A day after President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security launched “Operation Midway Blitz,” its latest immigration crackdown, area politicians and immigrant rights groups said it was relatively subdued on the ground Tuesday with minimal arrests.

But they’re preparing for more.

Speaking before more than a dozen cameras on a quiet street in Pilsen, Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday said the federal immigration enforcement agency has plans to send in more than 200 agents and 100 vehicles in its Chicago immigration “blitz.”

“Here’s what we do know. (The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is somewhere on the ground here,” Pritzker said, standing in front of the National Museum of Mexican Art. “They already have been effectuating their plans.”

“We have not seen the bulk of those ICE agents yet in communities, but we have seen some, and we know that they are gathering steam,” added Pritzker, a two-term Democratic governor.

As of Tuesday afternoon, no cases related to the immigration enforcement push had appeared in Chicago’s federal court. A law enforcement source told the Tribune that the main operation run out of the Naval Station Great Lakes has yet to begin in earnest.

The governor also said Tuesday he believed Gregory Bovino, the border patrol official who led immigration operations in Los Angeles this summer, had not yet arrived in Illinois but “has been on his way.” CBS News reported Tuesday that the Trump border official had arrived in Chicago.

When asked if Bovino was in Chicago, a DHS spokesperson told the Tribune to “stay tuned.”

This week there have been multiple reports of federal immigration agents walking around the Southwest Side, said Brandon Lee, spokesperson for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. He said they haven’t confirmed any arrests apart from the handful on Sunday, which included a street vendor selling flowers in the Archer Heights neighborhood.

“They’re certainly making the rounds, and we’re just trying to confirm whether anyone was taken from those stops,” Lee said.

Lee said the numbers of arrests and sightings haven’t yet come close to reaching those from the January federal immigration effort. He expects that to change, however, as reports of ICE sending hundreds of agents to a North Chicago naval base and activity at an ICE processing center in Broadview trickle in.

Evanston officials also said there’s a good chance immigration agents will come into the north suburb. The mayor said he was alerted that a helicopter operated by the Department of Homeland Security flew around Evanston’s lakefront Monday afternoon.

DHS officials have said the operation will target “criminal illegal aliens” who have taken advantage of the city and state’s sanctuary policies. A Tribune analysis found, however, that many immigrants who were previously arrested under Trump didn’t have a criminal record. There have been few details released on how long this latest operation may last, or if Trump will deploy the National Guard to assist, as he’s previously suggested.

Trump on Tuesday, meanwhile, continued his plea that Chicago residents and city and state leaders ask for his help to deal with crime, using the Aug. 22 stabbing death of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte, North Carolina, transit car as an example of “Democrat-run cities” that “set loose savage, bloodthirsty criminals to prey on innocent people.”

“All we want is, ‘Please, Mr. President, we need help.’ Chicago needs help,” Trump said. “Other cities needs help. We’ll do what has to be done because we’re going to make America safe again. And that includes our big cities. We’re going to make those cities safe.”

Decarlos Brown Jr., the suspect in the North Carolina stabbing, faces a federal charge of committing an act causing death on a mass transportation system. Brown has a lengthy criminal history that includes felony breaking and entering and robbery with a dangerous weapon, for which he served a five-year prison sentence.

Over the weekend, Trump had seemingly set the stage for heightened enforcement in Chicago with an AI-created social media post of military helicopters flying over Chicago’s lakefront with the title “Chipocalypse Now.” He quickly downplayed the controversy, but said “we’re going to clean up our cities.” His administration has repeatedly gestured toward sending in federal agents over the past two weeks.

Pritzker also condemned the Supreme Court ruling this week clearing the way for federal agents to conduct sweeping immigration operations for now in Los Angeles, saying it “takes rights away from people across the United States.” But he also acknowledged that “federal law trumps state law, period, end of sentence.”

“And so what we can do is make sure that people know their rights, that they’re staying out of the way,” he said.

Lee also called the court’s decision “so frustrating,” but said it doesn’t change much of their preparation, since “it’s not as if we viewed ICE as an agency that follows the law, by the book anyway.”

“We are trying to stay ready in terms of making sure our rapid response teams are ready and making sure our (family support) hotline is ready,” Lee said, adding that the hotline received its highest volume of calls since Trump took office on Monday.

Other advocacy groups have set up trainings on how to respond to ICE in their neighborhoods.

By Tuesday evening, hundreds of people gathered again in downtown Chicago to protest Trump’s immigration action, this time in Congress Plaza with plans to march along Michigan Avenue.

Since Saturday, protests and rallies against Trump and federal immigration agents have popped up all over the suburbs and city, including outside the ICE processing center in Broadview and near the Naval Station Great Lakes.

Mary Kate Turek, of West Town, attended Tuesday’s protest to stand up for her neighbors, she said.

“I’m not going to take (this) sitting down,” the 28-year-old said as demonstrators chanted around her. “To see my neighbors — who are simply trying to go to work, go to church, make a living to protect their family — risk their livelihoods and their lives by just stepping outside of their door? That’s not the kind of country, (one) of fear and domination, that America should be representing.”

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(Chicago Tribune’s Rick Pearson, Jason Meisner and Tess Kenny contributed.)

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