Chicago congressman says Operation Midway Blitz backfired on Trump

What did you think when you first heard that Operation Midway Blitz? I thought this is what they've been telegraphing for the past year plus. Donald Trump, I think, had a vendetta against Chicago. A vendetta, Congressman Chewie Garcia believes, based on Chicago's status as a sanctuary city. But Garcia says what came next was far worse than what even he expected. I had no clue that it would be a declaration of war and then the subsequent invasion that we experienced in the fall of last year. I never imagined it would be so lawless, so cruel, and that it would be on display for the country to see. One of the most controversial Midway Blitz confrontations happened at 39th and Kedzie, just around the corner from Garcia's congressional office in Brighton Park. Nearly a year later, we went back to the site. This is where the crowd had gathered? Yes, the crowd had gathered here to question why this man was being detained. On October 4th, protesters confronted ICE agents as they attempted to take a man into custody at this gas station. Heading to the scene was Marimar Martinez. And she was driving down Kedzie? She was driving south on Kedzie, I believe, and she became part of a caravan of people who were warning community residents that ICE was in the neighborhood, and that's where she became a target. Immigration agents shot Martinez five times after they claimed she was trying to ram them with her car. The scene quickly escalated, with agents throwing tear gas into the crowd, including some of Garcia's staff. What went through your mind when you saw the crowd, ICE, all of this going on in the moment? I thought this is going to persist for quite some time, and people are going to get hurt or get killed. Martinez survived the shooting and was charged with attacking the federal agents. But body cam video undermined their narrative, and all charges against Martinez were later dropped. In January, the congressman invited Martinez to be his guest at President Trump's State of the Union speech. I wanted people to see the truth, and I wanted people to see that this woman was no threat to anyone. Of course, she's become a martyr in many respects of a cause that really underscores the cruelty and the lies and the cover-up of the federal government to try to portray the immigrant community as a threat to this country. Garcia also made news when he joined three other Illinois congressional Democrats on a tour of the Broadview ICE detention center after being refused entry for weeks. The center had become a flashpoint in the protest against federal immigration policies. They finally got in in December, following an order from a federal judge granting immediate access. We had heard stories from constituents who come through my door here who had told us of the conditions there, that they were filthy, that there were no mattresses for people to sleep in, that people could smell urine all the time. Now, one year after the start of Midway Blitz... I would have never imagined that something like this would be lived by this community. Garcia believes the crackdown actually backfired by coalescing opposition to President Trump's policies and creating momentum for immigration reform. I think that the cruelty inflicted on neighborhoods across the southwest side and then extending into other communities is what helped turn the tide, change public opinion, and I think lowered the president's favorability rating in a big way. Garcia is also calling for new leadership at the U.S. Attorney's Office here in Chicago, saying the dropped charges against multiple protesters shows the prosecutions were politically motivated, something the office has denied. Dane Placco, Fox Chicago.