Chicago Just Used ICE to Approve Reparations That Look Like Tim Walz’s Grift With Another Ugly Twist

Operation Midway Blitz dragged eight hundred illegal aliens off Chicago streets including murderers and child rapists.

Mayor Brandon Johnson responded by calling that same operation a kidnapping and demanding payback.

And one omission in Johnson’s framing shows his reparations for everything it really is.

Johnson's Referendum Asks Voters to Fund Reparations for ICE Raid Neighborhoods

Brandon Johnson just asked the Chicago City Council to put reparations for ICE raids on the November ballot.

The council said yes almost unanimously.

Voters will now decide whether Chicago should chase "all lawful means" to squeeze money out of the federal government for last fall's Operation Midway Blitz.

That operation pulled more than 800 illegal aliens off Chicago streets.

Many of those aliens had convictions for murder, child rape, and aggravated assault.

Johnson does not talk about those convictions.

He talks instead about chokeholds, guns pointed at families, and neighborhoods he says were "kidnapped, shot at."

Johnson has already promised Chicago will not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

Now he wants the same city that refuses to comply to get paid for the privilege.

Chicago's Pension Crisis Exposes the Fantasy Behind Johnson's Reparations Push

Chicago is not sitting on a surplus waiting to be spent.

The city is carrying 36 billion dollars in pension debt alone.

Chicago Public Schools has its own budget hole of more than 700 million dollars.

Johnson wants to add a brand new reparations program on top of that wreckage.

He has no funding mechanism.

He has no dollar figure.

He has a ballot question designed to sound compassionate while he runs for reelection nobody wants him to win.

A recent poll found just 13.6 percent of Chicagoans want Johnson to run again.

His overall approval rating sits at 23 percent.

Even among black Chicagoans, the group Johnson claims to be defending, only 12.9 percent want him back.

This is not a policy rollout.

This is a drowning man throwing out a life preserver made of other people's money.

Johnson tried this exact move once before.

His earlier slavery reparations task force drew accusations of racial favoritism and legal overreach from critics who called the plan discriminatory.

He is now recycling the same playbook and slapping ICE on the label.

Minnesota Democrats ran this same con earlier this year.

Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey demanded federal reimbursement for costs tied to ICE enforcement.

Walz made that demand while his own state was hemorrhaging an estimated 18 billion dollars to fraud in programs meant to feed poor children.

Millions of those stolen dollars allegedly flowed to Somalia and into the hands of an al Qaeda linked terror network.

Democrats did not apologize for the fraud.

They asked Washington to cut them a check anyway.

Johnson is running the Chicago version of that same script.

Blame ICE for enforcing the law.

Demand a payout for the inconvenience of being caught harboring the people ICE came to arrest.

The referendum language itself gives away the game.

It leans on vague outside research to claim federal enforcement drains city budgets, without ever putting a real number on what those 800 arrests removed from Chicago's streets.

Alderman William Hall defended the measure by claiming the operation caused residents "nights of no rest."

He did not mention the nights Chicago families lost sleep to the violence those same illegal aliens were accused of committing.

DHS has accused Minnesota officials of ignoring over a thousand ICE detainers for criminal illegal aliens under Walz, a claim reported by Fox News.

Chicago's sanctuary policies function the same way.

Catch and release first, outrage over enforcement second, reparations demand third.

Online reaction to Johnson's proposal has been brutal even by Chicago standards.

Critics said Johnson is personally responsible for the surge in violent encounters between residents and federal agents because of his own rhetoric encouraging resistance.

Even people who once voted for Johnson are calling this exactly what it looks like, a grift.

Chicago voters spent years trying to escape Lori Lightfoot only to land on a mayor now asking them to bankroll his signature causes with money the city does not have.

Now he wants that same city to write checks it cannot cash to communities that sheltered convicted criminals from federal agents.

The math was never going to work and Johnson knows it.

He is not selling a policy.

He is selling a talking point to survive an election 57 percent of his own city has already said he should not run in.

Brandon Johnson will be the one cashing out of Chicago long before this reparations check ever clears.

Sources:

• Drew Hernandez, "Democrats Now Pushing Reparations For So-Called ICE Raid Victims?," The Gateway Pundit, July 2026.
• Mike LaChance, "Crazy Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Now Pushing for Reparations Over ICE Raids," The Gateway Pundit, July 2026.
• Amy Curtis, "Chicago Is Broke, but the Mayor Is Floating Another Plan for Reparations," Townhall, July 23, 2026.
• "Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson aims to give 'reparations' to illegal immigrants, residents impacted by ICE," The Post Millennial, July 2026.
• "Chicago council approves ballot question to recoup costs from ICE operations," The Center Square, July 2026.
• "Minnesota Democrats demand reparations from ICE after losing $18 billion to Somali fraud," Fox News, February 17, 2026.