; specific, particularized facts supporting probable cause; and the officer identified themselves as ICE and clearly stated 1) the person was under arrest and 2) the reason for the arrest. I-213 forms can be terminated when faulty, incorrect information, mischaracterization of facts and carelessness is evident.

Senen Becerra Hernandez is one of the plaintiffs represented in the March motion who was warrantlessly arrested during Operation Safeguard in his home shared with three roommates. Senen asserts that when he was arrested, armed ICE agents tore his door down, handcuffed and arrested him. At no point was a warrant shown. They took Senen’s identification and refused to let him go, despite saying they were targeting one of his roommates. Senen’s I-213 form does acknowledge that his roommate was the target of the operation, but it also states that he denied being a resident of the home, denied possessing a form of identification on him and that he had no ties to the community. Cummings finds this form mischaracterizes information. Had they asked whether Senen was a resident of the home and inquired about his community ties, they would have found out that he was a resident of the home, has a fiance in Chicago, attends church regularly and owns a local business. Had the arrest been conducted in accordance with the decree, these crucial facts would be reflected in the form. Instead, Senen’s I-213 form illuminates ICE’s indifference toward legal boundaries.

Though the decree has been extended, ICE has become emboldened in its lawlessness by the head legal powers. For example, before the October 7th ruling, the Trump administration provided documentation that 1,100 people out of 1,852 arrested by ICE in Chicago have been deported without due process or left the US in fear of being forced to stay in the inhumane conditions of detention centers. According to the Handbasket, this was allowed because on June 11th, Charles Wall, ICE’s primary legal advisor, sent a nationwide email terminating the Decree obligations before the motion’s scheduled hearing, directly violating the clear prohibition of doing so pending a motion to enforce on Section V.B claims. The Supreme Court, the most powerful Court in the United States, has also enabled ICE. In a concurring opinion, the Court ruled in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo that ICE can racially profile individuals to satisfy reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment. Justice Kavanagh wrote that though ethnicity alone cannot constitute reasonable suspicion, it can be used in conjunction with place of work, speaking Spanish and having an accent.

These examples set a precedent that redefines constitutional and legal rights from protecting individuals to protecting state interests. As Justice Sotomayor dissented in the Perdomo decision, such protections may no longer include “those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way and appear to work a certain type of job.” When the state is granted discretionary powers to determine who the law protects, no one is truly protected. The extension of Castanon is a necessary step in attempting to hold ICE accountable to the law, but as powerful legal forces continue to act in favor of militarized state campaigns, constitutional guarantees and legal safeguards become elusive promises rather than tangible protections.

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