Chicago sees number of migrants becoming citizens plummet by more than 80% after it became ground zero for ICE raids

New citizenship approvals in the Chicago area are on track to decline by more than 80 percent this year, after the city saw one of the Trump administration’s largest and most aggressive military-style immigration crackdowns in late 2025.

In a typical year, the Northern Illinois District Court is home to about 20,000 to 30,000 new approvals, peaking at nearly 33,000 in 2022, according to an ABC 7 analysis of federal data.

This year, just 3,765 people have become citizens, the outlet found.

“When I saw the numbers that you had shared…I was floored,” local immigration attorney Kathleen Vannucci told the station.

“The administration does not want to see high numbers of new citizens, and so I think this is a result of what their overall goal [is],” she added.

“For years, the Biden administration prioritized rubber-stamping aliens’ applications for U.S. citizenship with minimal vetting. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, under the leadership of President Trump, is implementing rigorous screening and vetting processes across the country,” USCIS spokesman Zach Kahler said in a statement to The Independent. “USCIS will not take shortcuts in the naturalization process.”

The Trump administration has pursued a range of actions to make it harder to become a U.S. citizen, including attempting to pause most asylum cases, stripping temporary protected status from people inside the U.S., denying more citizenship applications, and pushing to make new applications feature higher fees and a harder civics test.

The White House has also pursued once-obscure or unheard-of measures, including denaturalizing existing citizens, reinstating “neighborhood investigations” for applicants and campaigning to eliminate the constitutionally protected right to birthright citizenship.

In the case of the Chicago area, these legalistic changes played out while the administration sent masked federal agents into city streets over the fall as part of the controversial 64-day “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Agents were accused of using excessive force, carrying out racial profiling, launching tear gas without warning, aiming rubber rounds at reporters, then deceiving a federal court about their conduct, which the administration denied.

Ahead of the operation, Trump threatened that the city was about to “find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” and posted an AI image of him in a fake movie poster for “Chipocalypse Now,” a reference to the classic Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now.

The White House also pushed to deploy the National Guard on Chicago streets over the objection of local officials, though the Supreme Court ultimately blocked the plan.

In Chicago and beyond, the Trump administration has sent immigration agents near spaces previously considered off limits under “sensitive locations” policies, such as schools, hospitals and religious settings.

Critics of such tactics warn they keep even legal immigrants from accessing important community spaces and government institutions.

As The Independent reported last year, deportation fears have turned once-thriving immigrant neighborhoods into “ghost towns.”