CHICAGO — Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino is back in Chicago as he and his agents made arrests across Cicero and Chicago’s Southwest Side Tuesday morning.

Around 10:30 a.m., a squad of federal agents detained a man at 26th Street and Ridgeway Avenue as residents screamed and filmed them putting the man in a car. Standing on a street corner in Little Village with a gun held to his chest, surrounded by residents blowing whistles and expressing their opposition to his presence, Bovino ignored a man who asked him for a “rational conversation.”

Bovino, wearing a green parka over his fatigues, told a group of reporters and angry neighbors that “we never left.”

“All right guys. Merry Christmas if I don’t see you again,” Bovino said, as he walked away from the crowd.

About 15 minutes earlier, at least two cars of masked federal agents drove east down 26th Street near Central Park Avenue. One man hung his cellphone out his front window to capture a car of Border Patrol agents behind him as others honked their horns.

At 27th Street and Ridgeway Avenue, residents marched back and forth with their cellphones as traffic came to a complete stop. The sound of whistles and horns could be heard.

Agents reportedly took a tamale vendor who regularly set up at 47th Street and Hermitage Avenue in the Back of the Yards neighborhood early Tuesday morning, according to witnesses.

Andres Martinez, an employee at a nearby auto parts shop, says he and his coworkers noticed something was wrong when a young woman approached them asking if they could help secure the vendor’s cart, which was left behind with tamales and champurrado in a green and orange cooler.

“Minutes after that, we started hearing whistles and car horns,” Martinez said. “We noticed they were in a white SUV, and another civilian vehicle was honking right behind them to alert neighbors.”

Martinez says the vendor, described as an elderly, fragile man, had been selling tamales at that corner for more than two years and was well known in the community.

“I bought tamales from him maybe last week,” Martinez added.

The agents also targeted a Teamsters picket line near Midway International Airport Tuesday morning, according to a representative for the union.

Nico Coronado, an attorney for Teamsters Local 705, said Border Patrol agents showed up to the picket line at 5507 S. Archer Ave. and asked workers — most of whom are Latino, and many of whom are immigrants — for identification. Coronado said he did not believe any workers were detained.

A representative for Mauser did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday morning.

“At a time when families should be celebrating the holidays in safety and peace, these agents are instead carrying out operations to separate families, sow panic, and intimidate hardworking people,” U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, a Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday. “These operations are a choice. Masked agents, unannounced raids, and holiday timing are tactics designed to maximize fear.”

Videos showing uniformed, masked men driving unmarked vehicles began to circulate online early Tuesday morning. One arrest appeared to take place in a Walmart parking lot in Cicero, according to Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and a video posted to social media.

“As (Cmdr. Gregory) Bovino was leaving Illinois a month ago, the administration made it clear that they would bring their violence back to our communities. ICE’s deportation campaign has not stopped, and we have received multiple confirmed abductions this morning in Cicero and the Southwest Side of Chicago,” said ICIRR spokesman Brandon Lee.

“We ask residents across Chicago and the suburbs to remain vigilant, look out for your neighbors, and call the Family Support Hotline,” he said.

Rapid responders began circulating rumors Monday that a surge in Border Patrol agents would return to Chicago this week.

In an email statement to the Tribune late Monday afternoon, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said, “For operational security purposes, CBP will not discuss ongoing or future operations.”

The governor’s office on Tuesday maintained it was still not receiving any direct communication or information on immigration enforcement activities from the federal government, as was the case throughout the fall.

More than a month ago, Operation Midway Blitz appeared to wind down as Bovino and the hundreds of federal agents that descended on the city for the controversial mass deportation mission left for other operations. In its wake, the fallout from the blitz has reverberated across the region, from court battles to communities left to face a new normal.

From Chicago, the roving immigration crackdown briefly went to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then moved to New Orleans. There were more than 200 Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials working on the New Orleans operation, The Associated Press reported. The objective, according to the AP, was to make as many arrests in the Louisiana city as possible over at least 60 days.

Meanwhile, immigration enforcement hasn’t ended the Chicago area.

Two days before Thanksgiving, federal immigration agents detained an Uptown man on his way to work. The arrest came after the man, a Kurdish immigrant, and his wife breathed a sigh of relief thinking the crackdown was starting to let up.

Earlier this month, ahead of a scheduled visit to Chicago by Homeland Security Kristi Noem, at least three people were detained in the west suburbs in a sudden burst of aggressive action.

And just over a week ago, federal immigration agents deployed tear gas and pepper spray on a crowd that gathered to protest a prolonged arrest in Elgin. DHS has maintained the man arrested is a suspected member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, an accusation his family and advocates have denied.

Officials have also cautioned against assuming the Trump administration’s focus has entirely moved elsewhere.

Last month, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood warned the crackdown wasn’t over after she was granted special access to the federal government’s immigration processing center in west suburban Broadview. Underwood — the top Democrat of the congressional subcommittee that oversees the budgets ICE, Border Patrol and other agencies within DHS — said ICE is looking to “probably triple” the size of the staff at its Broadview facility and Chicago field office “by January.”

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—Chicago Tribune’s Olivia Olander, Gregory Royal Pratt and Aurora Beacon-News reporter R. Christian Smith contributed to this story.

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