MPI Chief Program Officer Domonique McCord Testifies Before Illinois Accountability Commission on Operation Midway Blitz
Metropolitan Peace Initiatives (MPI) Chief Program Officer Domonique McCord was among many leaders at a public hearing convened by the Illinois Accountability Commission, testifying on the impact of Operation Midway Blitz, a recent federal enforcement action conducted by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The hearing featured perspectives from experts who detailed the wide-ranging and harmful impacts the recent actions had on Chicago’s residents and businesses.
McCord offered her insight as an expert in Community Violence Intervention (CVI), a proven strategy for improving public safety and reducing gun violence across Chicago’s most vulnerable communities. MPI convenes a coalition of CVI organizations known as Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P), which offers a holistic, non-punitive suite of support services including street outreach, behavioral health, victim services, and more. While federal agents were deployed in Chicago neighborhoods in the name of public safety, McCord testified that the real solutions to violence were already at work.
“Prior to Operation Midway Blitz,” she explained, “Chicago was experiencing a significant decline in violent crime. According to the City’s Violence Reduction Dashboard, in August 2025, homicides and non-fatal shootings were both down 24 percent compared to the same period in 2024. Chicago also came off one of its safest summers in 60 years.”
This includes the very neighborhoods targeted by Operation Midway Blitz: Brighton Park, Humboldt Park, Little Village, and others, each experiencing significant declines in violence over the last year.
McCord then described the severity of the tactics employed by the federal agents under the guise of public safety, including baseless arrests, surprise raids, and acts of unthinkable violence and intimidation against families and innocent children.
“Trauma began to seep into the communities that are already heavily trauma-impacted,” she said. “Our target population is individuals who are at highest risk of experiencing gun violence. The actions of ICE only further deepened the wound of trauma and fear.”
Also among those testifying was Marcela Rodriguez, Executive Director of Enlace Chicago; Garien Gatewood, Chicago’s Deputy Mayor for Community Safety; Dr. Kathryn Bocanegra, Assistant Professor, Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago; and Anna Valencia, Chicago’s City Clerk.
Rodriguez, representing Enlace, spoke to the economic devastation the operation had on Little Village businesses, reporting revenue losses as high as 70 percent on days ICE was present. “What Little Village has witnessed and experienced is not an isolated disruption,” said Rodriguez. “It is not ‘targeted safety efforts.’ It is targeted community-wide business destabilization and household economic hardship occurring simultaneously, driven by sustained fear, deportations, and the broader climate of intimidation.”
Though it remains unclear whether ICE operations will cease any time soon, those testifying demonstrated that evidence-based, community-centered solutions to violence are the path forward. Gatewood shared on behalf of the Mayor’s Office of Community Safety, “These efforts are producing real outcomes, fewer victims, and safer neighborhoods. We know that this work is far from finished, but the trajectory is clear, and it was clear well before Operation Midway Blitz. We can deliver a safer city for every resident.”
McCord concluded her remarks by emphasizing MPI and CP4P’s commitment to protecting and healing Chicago’s communities through continued services, grief counseling, food support, legal aid, “Know Your Rights” training, and more.
“Metropolitan Peace Initiatives and Communities Partnering 4 Peace will do everything in our power to protect our most vulnerable neighbors. Their sense of normalcy, security, and trust has been broken, but we are here to support and restore,” said McCord. “We refuse to allow Operation Midway Blitz to undo the progress we’ve seen over these last few years.
“We are still showing up, organizing, protesting, and caring for one another. We are still here for our communities and always will be.”