T he Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) argues that “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago targets “criminal illegal aliens terrorising Americans”. But testimony in Judge Sara Ellis’s courtroom in America’s third-largest city on November 5th suggests it is DHS ’s own agents who are terrifying people. One after another, protesters said that officers had pointed guns at them and tear-gassed residential streets. Leslie Cortez of Cicero, a Chicago suburb, described filming immigration agents making arrests in the parking lot of a Home Depot. An officer aimed their weapon, she said, after a vehicle carrying detainees had already left. “I could see inside the barrel of the gun,” she told the court.

Immigration agents are doing three things at once, and it can be tricky to disentangle them. First, floating down the Chicago River in boats meant to help with drug seizures is pure deportation theatre: it looks tough but doesn’t result in immigration arrests. Second, federal agents are conducting raids in Home Depot car parks and in Latino neighbourhoods, as they did earlier in the year in Los Angeles. Finally, they are clashing with protesters in unusual places—sleepy neighbourhoods, a college town, at a children’s Halloween parade.

The administration would like to convince Americans that all three activities are in the service of deporting murderers and criminals. Bystanders’ videos of the violence perpetrated by Border Patrol agents contradict that notion.