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CHICAGO — It was still dark and cold at 5:30 am Thursday when teams of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers hit the streets on “targeted enforcement” missions to arrest criminal illegal migrants.They call them “the worst of the worst.”The Post embedded with one team of federal ICE agents who admitted the task of identifying criminal migrants in the sanctuary city – which orders its local law enforcement not to help them – and actually making arrests can be like finding needles in haystacks.Further complicating matters, local activists, legislators and school administrators in Illinois have been coaching migrants, including criminals charged with sex assaults, weapons violations and worse, on their rights and how to evade ICE agents.Even those detained were fairly brazen.On Thursday, between 10 teams of about 10 agents each, ICE made only two arrests in Chicago after five hours on the ground.The Post witnessed Diego Antonio Montero, 24, a Venezuelan national who crossed illegally into the US in May 2023 as he was arrested and put into a caged van by ICE agents.He was calm and composed and told ICE in Spanish he was not a criminal and was confident he’d go before a judge and be set free.His record shows otherwise.
Chicago police had previously arrested him for criminal trespass, battery, and aggravated assault with the use of a deadly weapon.All charges are pending before the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.
An arrest warrant was issued on April 22, 2024, but not honored.“Sometimes it’s a very uphill battle,” officer Sam Olson, a nearly 25-year veteran of ICE, told The Post as he drove to the first target.“We have their information because they were previously arrested and booked in and fingerprinted somewhere, therefore we know they are here.But it’s not as if we are getting notification if these criminal aliens are arrested.
Nobody local will tell us that.”Montero was also on the run from Homeland Security.Afte...