Editorial: The ICE crackdowns in Chicago and Minneapolis took an economic toll, too

Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, Chicago Tribune on Jul 22, 2026

Published in Op Eds

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When the White House sent thousands of armed immigration agents into Minneapolis earlier this year, it followed a playbook pioneered in Chicago. Now both cities are adding up the cost from those Department of Homeland Security surges and struggling to put the damage behind them.

Last week, a “Minnesota Nice” marketing team staged a well-attended event at the Obama Presidential Center on the South Side, urging meeting planners and other corporate decision-makers to patronize the Twin Cities. “Minnesota is genuinely nice for a reason,” star chef Diane Moua, a local celebrity on hand for the occasion, told the crowd. “There’s no reason to be rude at all.”

Still, the economic scars linger in Minnesota and Illinois. Like the war against Iran and tariff battles under the Donald Trump administration, the immigration crackdowns have dampened growth, hurt business activity and imposed costs that are still being calculated.

This page has long supported federal immigration laws, and we acknowledge that federal authorities have the legal right, jurisdiction and responsibility to carry out enforcement. But we were appalled by the nature of last year’s incursion into our city, a chaotic spectacle that pitted poorly trained federal agents against everyday Chicagoans.

The Twin Cities arguably had it even worse during Operation Metro Surge earlier this year. Chicago’s metropolitan area is much bigger, yet the Feds surged far more agents into Minnesota, often outnumbering local police forces.

Many businesses were forced to close during an operation that culminated in the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens, prompting nationwide protests. (So far, at least 10 have died in encounters with immigration agents during Trump’s second term, and this page last week called for a halt to traffic stops that have led to shootings).

In a study published last month, the City of Minneapolis said the surge cost it nearly $700 million in lost economic activity, including $445 million in lost business revenue and $152 million in lost wages.

According to the Meet Minneapolis marketing group, bookings were canceled or cut back at hotels, restaurants, arts organizations and other service providers. Staff absenteeism soared at those businesses.

As in Illinois, state and local legal teams filed lawsuits to halt tactics like warrantless arrests and challenge the federal use of state- or city-owned property as staging grounds, further draining resources. Local police departments racked up overtime.

Meanwhile, the federal government spent a fortune launching these enforcement actions and defending itself against the legal challenges. A Tribune analysis in January pegged the cost of Midway Blitz to federal taxpayers at $59 million, mainly for detaining and transporting migrants, as well as for standby support from the National Guard.

Those numbers only hint at the much bigger bill from the administration’s immigration and deportation agenda nationwide. Last month, the president signed a nearly $70 billion funding package for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol – ensuring that economic fallout will continue through the end of Trump’s term in 2029.

The center-left Brookings Institution recently published a detailed research report estimating that the ICE enforcement surge into U.S. cities cost the economy 668,000 jobs in its early stages last year. The job losses were concentrated in immigrant-heavy sectors such as construction and food service. But the losses also spread to industries with few immigrant workers, like arts and entertainment.

As many as 297,000 of those lost jobs otherwise would have been filled by American-born workers, according to the Brookings analysis. That’s significant because one justification for the current crackdown is that removing unauthorized immigrants creates jobs for Americans. Brookings found the reverse: “Enforcement surges cost jobs, including jobs held by American-born workers.”

Bad for business? Yes.

Worth it? That’s a contested question. While support has slipped, polls show most Republican voters continue to back the Trump immigration agenda.

What is not contested is that Chicago and the Twin Cities must adjust to an administration willing to pay a price in economic growth for reducing immigration, as well as for disrupting foreign trade and reshaping the Middle East. Times like these require resilience, as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told us at the Obama center gathering.

“The city stood up beautifully. It’s coming back in a big way,” Frey said. “We’re tough as hell.”

The same, we believe, goes for Chicago.

Mercifully, a mostly positive overall business environment is giving Minnesota and Illinois a helping hand in their recoveries. The latest quarterly financial results have delivered reassuring news about the state of consumer spending and corporate balance sheets. Like Minneapolis and Chicago, the remarkably adaptable U.S. economy is standing up to the pressure – so far.

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