Judge found 32 warrantless Operation Midway Blitz arrests violated Castañon Nava consent decree, ordered releases

On February 27, 2026, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings ruled that at least 32 arrests made by federal immigration agents during Operation Midway Blitz — including two men detained after a South Shore raid the prior year — violated the 2022 Castañon Nava consent decree, a court agreement that permits warrantless immigration arrests only when agents have probable cause to believe a person is unlawfully present and a flight risk. The judge separately continued reviewing about a half-dozen additional cases he had not yet ruled on. Cummings ordered the federal government to release the affected detainees by noon the following Thursday.

Of the 32 people found to have been improperly arrested without warrants, the National Immigrant Justice Center reported 11 remained in detention, 11 had already left the country, and 10 had been released under conditions such as bond or ankle monitoring. "As I said many months ago, at the start of Operation Midway Blitz, that over time, we would show that hundreds, if not thousands, of arrests were violations, not only of the consent decree, but also of federal law," said Mark Fleming, associate director of litigation for the National Immigrant Justice Center, after the ruling.

The finding was not Cummings' first against the operation: in October 2025 he had already ruled that federal agents violated the same consent decree through dozens of warrantless arrests, and separately ordered the government to produce records on all warrantless arrests made in the Chicago federal jurisdiction.

Updates

2026-05-05 — Seventh Circuit required individualized release assessments [3]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that ICE detainees held under the consent decree could be released only after an individualized determination that each specific arrest violated the decree, rejecting blanket release of the full class of "potential" violations while affirming release for individuals already found, case-by-case, to have been unlawfully arrested.

2026-07-30 — Seventh Circuit mandate issued, finalizing ruling [4]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued its mandate on July 30, 2026, after the government did not file a petition for rehearing by the July 22 deadline it had been granted, finalizing the May 5 ruling requiring individualized assessments before release and returning the case to the district court.